Used Car of the Day: 2002 Acura RSX Type-S

Tim Healey
by Tim Healey

Today's UCOTD speaks to my personal biases -- I have a weird thing for the Acura RSX. Even this beat-up 2002 Acura RSX Type-S catches my eye.


The car has been in storage for three years, so it will need some work to get running. But it does have the six-speed manual transmission and just 78,000 miles. The seller says it runs well, or at least did, but obviously, the battery is dead after three years of storage.

There are cosmetic issues -- faded paint, a crack in the rear bumper, and door dings. But otherwise the car appears to be in good shape and is stock, save for a car alarm.

The seller is based in San Francisco and asks $7,000.

Click here to check it out.

[Images: Seller]

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Tim Healey
Tim Healey

Tim Healey grew up around the auto-parts business and has always had a love for cars — his parents joke his first word was “‘Vette”. Despite this, he wanted to pursue a career in sports writing but he ended up falling semi-accidentally into the automotive-journalism industry, first at Consumer Guide Automotive and later at Web2Carz.com. He also worked as an industry analyst at Mintel Group and freelanced for About.com, CarFax, Vehix.com, High Gear Media, Torque News, FutureCar.com, Cars.com, among others, and of course Vertical Scope sites such as AutoGuide.com, Off-Road.com, and HybridCars.com. He’s an urbanite and as such, doesn’t need a daily driver, but if he had one, it would be compact, sporty, and have a manual transmission.

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5 of 18 comments
  • Tassos Tassos on Sep 02, 2023

    Different day, same sheet.

    Obsolete, Overpriced, and Uninteresting to collect.

    Unsafe at any speed to drive (little PASSIVE safety, poor active safety).


    Another gem found, just for youuuuu, by 0.000 Tim.

    • See 1 previous
    • your underwear LOL ...


  • Jeff Jeff on Sep 05, 2023

    I have a stock 02 type-S in my garage that is way nicer albeit with more mileage. I still drive it a few times a week and it still makes me smile. I was recently offered $10K but there isn't anything as fun you could daily for that money.

    • Theflyersfan Theflyersfan on Sep 05, 2023

      That's awesome that you still have and drive yours. Keep the miles down and the condition good and that $10K offer will likely go way up in a few years. The only thing that I saw wear badly was the leather on the seats. Everything else held up great. Same experience? Even the original stock tires lasted a lot longer than they should, and the paint - sometimes a Honda issue with the darker colors? No problems. That, and the S2000, makes me wish that Honda didn't have to turbocharge everything because the thrill of the high redline and the scream of the engine combined with the vibrations in your feet...it's missed in a lot of today's cars that tend to feel more clinical...more sterile, perhaps. I can compare driving the NA Miata vs. the current ND MX-5. Sure I have more power, more safety gear, and even a little more room (but still no real interior storage), but I don't have the surgeon's feel steering of the NA and NB. And I can take an educated guess and say the same thing between the missed RSX Type-S and the current Integra. I've driven an Integra Type-R and the S2000 - the word "savage" comes to mind when it comes to how they like to be driven and what they give back, and how I wish Honda would give us one more car like that again.


  • Varezhka I have still yet to see a Malibu on the road that didn't have a rental sticker. So yeah, GM probably lost money on every one they sold but kept it to boost their CAFE numbers.I'm personally happy that I no longer have to dread being "upgraded" to a Maxima or a Malibu anymore. And thankfully Altima is also on its way out.
  • Tassos Under incompetent, affirmative action hire Mary Barra, GM has been shooting itself in the foot on a daily basis.Whether the Malibu cancellation has been one of these shootings is NOT obvious at all.GM should be run as a PROFITABLE BUSINESS and NOT as an outfit that satisfies everybody and his mother in law's pet preferences.IF the Malibu was UNPROFITABLE, it SHOULD be canceled.More generally, if its SEGMENT is Unprofitable, and HALF the makers cancel their midsize sedans, not only will it lead to the SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST ones, but the survivors will obviously be more profitable if the LOSERS were kept being produced and the SMALL PIE of midsize sedans would yield slim pickings for every participant.SO NO, I APPROVE of the demise of the unprofitable Malibu, and hope Nissan does the same to the Altima, Hyundai with the SOnata, Mazda with the Mazda 6, and as many others as it takes to make the REMAINING players, like the Excellent, sporty Accord and the Bulletproof Reliable, cheap to maintain CAMRY, more profitable and affordable.
  • GregLocock Car companies can only really sell cars that people who are new car buyers will pay a profitable price for. As it turns out fewer and fewer new car buyers want sedans. Large sedans can be nice to drive, certainly, but the number of new car buyers (the only ones that matter in this discussion) are prepared to sacrifice steering and handling for more obvious things like passenger and cargo space, or even some attempt at off roading. We know US new car buyers don't really care about handling because they fell for FWD in large cars.
  • Slavuta Why is everybody sweating? Like sedans? - go buy one. Better - 2. Let CRV/RAV rust on the dealer lot. I have 3 sedans on the driveway. My neighbor - 2. Neighbors on each of our other side - 8 SUVs.
  • Theflyersfan With sedans, especially, I wonder how many of those sales are to rental fleets. With the exception of the Civic and Accord, there are still rows of sedans mixed in with the RAV4s at every airport rental lot. I doubt the breakdown in sales is publicly published, so who knows... GM isn't out of the sedan business - Cadillac exists and I can't believe I'm typing this but they are actually decent - and I think they are making a huge mistake, especially if there's an extended oil price hike (cough...Iran...cough) and people want smaller and hybrids. But if one is only tied to the quarterly shareholder reports and not trends and the big picture, bad decisions like this get made.
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