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6 Owners in 4 years indicates...?

Joined
10 January 2004
Messages
51
I'm looking (very carefully) at a 99 3.2 6Speed (in the UK) and my reservations are:-

A) the car has 5 previous owners (+ current one) - what does this mean? I know that Ferrari's et al go through this many owners (keep it up to the next service), but I didn't realise NSX's were the same. Any thoughts? Is this a lemon, or just unloved?

b) although visually the car looks pretty immaculate (it only has 20,000 miles on it) - it has only been serviced 3 times in it's life (6K, 10K, 16K) . Are the 6 month service intervals something the car needs or is this just a way for Honda to make money? Would anyone consider this a cause for concern?

c) The car has rather amateurishly painted calipers and the windows are heavily tinted (which we don't need here as it means you can't see the rain!) - Ricer?

d) Finally for UK members, does anyone know the history of this particular Car? It's the 3.2 Imola Orange NSX for sale from Levant (in Herts) - used to be owned by a Motorhomes saleman apparently. Any cluse would be useful.

Basically my head says 'there's something wrong' but my heart just wants the car - so any advice would be great - thanks

Joe
 
BrownBear

I've just looked at it in Autotrader. No clues from the ad.

A) I'd ask to look at the V5 which would give you the last 2 owners and phone them up. If you can't get any joy from levant I might begin to smell a rat but you could always have the car independently inspected.

B) I wouldn't worry. Provided it's been regularly serviced by an authorised NSX dealer it should be OK. My own car only does enough miles to require an annual service.

C) The calipers wouldn't bother me but are the windows OEM or have they been replaced by the tinted ones. Seems a very odd thing to do.

D) i don't know the history, but see A above. I'll put a post in NSXCB for you unless you've already done so.

regards
 
Thanks ZZRman - to be honest Levant are being very helpful- they've even phone up the previous servicing dealers and are having them forward the copies of the service schedules/invoices so I can see what has been done.

I just can't work out why a seemingly immaculate car would have so many owners - maybe it's one of these Orphans that just seems to go from dealer to dealer.

Finally I have only seen a photocopy of the V5 - the original is not yet at the dealer (the number/license plate has been changed).

(I'm already on the NSXcb list actually - but it's easier to post to NSXprime as I can't post to listservers from work).

Thanks very much,
Joe
 
Difficult to say why so many owners but when I bought my 1996 T in 2000 I was the fourth owner.

It should be easy enough to check whether the car is straight - get it up on a ramp and it will be self evident if its been bent and repaired.

As for the windows has a previous owner just put some tinting stuff on them or have they actually changed the windows?

Finally make sure the price reflects the colour. Although I personally like Imola Orange any dealer will tell you that it's a colour which is difficult to sell.

Best of luck.

Philip
 
BrownBear

Check NSXCB - someone has seen the car you're looking at and they have some unflattering comments you would do well to consideras follows:

"Yes Ive seen this car.....I took my Porsche to them and considered a deal,but the car looks well used and the dealers are selling it for a friend and use this as an excuse to not move on the price,although it was originally on at £39,995. Its had plenty of paintwork and not to a very high standard dirt intrusions on the boot deck and n/s/f wing etc and certainly not worth a long journey to view. I told them my 96 N plate car was cleaner all round,luckily I only live 15 miles fron Levant, Unluckily I had a rock bust my windscreen on the way back.The 95 coupe I saw at Imperials with 60k on it was a better car!!! "
 
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