Bg09

I've noticed a civic for a year or so sitting beside a house without moving and have said many times, one day I'll stop and see what's up. Well that day was yesterday. I've found a 2002 Honda Civic, not sure of lx or ex but the car has sat year and a half, the very nice owner said he would sell it and told me why she was parked. He said the timing belt needed to be changed and he was gonna get to it but was hoping it'd be ok for just awhile longer, it wasn't. The car has 150xxx or there about as best as he can remember. The paint looks great, headlights aren't cloudy, not a dent one, tires most likely dry rotten, the interior looked clean and in fine shape. I didn't look it over as good as I should've because I was a stranger and he didn't join me to look it over, plus it was getting dark, I did a quick walk around after he told me he'd consider a sell and then he told me the issues. He said wen the car was parked it was in limp mode and was running, he said it will need a timing belt and possibly a head. Why I asked? He said something about steamy white smoke but couldn't elaborate because like myself he isn't the mechanical type. So I didn't get the keys and look inside or under hood because I wanted to see if he would be crazy on a price or reasonable, so after looking and hearing what I've typed, he said like it sits, he wud take $500.00. Now I got a little excited because the car looks really good, electric windows and can't remember if it was alloy wheels or hubcaps which may help in letting me know which engine and package. It does have automatic which I'm not really crazy about but here's my questions. If I had to get a new timing belt, water pump, tensioner and everything to do with that, and I could drive the car, awesome! I'd be in really good shape. If I had to get the head rebuilt or bought one or perhaps a head gasket job I'd still be coming out great on such a nice ride right! ? Or this , buy an engine and manual trans and go from there with a turnkey setup for around $1500 possibly, I'd have a decent car for $500 plus 1500 or 2,000.00 max I'd wanna invest. So am I getting too far and thinking wrong that $500 may not be a good deal? I know I should see if I could check out exactly what's wrong with it before I buy it and I doubt he'd care, but where do I start? Will I have to look at the valves? Remove all the stuff to get to timing belt and see if it did in fact break ? Before I talk anymore about things I don't know about, from what I have said I'd love to hear some opinions, pros and cons. I wanna hear the people who say go pay him now, bring it home and deal with whatever, or the cons.. I don't care to go fast, I'd like to have a 5 speed but if I can get it going and the ac works and it's basically gonna last another 100k with timing belt and hopefully $800 to get it on the road, I'd keep the automatic and be happy.. 500 for something I don't know about may or may not be a good idea, I can do some work but a little scared to get too deep alone.. thanks

Wankenstein

Let's start with sentence breaks first. All those words jumbled together looked like you never take a breath when you talk.

Does it have a sunroof? If so, it's an EX and if not it's a base model. How mechanically incline are you?
$500 seems like a fair price for a shell if it's great shape other than drivetrain but, as you said it could need $2k to get it right. Did the timing belt snap? Bent valves? Overheated? The owner isn't bothering to repair it for a reason and who knows how many other things are wrong with it. ****,,if it hasn't moved in a year and half then offer him $100.

Bg09

Yep, never been good with periods and sentence structure.
I don't know if belt snapped or not, he said it was running wen it was in limp mode, so I'd say no.
$2,000 for this car wouldn't bug me much, doubt I could find one that nice running for that price
no sunroof I don't think, so no vtec?
I went to library to get chilton service manual, gonna carry that, an obd2 scanner and a multimeter and bag of tools and a jack and see what I can find. Thanks.

Wankenstein

Might want to consider this: https://www.civicforums.com/forums/1...on-swap-3.html

mcnoople

Are you in a part of the world where RUST exists. In the rustbelt the value of a car is drastically different depending on rust.

There are other reasons for a civic to go into "limp in" mode. A very common reason is a fried PCM (powertrain control module) caused by loose alternator bolts.

Bg09

Not anywhere near rust belt. It snows maybe 2" per year and they rarely ever salt the roads.. So, rust isn't an issue here from salt or anything else..

Bg09

Manual trans isn't gonna be a top priority for me if the car cranks and runs after I find the issue. The Chilton manual includes Acura and accords, the van and couple other engines as well, but the drawings and the wording is surprisingly easy to understand, even for someone with little to no experience.
I'm gonna go ahead and buy the car, tow it home and try to figure out a step by step way to go about tackling the issues. The timing belt, water pump and tensioner, and valve cover gasket will be changed for sure. I'm gonna check the valves to see if they're in spec per Chilton, it even tells you which bolt to loosen first, how much torque to tighten each bolt, so even if it's the head that needs surfacing and new valve job, this book lays it out step by step where I feel confident I can take my time and go at it.. I'll try to keep up my findings and get some help once the car is here.

mac25

If you pull a scrapyard engine and install it your self you could have the car up and running for $300, while it's out through on a new timing belt/waterpump for $200.

That's the way I'd do it, no point paying someone else to fix the engine when they go for pennies.

Of course you'll need to find a car that is in the yard for a rear end collision.