| Need tips in Buying, test drive, inspecting a MDX
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| indyn |
I would appreciate if someone could give me pointers in terms of inspecting or test driving a 2004 or 2005 MDX.
I recently test drove a 2005 MDX while it was snowing but not too much snow on the ground. while the engine felt and sounded strong, the handling was not so impressive. My honda civic on winter tires could do much better than that. The MDX had little swerve, not sure if the AWD was kicking in or that vehicle had bad tires !!
It was in good condition overall and it was sold by an Acura dealership to the dealer selling it and it was priced few thousand dollars less. I don't know why Acura dealership will sell a car to another dealer which has considerable low miles and considerable good condition when they could sell it themselves. Is it because they could not certify it?
Anyhow what should I look out for while I inspect it or take it for a test drive.
Please help. |
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| RN7676 |
Here's a few shopping tricks for you.
The fenders, hood, doors, and rear hatch originally had a little white rectangle sticker about 2 inches long that has the VIN number stamped on it. You can check to see if they all match. New OEM parts will not have that sticker and parts from other cars will have them removed or the VIN wont match. It's a quick and easy indicator to see if body panels have been replaced. If they have been replaced then you can decide if the repair and repaint was done well enough for you. Every modern car tags the VIN on the body panels in one way or another. You can look for those VIN #s on any vehicle.
Check the paint quality and shine on the roof. Many prior owners and sellers will not wax or polish out the roof. It may give you an indication of whether it was garaged or left out. ... although an 05 would probably look fairly decent no matter what.
Then just push every button and make sure everything works. There is a lot of buttons to push on an MDX. An 05 with <48k miles should still qualify for factory warranty if anything is broke. |
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| indyn |
I didn't know they would have VIN #'s on body panels. Excellent. You're right about the buttons things, it looks like there's no end to it.
I think my real concern would be testing the all wheel drive. There were two warning lights on when I test drove the vehicle, don't know what exactly they meant and the dealer who was sitting with me says its because the heated seats were on :rolleyes: .
But I figured from the forum that its VTM and TPMS. Does the car not handling as it should and VTM warning light being make any sense? |
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