BEWARE 2005 Acura NSX JH4NA21655S000135 Silverstone/Silver

[htown]

I just wanted to warn anyone looking to purchase the 2005 Acura NSX with VIN#JH4NA21655S000135. Long story short, I purchased this car on eBay from someone who works at Sherwood Ford in Alberta Canada and the Autocheck was showing a clear title no accident car. After talking to the seller and performing a PPI inspection, there were no issues that Sherwood Acura found. However, upon further research, I ran the VIN# in the Saskatchewan province website and a Carfax only to discover that there was over $45k of damages on the car previously. This was not disclosed until I asked the seller about it. After mentioning it to the seller, he provided a detail of what was repaired. The front bumper, passenger fender, headlights, hood, frame, targa, windshield were all previously damaged and needed to be replaced. I was very close to putting a deposit down and glad I didn't. Again, the seller did not disclose this initially and was shocked when I asked about it. Please see below for the Carfax and the Saskatchewan province damage reported:

https://www.sgi.sk.ca/online_services/vin/
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Date:	Mileage:	Source:	Comments:
06/02/2005	14	Pikes Peak Acura Ltd Colorado Springs, CO 719-633-1500 pikespeakacura.com	Washed/detailed
08/16/2005		Colorado Motor Vehicle Dept. Grand Junction, CO Title #508178	Title issued or updated First owner reported Titled or registered as personal vehicle Loan or lien reported
07/11/2006		Colorado Motor Vehicle Dept. Grand Junction, CO Title #508178	Registration issued or renewed Loan or lien reported
03/19/2008		Saskatchewan Motor Vehicle Dept. Saskatoon, SK	Registration issued or renewed
04/04/2009		Saskatchewan Motor Vehicle Dept. Saskatoon, SK	Registration issued or renewed
07/03/2009		Saskatchewan Motor Vehicle Dept. Saskatoon, SK	Registration issued or renewed
09/26/2009		Saskatchewan Damage Report	Glass damage reported
10/24/2009		Saskatchewan Damage Report	Glass damage reported
11/24/2009		Saskatchewan Damage Report	Accident reported Claim amount was CAD$45,245
03/26/2010		Saskatchewan Motor Vehicle Dept. Saskatoon, SK	Registration issued or renewed
09/01/2010		Saskatchewan Motor Vehicle Dept. Saskatoon, SK	Registration issued or renewed
04/07/2011		Saskatchewan Motor Vehicle Dept. Saskatoon, SK	Registration issued or renewed
07/01/2011		Saskatchewan Motor Vehicle Dept. Saskatoon, SK	Registration issued or renewed
08/31/2011		Saskatchewan Motor Vehicle Dept. Saskatoon, SK	Registration issued or renewed
10/01/2011		Saskatchewan Motor Vehicle Dept. Saskatoon, SK	Registration issued or renewed
07/04/2012		Saskatchewan Motor Vehicle Dept. Saskatoon, SK	Registration issued or renewed
05/26/2013		Saskatchewan Motor Vehicle Dept. Saskatoon, SK	Registration issued or renewed
07/08/2013		Saskatchewan Motor Vehicle Dept. Saskatoon, SK	Registration issued or renewed
07/07/2014		Saskatchewan Motor Vehicle Dept. Saskatoon, SK	Registration issued or renewed
08/10/2015		Saskatchewan Motor Vehicle Dept. Saskatoon, SK	Registration issued or renewed
11/15/2015		Saskatchewan Motor Vehicle Dept. Saskatoon, SK

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[neuronbob]

I always run both a Carfax and an Autocheck on a potential purchase. It is not rare for the two reports to be different. Congrats on finding negative information before paying loads of money.

 

[Brylek]

I'm glad you were able to walk away in time and thanks a ton for warning the rest of us here!

I hope you find the right car soon.

P.S. Good color choice

Paul.

 

[htown]

Thanks, the owner mentioned that someone else was going to put down a deposit if I didn't proceed so I hope they see this thread or are aware of the previous damages!

 

[posterchild2]

Lying by omission is still lying! Glad you did your due diligence and a shame the car isn't what you thought it was. Good luck in your new search, the hunt is just as much fun as the capture.

 

[bmansi]

This is interesting as I am now in a position to purchase this car. I just ran the Vin on Google and found the thread. The seller immediately disclosed the accident to me, although not indicating the extent although he had the accident estimate. Still, as I review the pictures, the lines of the doors appear perfect and our discussion seemed to be honest and full disclosure.
My contention is if it were not for the accident and price reduction I would not be able to afford the car. Also, the damage was sustained at 18K miles and now the car has 36K. I am not planning to track the car, just drive around town and dates with the wife...... in style

I have a 1997 Silver Automatic with a buyer lined up and am looking for simply a manual targa while not all concerned with resale other than recovering my investment years down the road. Given the $ spent on the repair, seems like quite the investment placed into the repair. I think I'll opt for an inspection and go from there.

Ben

Other comments welcome.

 

[htown]

This is interesting as I am now in a position to purchase this car. I just ran the Vin on Google and found the thread. The seller immediately disclosed the accident to me, although not indicating the extent although he had the accident estimate. Still, as I review the pictures, the lines of the doors appear perfect and our discussion seemed to be honest and full disclosure.
My contention is if it were not for the accident and price reduction I would not be able to afford the car. Also, the damage was sustained at 18K miles and now the car has 36K. I am not planning to track the car, just drive around town and dates with the wife...... in style

I have a 1997 Silver Automatic with a buyer lined up and am looking for simply a manual targa while not all concerned with resale other than recovering my investment years down the road. Given the $ spent on the repair, seems like quite the investment placed into the repair. I think I'll opt for an inspection and go from there.

