Any advice for getting a 98 Civic home?
I'm a first time car buyer. Through a stroke of good luck, I found a great deal on a 1998 Honda Civic EX automatic with ~230k miles and (I'm pretty sure) 1 owner. It's a northeaster but it doesn't seem rusted.
The car has three problems (hence the great deal): a dead battery, a check engine light, and it idles low. The battery is an easy fix. I asked the owner if he did a scan and he said the error code was P0420. From the research I've done, I'm fairly sure the issue is a bad catalytic converter, which would also explain the idling issue.
The fix (I think) is simple enough, just buy a cat and swap it. The problem is I have to travel ~800mi for this car and would have to drive it back home. If I was buying it local I wouldn't mind limping it home and having it sit while I fixed it up.
Am I setting myself up for failure here? I don't want to buy the car only to drive it to ruin accidentally. It's mostly highways back, and I'm inclined to think once I get to speed the idling issue shouldn't cause problems. If I do ~800mi with a bad cat would I be doing serious damage to the engine/some component? I know of cataclean, but considering the cat is 230k miles old I think it's just completely burnt out and not clogged.
Any advice or ad hoc solutions would be greatly appreciated. If you need more info please let me know.