Hondas: Half are great, Half are crap.

[BiB]

Most people are of the opinion that Hondas are great used cars. However myself and a friend have had only bad luck with ours!

Friend: '91 Civic with 85,000 miles on it. Over the next 2 years (and 35k miles) he spent $3k US in repairs on the thing! Sold it, hating it.

Me: '89 accord with 110,000 miles on it 6 months ago. It now has 117,000 miles and I've put an additional $1300 US in repairs into it since that time (brakes, ball joints, speakers, transmission, clutch). Selling it now, vowing never to buy a used vehicle again - transmission went this week, as well as the clutch. And then yesterday, one day after getting it back it refused to start...apparently a problem with the ignition/starter setup. I can make car payments on a new car for this!

Thankfully my mother didn't want me to increase my debt and thus has offered to lend me her '99 Subaru Impreza outback sports edition for a year - all I gotta pay is the insurance!!

BiB

 

[Mister T]

Amen

 

[403Forbidden]

the good honda cars are the ones with the stickers...and the extra lights

 

[BiB]

I must admit I was thinking about sticking in a VTEC engine, but the sticker was $20

 

[Triumph]

hahahaha! you also have to put a giant useless spoiler on the back. the bigger the better. that should fix your problems.

 

[Mday]

i thought you were talking about one car... half of it sucking, half not...

 

[apoppin]

Me too, I wasn't sure if you meant the top-half or the bottom half.

Actually, I have had two used Hondas. An '84 Accord and an '87 Civic. Both cars went above and beyond the call of duty and performed much longer (and cheaper) than expected. I guess it depends on the luck of the draw and how knowledgable about buying used cars you are. (I do all my own mechanical work and have been very lucky with all my used car purchases, so far.)

 

[Tominator]

<< Thankfully my mother didn't want me to increase my debt and thus has offered to lend me her '99 Subaru Impreza outback sports edition for a year - all I gotta pay is the insurance!! >>



Tell Mom that if you don't take that deal, I will!

 

[Don Vito Corleone]

I guess anything is pretty hit or miss, but Honda has one of the best track records around. Bummer about your experiences; it sounds as though those cars were not well-treated earlier in life. I have a '98 Accord V-6 EX which is nice, but I previously owned an '84 Accord with 206,000 miles that ran like a top for the year and a half I owned it.

 

[apoppin]

Most people are of the opinion that Hondas are great used cars.>>

Not really. The opinion is that Hondas are well-built and will run for a long time. However, any car that is abused (not kept to a maintanance schedule) will not be a great used car. The trick is to be able to spot signs of abuse when buying a used car and to know signs of potential problems.

Then again, the car you bought might have been built on a bad Monday or a hurry-up and go home Friday.

EDIT: Don't go calling &quot;speakers&quot; part of car repair. Make sure you remove them when you sell it.

You should have been able to tell the brakes were going bad in 7K miles (take off a wheel when you are inspecting for buying); transmission and clutch (hard test drive it and look for clutch slippage and transmission integrity, crisp shifting); ball joints (excessive noise or looseness when cornering).

I'm not saying it is your fault (ok, I am - sorry, don't mean to rub it in), but NEXT TIME (if the car is more than a cheap junker) have a mechanic check it out before you buy. If the seller doesn't agree - RUN away from the car.

 

[nickdakick]

Have had two Hondas so far CRX two seater convertible(don't know how it is called in US) and Civic 1.8 vti AeroDeck, no complaints so far.