Ben

Other comments welcome.

Good luck, it sounds like a nasty accident with the whole front end, windshield and top replaced. Not to mention the frame damage that occurred. There is no service records either. After calculating shipping costs and duties, it's priced similar to a clean story car. Let us know how it turns out.

 

[bmansi]

Just curious, what is a similar price roughly for a similar year/clean car?
Thanks a lot.
Ben

 

[Lamchop168]

Just curious, what is a similar price roughly for a similar year/clean car?
Thanks a lot.
Ben

Any clean 02+ car are now fetching in the $75k range and up, more for Imola, LBBP, GPW and Spa Yellow.

 

[LookingForMyImola]

I took a look at this car. Greasy salesman at Sherwood Ford is giving me the run around every time I asked for a car report. He said they would sell it for 50,000 if someone walked in. Otherwise they are putting it back on eBay for 69k. That's ridiculous. The car was thoroughly destroyed.

I noticed something looked wrong with the tail lights- as if they've separated at the top. Drivers bolster has wear. I did note the missing VIN numbers on the hood, passenger fender and front bumper. Sales guy told me the targa was replaced also. The headlights looked... Odd... The passenger side wiring harness looked like it was cut and taped back together. Passenger side A-pillar was improperly repainted. If you look closely, the pillar kind of wraps in, towards the windshield it wasn't painted properly in that area. Car has also been sitting outside for several months, through the winter.

I've heard someone put an offer in on this thing. I feel bad for them.

 

[Clint]

I too took a look at this car. The person that had it advertised was an employee of the dealership that took it on trade. I had been looking for an nsx for over 18 months, and have seen over 20 of them. This car was the nicest I had ever seen- like brand new. I looked at the vehicles history through 3 different vehicle history searches. It had a 45,000 Canadian claim against it for a front passengers side collision. It had rear ended another vehicle. I then acquired the repair order from the body shop that had performed the repairs. The parts list had made up for the bulk of the cost on the repairs as they used all genuine Acura parts, and many of them took months to get in. Acura Nsx parts are super expensive in Canada, as most Nsx'rs know, so many turn to the US to order their parts, as even with a significant exchange rate it turns out to be cheaper. I also called every Acura Dealership that this car had been at to create the service history, nothing was unusual there. I then had the car inspected by a respected bodyshop in Edmonton. The owner did it himself, and he owns many high end cars including 2 ferrari's. he said the collision wasn't even that bad, as most of the front end had all original bolts etc. He said the work was well done, and that it was a beautiful car. He pointed out that they make their money on parts, so the extensive parts list would be a way for the bodyshop that did the repairs to make money, and as the car was newer when the collision happened, they would have replaced everything and anything that was even remotely affected. I then took the car to see our local NSX Guru- Warren who is on nsx prime. We took the car for a drive and put it to the paces. It performed perfectly! braking hard with hands off the wheel, the car was straight, we took a caliper tool to measure all of the body, and there was nothing out of spec for a handmade car- as we compared it to his. The next stop was to West side Acura- to see Darren- the head mechanic who has 20+ years of experience and is NSX certified. He found a few small items, all said they could be addressed for around $2500-3000 this included timing belt, spark plugs, and checking the water pump etc which was the bulk of the bill, and a tweaking of the wheel alignment, and a headlight part as the low beam on one side was not working.
The passenger side wiring harness that lookingformyimola noted was the addition of daytime running lights which are a requirement in Canada- it was properly done, however we are removing the electrical tape and replacing this with shrink wrap tubing for a cleaner look. Having gone through these paces I have purchased this car, and it is getting the maintenance updated and repairing the headlight as I write this.

Like any of these cars it is super important to do your due diligence, I had inspected 2 other nsx's and they did not measure up- repairs that were done outside of a carfax report or insurance in my opinion are more dangerous than one performed by certified bodyshops and are reported. In my search, I even advised 1 owner that their car had rollback mileage- this found through calling the dealerships that they had been at. So that 1991 car with 60,000 miles might actually have 150,000 miles as an owner played with the odometer, another was a salvage title car in the US, was imported into Canada, and then repaired that didn't show up in a carproof report, the owner was stunned to find out the car was written off in the past!
I am pretty happy to have finally found my NSX- and can't wait till spring!!

 

[blue_myriddn]

Congrats on finding your car - sounds like you did your homework and are getting a vehicle that makes you happy and that to me is a perfect transaction. I hope it delivers plenty of smiles per mile (or kilometer )

 

[The King]

Clint, glad to hear you found a car that you are happy with and had well checked out before buying. For future reference, just because an estimate was done up for the accident with all new parts listed, doesn't necessarily mean all those parts were actually purchased and used. Sometimes body shops just fix things and don't use the new parts. In some cases this is fine as the damage is minimal. Sometimes the body shop would rather do a repair without using the new parts so they make more money.

If the panels on your car that were supposed to be replaced no longer have the Vin # on them, they were probably replaced. If the Vin stickers are all still there, then they probably were not.