Lessons learned JH4NA1260NT00255

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Wishd4

Registered Member
Joined
9 July 2010
Messages
19
Location
Scottsdale, AZ
Thankful, wiser and more careful. That is me after my first NSX purchase. I share my story to perhaps spare someone else my experience.

I've wanted an NSX for twenty years and I finally got one or so I thought. My husband and I did everything right (except everything that mattered.) We went to a reputable dealer (more about the dealer later); we got a Carfax; we obtain third-party pricing (KB, NADA, Edmunds); we had the car inspected by a trusted auto repair shop. All important steps, but not enough to avoid purchasing a car with the instrument cluster (including the odometer) having been replaced with a cluster designed for a manual transmission(our's is an auto) leaving us in doubt of the actual mileage on the car. The price we paid for the car reflected our (and the dealer's) belief that the car had 80k miles; although we now believe the car to have significantly more miles than the odometer displays.

This story has a bittersweet end. The dealer is in fact reputable and after confirming the change out of the cluster, fully refunded our money...but I still don't have an NSX :(

LESSONS LEARNED:

Do your homework. Know as much about the NSX before falling in love with a specific car. NSXPrime should be the very first step. What you learn here helps to form the questions you should ask about any NSX you're seriously considering.

A pre-purchase inspection is essential. It's not enough that you trust the mechanic...the shop has to be qualified to evaluate an NSX. We're blessed to live in Scottsdale and close to Science of Speed. We were smart enough to take our NSX to SOS, just not smart enough to take it to them before we bought it. It was SOS that alerted us to the problem (thanks guys!) BTW, don't assume an Acura dealership is qualified. Acura did the inspection for our dealer when the car came in on trade.

Carfax is an important tool, but it's no substitute for the preceding. The Carfax was clean, the car was not.

We were lucky. We're not going to leave it to luck as I begin my search again.
 
You are truly lucky the dealership took the car back with no hassles.
 
Its good the dealer took it back, but you'd think there would be a mileage descrepancy on carfax. Good luck in your search!
 
That is interesting that the mileage does not show up on the CarFax. Was there a large gap in reporting on the CarFax? I suppose that you could fly a car under the radar (so to speak) and rack up a bunch of miles but it would still take time. What else on the car indicated high miles?
 
Aluminsx said:
That is interesting that the mileage does not show up on the CarFax. Was there a large gap in reporting on the CarFax? I suppose that you could fly a car under the radar (so to speak) and rack up a bunch of miles but it would still take time. What else on the caindicated high miles?[/QUOTE

I agree - these are good questions but I beleive you did the right thing anyway. Buy one from an individual owner that has all the records- dealers - I tell you - he's decent to take it back - but he should have known the cluster had been changed out and you should have known that the proper cluster had an automatic read out built in.

You are lucky - like I said do yourself a favor and buy one from an owner with long term records - even better - then you'll know more about what you're getting - make it a prime member too while your at it. One that has records of all maintenance! You can't go wrong hardly.
Click to expand...
 
how lucky you are.

if I were you I would go play lotto soon.

cuz you got outta that with out a Scratch.
 
Some good points and questions raised. First, there's no substitute for actual service documentation. In our case, there was none. Also, while there are real advantages to buying from the dealer, one disadvantage is you don't meet the previous owner.

Regarding the Carfax a couple of points in our case. While the Carfax indicated periodic mileage (at tile change, emissions, and safety inspection) there were significant time periods between the intervals, some as much as 3 or 4 years. Also, other than at title change, it seems that the mileage was 'as reported' rather than an actual mileage. These miles were rounded to thousands. BTW, there was no service reported on the Carfax for this car. According to the dealer, this is not unusual, as many service centers do not provide Carfax access to their data. That is the case of this particular dealer, which is part of a large group of commonly owned dealerships.

Last point on Carfax. Just because the Carfax indicates no accidents it does not mean the car hasn't been in one. Again, highlighting the importance of the inspection by someone qualified.

In our case, there is no way to determine the actual mileage on the car. We suspect that it has higher than reported mileage based on wear, but who knows. Maybe it has lower miles but was driven hard. Our point to the dealership wasn't that it had more miles. Our point was that we bought a car believing it had 80k. In fact, no one knows the actual mileage. If we were ever to sell it, we couldn't in good conscience sign an affidavit attesting to the mileage on the odometer without disclosing all the facts. I guarantee the car would be worth a lot less with such a disclosure. To the credit of the dealership, which from the first call stated "We will make this right" they agreed with our concerns and accepted the car back.

