Greetings from the Wet Coast of Canada on this fine sunny day. Well, it got dark at 4:30 pm, so it must be winter in these parts. This Christmas holiday, my wife Annie and I are planning a road trip to San Francisco, as much on the coast highway as possible. That is the best time of year as the weather is usually quite clear and there is no traffic to speak of. Naturally, my 2000 Acura TL would be an absolute riot to drive on the twisty sections and it just burns down the highway, especially on its new Michelin tires. So what’s the catch, here?
Well, I do love my Acura. It really isn’t worth a lot now, so I am planning to keep it as a survivor for as long as I can. It still looks and runs great, but a trip like that would put 4000 km on it. This is where this car above comes in. Last summer, while visiting my hometown in Gatineau, Quebec, I picked up a Taurus AWD, loaded, as a full sized car, at the Ottawa airport. It was a great big sled but it was really safe and secure and could hustle just fine for me. The Volvo heritage of this car was obvious, and in a good way. I can get a full sized car from Thrify for C$223 a week, including everything. The catch is I don’t know what car I get. I couldn’t drive that far in a Sonata, no way.
So, what should I do? Would it be best to go to the rental place and see what they try to foist upon me, or should I have fun wailing on my TL?
Image property of Bagel the Wonderdog
And of course, with the Acura comes Bagel the Wonderdog, the 13 pound mutt from the pound who now runs the lives of two adults.
By all means, take your Acura. The trip will be memorable, and every time you drive the car afterwards, you’ll relive the memories afresh.
The Acura, 100%. Rental cars have no soul, no matter how nice they are. Build the memories in your Acura like Ed stated.. plus you save an extra C$250! Spend it on something nice for your pup.
Nobody on their deathbed ever said: “I wish I hadn’t put so many
mileskilometers on that car.” Enjoy the TL, and the company of Bagel.Besides, no matter the premium level, sometimes you get a good rental car…and sometimes you get a rental car that smells like cigarettes and feet.
Take your Acura. You obviously enjoy driving it and, like you said, going to the rental counter is like playing roulette.
If Tyson Hugie can run his Acura for well over a half-million miles, a 4000 km trip is a walk in the park.
I agree with the others, take your Acura. Cars were meant to be driven; if something wears out it can be replaced. If nothing else Bagel will thank you.
If the Acura has no major issues, I would drive it. Unless my car is a piece of crap, driving a rental is usually much less satisfying than putting my automotive knowledge and upkeep to the test. I used to drive my $300 ’88 Volvo 240DL on long trips across the state pretty often and it was a hoot!
If I can drive an 18 year old Plymouth Voyager 5,200 miles across the United States in 3 weeks with only 3 minor issues you can drive a 14 year old Acura (which I assume you love) 3,000 miles on vacation. Other than some mountain passes the weather should be reasonable and just take steps to protect your Acura in San Francisco.
if the dog complicates the trip take the rental.
if you have time constraints, i.e. cannot afford a breakdown, take the rental.
Why take a rental? Have some pride in your nice car 😉
I think you should take the Acura, but independently of this quandry I will say that the Taurus looks nicer with the blue oval in a non-chrome grille. Why isn’t it available that way here in the US?
Ever the contrarian, I say get a rental. Why? For me, I enjoy the chance to experience something different. For a long vacation like this, you will obviously want to be picky. I would not want to make that trip in just anything. If you can get a rental that will give you a new experience at something fun, then go for it. For me, a rented V8 Mustang or 300C would be fun. For you, perhaps something else. If not, the Acura would seem like a great drive. I would not think that a long highway trip would be hard on the car.
I run into the same predicament every Christmas. I usually drive home (2500 trip), for 2 weeks, with my dogs.
Back when my old DD had 200k miles, I rented a car for the trip (2013 Escape) and it was a fantastic cruiser, and I paid $US 550 last time for 2 weeks, unlimited mileage. Not a bad deal, especially considering I can return it full of dog hair and muddy paw prints, and it’s someone else’s problem to clean it up…
I now lease a new Altima, and am allotted 12k miles a year. I’m usually under, but even if I figure every mile on my trip is an overage ($0.15/mi beyond 12k a year), it costs me only $375 to take the leased car, and it gets about 37mpg on the highway, better than anything I rent. I’ve used it for a few trips back home now, and generally love it. Efficient, quiet, great seats, my XM stations and iPod are already hooked up, etc.
I just priced a rental for the trip this year, (was considering bringing back some bigger items), and this year an Escape would be $800, a minivan $1150, or Chevy Traverse equivalent for $1,475. So I am sticking with the Altima again…
Unless you have a museum piece drive your car if you own it enjoy it I have taken mine on vacation trips for years and enjoyed each one even thru minor rest and repair stops these include 2 1963 Lemans conv., a 1964 Mercury Montclair, 2 1986 Grand Prix and this years model 1975 Grand Prix LJ.
