Need a good help making my decision!

[tiagoferr7]

So i been looking for a 1.5 114hp civic ek3 for at least 2 months already
got a eye in a deal and the guy is asking around 1800€ for it.
it needs a lot work on the paint and the idea is changing it to black
the interior is in really well condition , roof is working , not engine light, the only thing is that the windows need some lubrificant kinda stuck opening( i think its because of being a lot time stopped)
the trunk is in good condition with no water leaks, the under of the car is in good shape too, didnt spot any rust marks that i could catch with my eyes!
but motor wise, u cant really see on the photos but it has some rusts on the engine frames , on the exhaust manifold (not sure if thats the right name) theres some weird colors there.
it has around 140000kms (87k miles around that) and the guy told me today that the belong to a old man who died and passed it to the son and sold it to him with around 115000km (around 70k miles) but the problem is that the car has been stoped for a long time, as he told me was stopped a long time when belong to the son i mention above , and after he bought it he stop using after some kms.
he changed some timing belts , water pump , oils and oil filter pretty recent , original honda antifreeze and he actually show me the invoices or receipts as u wanna call it.
i did a test drive on it, the clutch seems really nice as the gear box too, and the accelerator pedal seems stuck in the start position when u start pressing it, vtec is kicking in , and the ecomod seems to work, but it doesnt develops, feels like ur full pedal and doesnt respond.
in the last photo i posted there are some arrows pointing to where i spot more damage, the batery holder had a lot of rust at least it seems, there are some junky black tape in the intake manifold and some rusts as i mentioned.
may it be because it has been stopped for a long time ?
i really appreciated some help, every time i go to see some civic that i wanna buy i just love even more each time that happens!
sorry for a possible bad english and if this is in the wrong place of the forums! im new into this but i really need help!
down here are some photos of the car!
hope u guys can help me out , keep it up!

 

[_JT]

Welcome!

I have had an EK3 in hatchback form as a daily besides my DC2. Was a nice daily car and really economical. Where are you from? At least here it seems nice examples just seem to get more rare. No rust at all is a good starting point (if you're sure of that). The paint seems a bit "used" for a 114k km car. Have you checked the steering wheel and rubber on the pedals? Are lines/profile still visible or is everything smooth? The latter might indicate an actual higher mileage! My EK3 with 224k km looked better paint wise. My engine ran silky smooth, the engine is very tough. Though there is obviously no VTEC kick in a VTEC-E 2 stage engine, it should happily pull to the red line, even though it doesn't do it that fast because of the long gears. But it certainly shouldn't feel like acceleration is dieing on full throttle and/or high rpm. The rust on the spots that you mention, based on your photo, wouldn't bother me. Having had a few Civics those are spots that they tend so gather some surface rust.

My opinion is, if the engine doesn't feel right and you need to get it sorted in a workshop, I wouldn't pay 1800 euro's. Things could get really expensive. Can you tell us what you want to do with the car? What is it for, daily driving? Your hobby car? Both? Track driving? Also, are the tires still round? They can be flattened on the side that the car has been standing still on.

On a low mileage car you'd expect the engine and paint to be ok, those are probably the 2 biggest advantages of low mileage. If they're not, only buy if you know what you're doing and have a particular reason for it. And you're English is ok!