Were we lucky, yes. Would we do business with this dealership again, of course. We will continue to educate ourselves regarding the NSX on this forum and I will get my NSX (a yellow one please.)
 
Wishd4, Your points are very well known and understood on this site, glad for the happy ending. I do agree with tbromley, go PP and look for good records, avoid a dealership where possible. I spent 18 months (not an unusual time frame) looking for a car and seen just about everything. Take your time, and read volumes of information on this web site. Good luck in your search.....
 
bjmills said:
Carfax is only useful to prove that a car has problems. It is useless in determining if a car is problem-free.
Click to expand...

bjmills, respectfully disagree. I believe a Carfax is one of many tools to use in purchasing a car. A problem car does not mean it will show up on Carfax. I could have been the victim of purchasing a bad car with a clean Carfax but for the PPI done by a reputable NSX technician and later confirmed by a body shop that repair work and paint had been done to the drivers side of the car.
 
sidwac said:
bjmills, respectfully disagree. I believe a Carfax is one of many tools to use in purchasing a car. A problem car does not mean it will show up on Carfax. I could have been the victim of purchasing a bad car with a clean Carfax but for the PPI done by a reputable NSX technician and later confirmed by a body shop that repair work and paint had been done to the drivers side of the car.
Click to expand...
Lol ,that is what he is saying.in otherwords a positive carfax is helpful a negative carfax is meaningless.
 
sidwac said:
bjmills, respectfully disagree. I believe a Carfax is one of many tools to use in purchasing a car. A problem car does not mean it will show up on Carfax. I could have been the victim of purchasing a bad car with a clean Carfax but for the PPI done by a reputable NSX technician and later confirmed by a body shop that repair work and paint had been done to the drivers side of the car.
Click to expand...

We agree with each other - I must not have been clear. When I said Carfax can only be used to prove that a car has problems, I meant the following: Carfax will either show or not show a problem. If it shows a problem, then obviously it can be used to prove the car has a problem. If it does not show a problem, then we have no idea if the car has a problem or not. So that's why I said it can only be used to prove a car has problems, and not that a car is clean.

But most of all, thank you for respectfully disagreeing rather than calling me an idiot. I don't post much because of that.
 
...sheesh, another example of why I should wear my glasses when posting :redface::redface: or maybe the memory leak from the 4 hour commute today:frown::frown:
 
sidwac said:
...sheesh, another example of why I should wear my glasses when posting :redface::redface: or maybe the memory leak from the 4 hour commute today:frown::frown:
Click to expand...

Did you say a 4 hour commute!!! Wow - that's just awful and I was thinking how nice CA was - guess I'll stay over here in Atlanta. :biggrin:

That commute is enough to make anyone cross eyed...:wink:
 
I would suggest you only purchase a NSX with documented service history so you have a clue on whether it was taken care of or not. There are lots of garage queens with the original timing belt. Having SOS do a PPI is a good idea. I would also have them do a compression check while they are at it.
Glad to hear you were able to bring the other car back without issue. I try to avoid car dealerships because it seems they get most cars at auction and fix them up to sell. I would rather buy from an owner that showed pride in their vehicle.

Good Luck on your continued search.
 
Agree with the spirit of the posts, but hate to say it... a documented service history wouldnt help here at all.

Think about it... This is basically a sophisticated rollback.

Lets say the first 50,000 mi of records *were* around, but after that the car had passed through 14 owners, racked up anothe 50k, and there were ZERO records...

So roll it back to 50k and keep the records with it. Person assumes they are getting a perfectly maintained 50k queen.

In the end, if the car is a "great deal" there is almost always something wrong with it. I know I beat that like a drum, but its pretty true.

The better the deal on the car, the closer you need to have it looked at. Really multiple PPIs from tusted specialists are required. And a separate inspection by a truly experienced body guy is as well...

Of course thats if you care. Personally, when I know Im shopping for a deal, I expect some rough edges and dont care that much about neglected maintenance, prior work, etc. as long as the car is currently looking and running good.