Len, you don’t say how many km’s on the Acura. If it’s 200,000 or more I say leave it at home. Our low dollar and a major breakdown in the US could really ruin your vacation. The price quoted for your rental is almost unbelievable. Go for it, the Taurus is a great highway car especially on flat prairie highways. Perhaps no so much driving to San Francisco which we did on our honeymoon in my 1979 Mustang Cobra (Turbo).
If the Acura means as that much to you there are plenty of nice trips in BC and Alberta you can take in the car and not worry about a breakdown far from home.
My Acura has 123,000 km on it, so it is still low, and 200,000 km is nothing for one of these. The car has absolutely no issues.
He also doesn’t say the status of his transmission. With a 2000 TL there are 3 levels: hasn’t failed yet, slowly failing, and rebuilt.
The issue has been widely addressed online, and by Consumer Reports, and required Acura to extend the warranty on them (in the US only…).
I’ve had 3 friends and family members with this gen TL, and 100% of them have had complete transmission failures. They’re not AS failure prone as the Odyssey (where I think the failure rate was actually more than 1:1, by the time they factored all the vans requiring 3 and 4 transmissions).
While they’re great cars otherwise, that’s not the sort of thing you’d want to happen on a road trip in a foreign country,
I’ve been informed of this many times. In four years and 60,000 km, no issues.
I’ve got nothing against the TL’s, I actually advised a friend to buy one recently as it was a good deal. I did give him that disclaimer on the transmission, and sure enough, it failed about 8 months after he bought it. Consumer Reports did give the 2000 TL a “blacklist,” just for the high frequency of failures with the transmission. It’s not a “fatal” issue, the fix is known and the TL’s seem to hold up fine once rebuilt, it’s just where you are when the failure happens…
If I was worried about a bad starter, or some other 1 day repair, that’d be one thing. But if the transmission goes on a road trip, you’re either stuck somewhere for a week, or selling a broken car and flying home. Big $$$
Maybe I’m just not as adventurous in my old age, but I had my old car in college break down in Ontario (I live 1000’s of miles away in the US), and it was a less than pleasant experience. The mechanic tried to take advantage of the situation, and I ended up nursing the car back across the border to the US, and getting it fixed there.
The transmission was replaced under warranty in 2005 and the original owner was elderly. There’s nothing wrong with it. I’m not hard on the car (no point in Vancouver traffic) and the atf was recently changed.
I paid top dollar for this car and was soundly ridiculed here for it. Turns out I was correct. Indeed, you get what you pay for.
Ah, well, there you go, I had assumed in the previous posts you were on an untouched original transmission. Like I said, once fixed/replaced, they seem to hold up with no issues.
If you’d said you were considering buying a low mileage 2000 TL, and that the transmission was replaced by Honda with the original owner, I’d have definitely said go ahead and buy it.
With that being said, then I wouldn’t be concerned with taking it.
Take the Acura. When I go on a long road trip, I take not the 2011 Mini Cooper with 13,000 miles on it, but the 150K mile Subaru. It fits like a comfortable pair of shoes and has never let me down. Why save the car you like for short commutes you won’t remember?
That said, my usual go-to rental car is the Sonata–I think I’ve had eight of them on business trips in the past couple of years. Nothing fancy, but I’m familiar enough with them that I don’t have to relearn anything when I hop in, and they usually have Sirius/XM. 😉
Take the Acura, unless it has something wrong with it. I drove our 1997 Odyssey coast to coast and back with no problem (in 2011). Cars like being on the road.
I’ll vote for a rental. Rather than putting long mileage on your personal car, which you plan on keeping for a long time, you get to beat somebody else’s car. The trick, if possible, is to specify what you will NOT accept within a given class. At least that always has worked for me with the local Enterprise franchise across the street from my place of employment.
I always did this for the annual Bangor, ME trip to see my then in-laws during my former marriage. Got to drive a few different cars I would never have owned, and was usually happy with the result. Until the one time I went to Hertz who stuck me with a Grand Marquis instead of the big Buick I was promised.
That’s the trip where I learned that anyone who professes Panther Love is extremely delusional.
Oh I wouldn’t poo-poo a big luxo V-8 car for such a trip. I have a Grand Marquis that would float along the highway providing hours of land yacht driving pleasure.
No good on twisty, winding roads.
Absolutely take the Acura! That is a great road car. Heck, my 1999 Accord EX which shares the platform with your TL is still a great road car, 15 years and 170,000 miles later! Unless you know of an issue which may cause you a breakdown, I wouldn’t hesitate taking that TL anywhere you go. I recently had my timing belt done and new belts/hoses were all replaced, so if I wanted to go across the country I know that Accord would make it no problem. Plus think of the memories you will have – a rental car will soon be forgotten but the TL will linger on forever!
