Or more accurately, paid the deposit for the car yesterday! The private seller of the '00 Accord didn't get back to me so I went for a second look and test drive of the '99 Accord EXL coupe on the Vancouver Honda dealer lot on Saturday.
Decided to place an offer for the car Sunday morning, and I told my parents. My Mom just said "Okay, I'll phone the guy" and I was like "What? I thought we had to go there? And I printed out the Black Book pricing and I was going to bring the Lemon-Aid book along, and..." and she just said she can phone him to see if he'll take or leave our offer. Looking back on it, phoning in the offer was probably smart because the salesperson knew we could hang up anytime and we specifically said we had looked around for awhile and if our offer wasn't accepted we would go to Richmond Automall the next morning
Listed price was $16,000 and we got it down to $14,200 including timing belt and water pump change. I took the advice from this forum and told my Mom to mention the timing belt had to replaced and try to get it included in the price (they threw in the water pump since apparently it's next to each other anyway), plus we had to pay for BCAA inspection, pay 2 taxes, etc. etc.
So we went to pay the deposit and I got a copy of Honda's own safety inspection and ICBC report. I also ran a Carfax and it showed the car was serviced every 3-4 months until June '04. I was surprised because Carfax doesn't usually show maintenance records. I called for a BCAA inspection yesterday and they dropped by and stayed for an hour and a half according to the sales... got rated a "good" which is the best category they have.
The report did point out a few things to be done though, I'll list them here and you guys can tell me if it's horribly bad or not:
- weak battery (Honda will recharge after I mentioned it)
- "telltale signs of coolant seepage located at base of plastic housing off upper rad [?] hose to engine. Telltale coolant residue below area." (Sales said techs checked it and looks ok, but if I want the coolant can be changed for $79, worth it? And I thought they just had to seal the leak? A bit confused.)
- recommend a transmission oil change ($130 from Honda, $95 at one place my Mom called, she was trying to wrangle a discount from Honda today b/c they were changing the timing belt etc today so might as well do it there)
- misalignment at left rear tire (realignment $180 at Honda, even sales admitted it was excessive b/c of labour, will likely do this after I get the car somewhere else)
- "some oil around RR strut, currently enclosed with an rubber protective boot" (huh?)
- replace rear tires (is it okay to have mismatched front/rear tires? The front tire wear is 40/60% so should I just change all 4?)
Overall, I'm very happy with the purchase - I got a car loaded with more goodies than I thought I could get (love the seat heaters!), even though it wasn't even a car in contention at the beginning. I'm also impressed by how knowledgable and friendly people are on the forums here, I probably would have walked into a used car dealer and purchased whatever looks "pretty" if I didn't pay attention to all the advice here!
![:-)](http://www.canadiandriver.com/discus/clipart/happy.gif)
Someone mentioned the timing belt needing to be changed at 100k, and if they didn't I wouldn't have negotiated the change to be included - I wouldn't even know it needed to be changed!
Will put up photos in the next post, and I'll probably pick it up on Saturday since I have school the rest of the week. At least it gives me something to look forward to!