1997 Acura CL 3.0 3.0L V6 from North America
Summary:
A stylish money pit
Faults:
The driver's seat "step-through" feature (the seat moves forward automatically to allow access to the back seat) required four service visits to work properly.
A headlight was burnt out upon receipt of car from dealer (part of the "certification process" from Acura, allegedly).
The tires provided with the car (and allegedly "certified") were nearly bald, and one blew out. I had to purchase four new tires within three months of purchase, and then another set of four tires approximately 7 months later. At the time the car was sold, it allegedly needed another set of four tires.
The battery died suddenly, and no one carried it except for the dealer. The car had been in for scheduled maintenance a week prior, and the battery should not be able to go from "OK" to "Bad" (it has an indicator) in that period of time.
The brakes squealed after three months of ownership, never to be resolved.
The passenger seatbelt choked passengers occasionally, never to be resolved.
The car would not start a handful of times; there existed an ignition recall from Acura, but the dealer "could not reproduce" so this was never resolved.
The car handled extremely well until 3 months before I sold it. Seemingly without cause it became very difficult to control, totally lost its feeling of road stability, and in general was very unpleasant to drive. No one was able to explain this.
Acura (allegedly) did not have the car registered as certified and refused to provide roadside assistance in an emergency.
General Comments:
I purchased this car from an Acura dealer as a certified used car.
The car was serviced entirely at Acura dealerships with the exception of an emergency service at a Firestone store.
The car was inexpensive for the year, mileage, and amenities provided.
However, it wound up costing thousands more in the first year alone (even with a warranty!).
Very comfortable interior. Wood paneling is somewhat cheap looking, but par for the course.
Trunk is spacious. A pass-through is provided, but the seats do not fold down unlike the very similar Accord Coupe of the same vintage.
1997 model is lacking some nice interior improvements from 1998/1999: separate heated seat controls, radio controls on steering wheel, much better horn buttons.
A friend purchased a 1999 model of the same car from the same dealer three months after I did and experienced many of the same exact problems that I did.
The dealer behaved unprofessionally, rudely, and I believe dishonestly.
Would you buy another car from this manufacturer? No
Review Date: 25th May, 2003
19th Jan 2006, 12:53
I had/have an 1998 Acura cl 3.0 with a 6VTEC engine with a blown transmission. The dealer has fessed up that the tranmissions put in these models were faulty and they have had numerous problems with them. Beware of this model and probably the later years as well, where they probably were not aware of the problems until recently. According to what I was told that around 70K miles problems are encountered.