Rep Power: 0

Hey guys, I'm looking at buying a 99 civic with 145k miles on it. It looks and drives decent and has at least half the clutch left. However, there are two concerns that got my attention.

First, the owner says the hood release cable is broken but when he slammed the hood, it didn't latch. In my experience with other cars, if the cable breaks, you're pulling parts off to release it. Is that normal or is there a deeper problem? If both the latches and cable are busted, are they hard to replace?

The second issue is the shifter. It shifts smooth and I know it's attached with linkages but when I downshifted into second at about 25-30mph, it looked like the whole shifter moved forward about an inch. Is that normal or is an engine or tranny mount going out? I used to drive an S2000 and the shifter in that felt super tight but I'm guessing that was just because it didn't use all the linkages but not sure.

Any help is appreciated.

 
Rep Power: 231

The cables and latch components aren't hard to replace and are fairly cheap. If the shifter is moving around a whole lot like you say just check the tranny and motor mounts for a break. If they aren't broken replacing the bushings isn't hard and they are cheap as well. If these are the only things you can find wrong on a 99 with 145,000 and the price is good i'd go for it.

 
Rep Power: 0

Thats a lot of miles. I have a 99 civic. It has about 40k miles on it and is running fine so far. Im guessing in another 100k miles I will be having issues.

 
Rep Power: 231

we're talking hondas here, not chevys. 145k and I bet that thing still has another 100k left in it. As for you sir, 40k is a baby, you won't see problems for a loooooong time, if ever.