1st of all slap ur friend upside the head :slap: . all honda engines are made to last, they have great internals and will run forever as long as properly maintained,

now on the car ur planning on getting id say definitely have the car checked b4 buying it, have them check the auto cable make sure that it isnt stopping u from going into other gears, possibly have them lower the price enough to compensate for a new or rebuilt tranny, 300-400 dollars for a new one, to make sure it'll last years to come. but honda engines are very well built ive had a total of 4 civic crx's 2 of which had over 180,000 miles on them, my current one has 160k but even if u need to replace the engine it isnt expensive, what price are u looking at?