In this particular case though, the problem is a doozy. Rollback really is unacceptable b/c its the equivalent of a bad title or prior salvage. Even if you dont mind all that much b/c the car is solid, you're still stuck with something very hard to re-sell down the line.

Good thing they refunded it...

I think a thread like this should almost be stickied and referenced so the next time a really honest NSX with a well known history on Prime gets posted for "way too much!!!" and the criticism starts flying about how "crazy" the guy is for what he's asking for the car, this thread can be used as a reminder of what often is lurking behind the scenes of a "KILLER DEAL".
 
I glad you posted the VIN. I always did a CarFax and a Google search of the VIN. Most of the time If the VIN comes up its usually from Prime.
 
Great post Mlambert. You are right about keeping a tab on this post. The guy that this happened to said he's still buy from the dealer that took this car back- I am surprised at that - surely the dealer knew what he was doing. That would be my first suspicion. Good reasons to buy from Primers and have cars really checked out. Like you say the better the deal the harder you need to look!



mlambert890 said:
Agree with the spirit of the posts, but hate to say it... a documented service history wouldnt help here at all.

Think about it... This is basically a sophisticated rollback.

Lets say the first 50,000 mi of records *were* around, but after that the car had passed through 14 owners, racked up anothe 50k, and there were ZERO records...

So roll it back to 50k and keep the records with it. Person assumes they are getting a perfectly maintained 50k queen.

In the end, if the car is a "great deal" there is almost always something wrong with it. I know I beat that like a drum, but its pretty true.

The better the deal on the car, the closer you need to have it looked at. Really multiple PPIs from tusted specialists are required. And a separate inspection by a truly experienced body guy is as well...

Of course thats if you care. Personally, when I know Im shopping for a deal, I expect some rough edges and dont care that much about neglected maintenance, prior work, etc. as long as the car is currently looking and running good.

In this particular case though, the problem is a doozy. Rollback really is unacceptable b/c its the equivalent of a bad title or prior salvage. Even if you dont mind all that much b/c the car is solid, you're still stuck with something very hard to re-sell down the line.

Good thing they refunded it...

I think a thread like this should almost be stickied and referenced so the next time a really honest NSX with a well known history on Prime gets posted for "way too much!!!" and the criticism starts flying about how "crazy" the guy is for what he's asking for the car, this thread can be used as a reminder of what often is lurking behind the scenes of a "KILLER DEAL".
Click to expand...
 
Thanks for sharing your experience. I'm among those in your same situation who are very carefully taking steps toward an NSX purchase and keeping a close pulse on the market.

For reference, I'd be curious to know which dealership evaluated the car for you. I live & work in Scottsdale, and I've used Acura North Scottsdale for basic services (due to convenience) but I prefer to work with Acura of Tempe for anything else. Best of luck in your continued search. Your NSX is out there. And maybe once you've finally found 'the one', you'll let me swing by and take a look since we're neighbors.
 
My best example of why Carfax is worthless is when I was looking at a Ferrari with a salvage title. I did a Carfax just for grins and it came up clean, no problems reported.

Not sure if anyone else (old guys) remember the days before Carfax when there was an 800# you could call that was a search for any insurance claims on any VIN. That always showed everything and it was free.

Then there are states like SD that require you by law to disclose any accident history on any car sold. Shame the world has become so casual about honesty.
 
21acres said:
My best example of why Carfax is worthless is when I was looking at a Ferrari with a salvage title. I did a Carfax just for grins and it came up clean, no problems reported.

Not sure if anyone else (old guys) remember the days before Carfax when there was an 800# you could call that was a search for any insurance claims on any VIN. That always showed everything and it was free.

Then there are states like SD that require you by law to disclose any accident history on any car sold. Shame the world has become so casual about honesty.
Click to expand...


Ain't it the truth!
 
I'll add to the carfax thing.

I bought a 2001 honda prelude in 2007 as a gift to myself. Carfax was clean. seller said nothing was wrong with it.

fast foward to 2009. I pull up my car again for kicks and giggles.

accident report shows up. apparently it was involved in something in 2004. next to it said: Reported June 2009.

I was like.. mann wtf.

oh well. car's gone now. I'm not worried about it
 

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