2023 Acura Integra: What to check before buying

The wheel sticks or feels notchy, mostly at highway speeds. Small lane corrections take extra force, then the wheel lets go suddenly, which makes overcorrection easy. Reports place the onset between 6,500 and 18,000 miles, and it tends to worsen over time, sometimes appearing after 15 minutes of steady driving. Two of the 186 complaints involve crashes, including a wheel that kept turning a full 360 degrees on a ramp. Dealers often replace the steering rack or gearbox, but owners describe month-long parts waits, dealers with no fix, and an off-center wheel after repair.

The car shuts off completely without warning, with the engine and electronics going dead together, and it can be slow to restart. The report describing this involves a CVT car near 10k miles that has done it repeatedly with no warning light. Other reports describe the speakers going silent while the display keeps working, which owners link to the amplifier, and a cold-weather squeal when reversing that a dealer traced to the vehicle stability assist and called normal.

In both complaints, the air bags fail to deploy in a serious crash, and the two reports together list 3 injuries. One describes a hard rear impact that totaled the car. The other describes a direct hit to the driver's door. In that case a body shop found no crash codes stored and seat belts that did not lock. Only two reports exist, but both involve a crash with injuries.

Automatic braking engages hard at freeway speeds with no vehicle close ahead. In these reports the car drops from 75 mph to almost 40 mph, and following traffic has to swerve. Both complaints describe this phantom braking with cruise control engaged. One also reports lane-keeping assist steering the car toward the edge of the lane. Neither report describes a crash, but the sudden slowdowns put the car at risk of being rear-ended.

Brake complaints are few and describe two different symptoms. In one, the pedal travels almost to the floor before the brakes grab, on a car with only 7,500 miles. In the other, the brakes make a noise every time they are applied, and several dealer visits have not fixed it. Neither report mentions a crash.

The engine shuts off without warning and takes the electrical system with it. One manual-transmission owner reports this 6 times, each when pulling away from a complete stop, and the car takes a while to restart. A separate report describes a manual shifter so stiff it would not go into gear even with the clutch fully pressed, which left the car stranded in traffic. Neither owner saw a warning light.