They are accurate.
The CHNC-1 came after the 2, it was equipped with the Siemens 810T control, except in rare cases.
The CHNC-2 has a Fanuc control, OT being common, but other versions too.
The CHNC-3 was Fanuc and had twice as fast rapids as the 1/2.
They are oil class machines, a smog hog is necessary if you run them hard. If you run things in the range where oil doesn't smoke, then the tools last a long time, but you might be giving up production.
Hardinge produced a later CHNC that used the same turrets as the early ones, these have a servo turret.
Speaking of turrets, they ALL have turret and pneumatic problems, just a matter of when the last time the turret was rebuilt, collet closer was rebuilt, and when the valves were replaced. The turret and closer are air operated. The cutoff slide is air over hydraulic. The parts catcher is pneumatic.
They use 5 CFM of air nominally, much more if the seals are leaking.
They have 10HP and 200IPM rapids on X, 400IPM on Z. The cross slide has 6 inches of travel, do with it what you want.
Tooling is less expensive than other lathes, and lots of it is available on eBay.
The Siemens control isn't bad, just different. The Siemens drives and motors suck.
It wasn't uncommon to upgrade the motors and drives to BLDC, these were made by an outfit in the midwest and Hardinge offered the upgrade for $9200 a few years back. I did it myself with aftermarket parts and got screwed on defective servo drives.