Andy Dufresne said:
Buying an Acura MDX.
Is there really an advantage to buying a "Certified Pre-Owned"?
For Acura it extends the powertrain (does anything ever go wrong there anyway?) by a year and non-powertrain by 2 years.
I just bought a CPO 2018 Honda Pilot Touring w/16k miles on it. Now, mine was CPO'd by the dealership not Honda. So, in my case, honestly I had been shopping for a few months now and I kind of stopped paying attention to CPO'd or not and focused on the vehicle I wanted, under a certain mileage number under a certain price. So, in my case, I wanted the newest Pilot, MDX or Highlander in the best condition, lowest miles for under $35k and I really didn't care if it was CPO'd or not but I thought it was a nice bonus that mine was. My Pilot had a dealership asking price of $36k, I negotiated over the internet for $33k, I think it was a fair price, not horrible, not great but I was okay with it.
In my particular case the dealership CPO came with the extra 2 year warranty, a full Honda vehicle pre-purchase inspection, synthetic oil and oil filter change, new air filter, new rear differential fluid, new cabin air filter, new wiper inserts, tires balanced and rotated, carfax printout + guarantee, 3 months of Sirius (still haven't activated it) and a printout of all the work performed with a total of $525 and change.
I don't know what year and trim level of MDX you're looking for but I'll say this about the CPO deal and I'll use my Pilot as an example. If I found two exact 2018 Honda Pilot Tourings, same color, same mileage, same condition and one was dealership CPO'd and one was not dealership CPO'd, if the dealership CPO'd one was $500 or less more, I'd buy the CPO'd one only because I think it's $500-$600 worth of work in my case, hell I have proof of it but if it was $1,000 or more, I wouldn't pay for the extra for it, I'd just get the work done on my own and save the $500.
There used to be such a thing as a manufacturer's CPO where in that case they would perform a whole list of things (like the list mine came with) plus new brake pads (I think?) and new tires (I think) - I'm going from old man memory - but I would pay an extra $1,500 for that only b/c I've shopped my tires and they're at least $800 and a brake job is usually $300-$500 depending.
Just my 2 cents - happy shopping - hope that helps!