Hi everyone,
I'm currently looking at a used 2005 Acura RSX Type S for sale in Northeast Ohio that's listed for around $12,000 at a Honda dealership. I went to take a look at the car yesterday, and while it drove great, it has some issues. There's some minor rear quarter panel rust as well as some in the engine bay, a fair bit of surface rust on the frame (expected as it's a 20 year old car in the midwest), as well as a broken power steering system. The dealership said they'd take the price of a power steering repair off from the list price, so I'm not worried about that, but the car has clearly been touched in other respects. It has an AEM ram intake, a filter for the valve cover, aftermarket drilled + slotted rotors, some as well as an aftermarket shift boot, shift knob, and a Kenwood KMM-X705 head unit. I was able to take it out on a test drive and, aside from the steering being out, it drove great. The motor sounded pretty healthy and the brakes, clutch, and transmission all felt solid. The interior is also in excellent shape; the seats are flawless, there aren't any gasket leaks anywhere, the head liner and sunroof are great, and everything seems to work as it should. There aren't any lights on in the dashboard and things look great. The CarFax is alright and shows pretty regular maintenance logs, but it does have two incidents listed as "minor damage," with one being to the rear bumper and one to the front. I'm (maybe mistakenly) not that worried about those, since the rear of the car looks flawless. The front has clearly had a bumper replacement done, as the paint color is ever so slightly off and the panel alignment isn't great.
My dilemma with this car is that I don't know what else has been done to it. I'm planning on having a pre-purchase inspection done this week to see what shape the car's actually in. I'm hoping to find out if the ECU has been messed with at all and if there have been any other modifications done. If this is really all that's been done, what should I be aware of before buying inb terms of possible reliability issues? Should I go through with the purchase or run away as fast as I can? I noticed that the intake is pointing towarss the rear of the engine which suggests that it's only sucking up hot air, and it looked like it's exposed to the outside, so I'm slightly concerned that it'll ingest some water during any storms. I'm already going to bring the price down as much as I can, citing the modifications and broken steering, so any other advice would be appreciated. I'm happy to provide other information if that would be relevant at all.