I am in the market for my first car. After looking around a fair bit, the car that has caught my eye the most has been a green '99 Accord sedan. It is the model with the 3.0L V-Tech V6. Car comes fully loaded, and all options seem to work perfectly. Car has 212 000 kms on it (131,000 miles). Starts up instantly, and sounds fine. No rust.

I am looking for advice and information regarding this car. It looks like a good deal to me but I'm sure that the wealth of experience on this forum would be a lot more valuable than that of a sales rep at a used car dealership.

Some of my main questions are:

Is this engine an interference or non interference engine?
How reliable is this car with this many km's on it?
Are there any known recurring problems with this model and year?
And of course any other information you think is useful to know.

Thanks a bunch.

 

Engine is interference.

Reliability of engine is generally very good. Some specific 2000 Accord V6 had hard start problems after hot soak.

Automatic transmission of this generation Accord is the big potential weakness; especially with the V6. Many failures for this generation.

It has VTEC instead of V-Tech (name of phone maker).

 

Be aware that there is a well documented transmission issue regarding the car you describe. Also, find out if the timing belt has been replaced and ask to see papers regarding when it was done, otherwise you will want to have it done a.s.a.p if you buy it. Be sure to test drive it well, and I recommend an experienced Honda mechanic look at it and drive it. It may be priced well because the timing belt needs to be done and/or the transmission is developing issues. I hope you found a diamond in the rough, but buyer beware.

 

1999 Honda Accord EX-V6 (31 MPG, LOADED, AUTO) Esquimalt & View Royal, Victoria

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Welcome. 1st car, exciting time.

Per this forum's knowledge base, 1998 - 2002 Accords have unusually high A/T failure rates, as mentioned above.
Suggest you try a different year or manufacturer.

Tip: if you can drive a 5 spd manual these are $1500 less on used car market.

 

I wish I could. Do you have any suggestions for good cars to keep an eye out for? Saw a '96 civic somewhere.

 

I wouldnt buy 98-02 the trans are a very weak spot as above mentioned, if its cheap sure under 1k, but I would invest in something newer .

 

While there is certainly truth behind the weakness of the factory original Gen 6 automatic transmissions (various engineering tweaks and changes have made them more reliable over the years), I think the issue is a bit more hype than reality. In my case I bought a 2001 V6 Accord EX-L with 114,000 miles on the clock, and while it has nickel and dimed me over the last 50,000 miles I've driven it; none of the costs had anything to do with the transmission. The flip side is that my Accord is as mechanically sound from a road worthy perspective and rattle free as any car I've ever driven, regardless of mileage or years of service.

Long story short, with the proviso that a transmission (which in the grand scheme of things isn't all that expensive to replace) *may* be necessary at some point, and as such, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend a car similar to mine to a friend.

 

I would , and im not debating how nice they drive and how good the engine is , but the trans if it hasnt already been replaced is junky , not to mention the immobilizer and pcm/ecm and srs is sure to fail , if it already hasnt which does lead to costly repairs .

 

My comments:

• Given even the newest Gen 6 Accords are now roughly 13 years old, I'm thinking a significant percentage of their automatic transmissions have been replaced with updated units (even possibly a significant majority).
• This is the first I have heard of the immobilizer and PCM/ECM issues; where are you getting your data from?
• The SRS is inclined to fail; that said, it is a simple fix of replacing the driver's side seatbelt receiver.