My apologies for the double post. I inadvertently also posted in the Private Sales forum.

Hello all. Just a question because I need some validation because my head is spinning.

Bought a 1999 Honda Accord from my SO's step-brother. It burst into flames and burned up. Electrical problem, apparently.

He then supplied us with a beautiful 2001 Civic, looked like new. $2800 for it seemed a fair price. The first time out, the transmission started acting up, 5000 RPM with no forward movement in any gear. I pushed it into a lot and he came to pick it up.

He brought with him yet another Civic. This one is a 1992 LX 4-door, 214,XXX miles on it, cracked windshield, duct-tape in places where there should be weather-stripping, no AC, but seems to run ok so far. He's asking us for $1300 but doing online Bluebook pricing, it appears the car is only worth between $200 and $400. Am I crazy to be feeling like it's just not worth it? He's a good guy as far as I know and I don't think he set out to rip us off, but this seems like a bad deal. It was given to him, he changed the timing belt, and here we are. We are good people and both have ongoing medical issues of a major nature that require followups and all we want is a good reliable vehicle, but we don't want to be taken to the cleaners.

Any opinions would certainly be appreciated and valued.

 

welcome to the forum. return the cars to step brother, get your monies back, look for your own car, dealer, craigslist, get a warranty with the car.

 

i wouldnt spend more than a 1000 dollars on it. these cars are pretty bulletproof in my opinion. we never see them with issues at the shop (honda dealership) and usually they run forevor if ya put a timing belt on every 100,000 or so and keep an eye on the oil level! these dont have as bad of rust issues as the next generation civic (1996-00)