Highwayman

Of course it started out as a good day since I was being paid to stay home from work. Come afternoon, I get a call from my parents and they want me to go with them to look at cars. (They trust my judgement on what's good, bad, ugly, etc.) Anyway, we arrive at a dealer, look at a few cars and then stumble upon a 2000 Mazda Millenia S Millenium Edition. Silver on Black suede leather interior, Supercharged!, and a ton of other gadgets and gizmos including a Bose 6 disc in-dash sound system. My mom fell in love, my dad made the deal and they buy the car. Cool, huh? It gets better...

If anyone remembers my Newbie Here thread, it explained my current situation. Well my parents, knowing that they would perfer to park the new car in their garage, asked me to take the Legend home (I have a 2 car garage and a double wide driveway). I figured this weekend I'd sit down with them so we could work up a payment plan allowing me to buy it back. They tell me Thursday night that they decided to give me the Legend back for $0! All I have to do is pickup insurance and maintenance (of course).

Looking the car over, it's rougher than I remember when I sold it to them in '99. My parents live near by so I saw the car often after they bought it, but I never really looked at it too close. I guess that's to be expected since they never waxed it or conditioned the seats. They did only put 10K miles on it in the 3 years they had it!

I drove it to work today (50 miles round trip) to see it's current status and how it handled. It really needed to see 60+ mph since my mother only drove it 4 miles a day (2 trips to her work).

Some things that caught my attention were:

• The front upper valve cover is leaking oil. This is no surprise to me since I think it was barely seeping when I sold it to them. I will go ahead and replace both at the same time to be consistent. Are the front and rear upper valve covers are the same part #? Can anyone recommend a good place online to buy Acura (and possibly Honda) parts?
• The transmission only slipped once today and I was already 1 minute from home on the return trip. About the famous trans service with Honda ATF, do you just drain and fill? The drain plug is the one which accepts the head of the 3/8 in rachet, correct? Is there a filter/screen/element anywhere you have to change too? I plan on following jose3030's advice in this thread when he metions 3 consecutive drain and fills.
• The check engine light came on when I was about 5 minutes from the house. This has happened in the past to my parents and everytime I pulled the codes, it was the EGR valve. The light never stayed on constantly, and after a few days it would be off for weeks, sometimes months. The weird thing is that I replaced the EGR before I sold them the car and they only drove it for 10K miles. Is it possible for the EGR valve to be contaminated/dirty and cause a bad reading?
• The oil is black as night - that's getting changed this weekend.
• I noticed that when cruising at 65mph the tach reads 3K. Is this normal? Remember, I've been driving a truck for the last 3 years and something would be up if cruising at 65mph was at 3000 rpm in my truck.
• One last thing. I noticed than when you are accelerating very slowly (heavy traffic) the transmission shifts very abruptly, but if you're accelerating more normal, the shifting is calmer. Is this normal? Will the transmission flush and fill help this?
  

Well, I think that's enough to keep you guys busy for now. I'm still excited I got this car back for nothing!

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1989 Acura Legend L Coupe - Red, auto, 166K - daily driver
1998 Mazda B3000 SE Cab Plus - Black, auto, 97K - weekend warrior
1993 Honda Civic EX Coupe - Red, auto, 155K - wife's car, carpooler

 

legenddriva88

im glad u had a good new years day cause mine was horrible, my grandfather passed away,.. happy to find out u got the legend for free and that theres a millinia in thje family

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