It is indeed a beautiful road car, much under-rated.
New tires?
Is your car currently on winter tires? I’d be tempted to say, if you get unlimited mileage on the rental car, possible better gas mileage and a cheap price, it might be cheaper to get the rental.
The last time I inquired about that, some Canadian rental companies didn’t offer unlimited mileage if you crossed the US border unless you rented the vehicle at the airport (and that was a bit more expensive). Also, if you have a credit card that covers the extra insurance they often want you to pay for, it might be a good deal. Adding 3000 highway miles in warmer weather to a good set of winter tires will add a lot of wear to them! I know they are now mandatory in Quebec but I don’t know about other provinces (I see that you don’t live here anymore, I wish I could afford moving out of here too!)…
With an older vehicle, I don’t like to drive too far out of the range that my CAA/AAA card provides me! I have a 2000 Accord that I wouldn’t drive out of my driveway (a friend had it towed there a year ago!) but your Acura is certainly in better shape!
Take the Acura. It sounds like you keep that car in top condition so it’s ready to go. For an enthusiast the vehicle is a big part of the road trip equation. Why not build the memories with the car you love? I’ve driven my 96 Mustang GT convert (purchased used) all over the state and it’s approaching 200 thousand miles.
It is in top condition, but I’ve really not done anything to keep it that way. It’s just nothing has broken. Nada, zilch.
If you take the Acura, just make sure you have CAA or some other roadside assistance at the ready.
It’s the sort of drive the Acura was made for!
BUT: if you do decide on a rental car, many rental agencies (at least here in the US) will allow you to pick a specific make/model when making a web reservation. You may not get as good a deal as a generic “premium” selection, but it could be worth a little extra cash if you get to take a long drive in a car that interests you.
I’m rather conservative about this situation. If your car breaks on the road, who is doing the repair, and where and at what cost? Also, what are you going to do with your car once you get to SF. If you are visiting the Bay Area that’s one thing, but if you are going to the City of San Francisco, well, I didn’t even like taking my beater over there. How about flying in one direction and driving a rental the other?
If the car breaks, it will be fixed. That’s not an issue.
The hotel I’ve booked has secured parking for, get this, $40 a day.
Besides, I’m insured to the hilt.
Len, have a great trip. Enjoy your car!
Unless you’re concerned with the mileage (or you say kilometerage in Canada?) put on your car, take the Acura. It’ll be loads more fun than anything the rental agencies have on their lots.
I savor any chance I get to take a long trip in my Acura TSX.
In New Zealand I drive a 998cc 1967 Sunbeam Imp Sport with 175,000 miles on the clock, it is my daily runner. A decent service check before any trip is usually quite enough for trouble free motoring. A couple of friends drove a similar car from Johanneburg to Coventry last year and another from Vladivostock to Perth Scotland. If old cars can do that then your ‘modern’ should be Ok, if not the quality and reliability of newer cars needs serious attention.
I frequently have this same quandary. I can drive my own vehicle 800 miles every two months, or I could rent. My personal vehicle has about 215,000 miles and while it is a great car it isn’t the absolute best highway cruiser. It is nimble and a good runner on the twisties, though.
Consider the cost per mile. At 56 cents a mile, you may be better off renting a car, if your rental rates are reasonable. You might get a good rental, or you might get a crummy one – but the change in vehicles is always enlightening. It tells you a lot about what you drive and your own preferences.
Will the rental be more fun than what you drive? Probably not. Will it be interesting to try something new? Sure.
I’d be inclined to think a little more about the rental option before dismissing the idea.
Firstly, driving an essentially new car on a long trip could be fun. Cars have improved in some respects over the years – quietness, comfort, technology – and a new car will likely get much better gas mileage too.
Secondly, even though it’s mostly highway miles, things can unexpectedly go wrong with an older car. If they do, your repair options will be more limited and time inconvenience will be more of an issue. $223 doesn’t go far in a repair shop.
One caveat – check the mileage policy on the rental. My experience renting in Vancouver (Enterprise usually) is that ‘unlimited mileage’ may only apply to travel within BC, WA & maybe OR.
Regardless, enjoy. I travelled all the way down the coast to Mexico this fall and it’s a great trip. Don’t forget to stop, frequently 🙂
I’ve checked. Thrifty is definitely unlimited km and ok out of province.
Highway miles really aren’t that bad anyway, so if you don’t have any reliability concerns, I’d say take the Acura. (Having roadside assistance would be a good idea, but check into the possibilty of getting it through your insurance co. as well as CAA. If CAA doesn’t cover you in the US, it’s not much good for this trip!)
You do get the chance to try something new with a rental, but in my experience, it’s not likely to be something you’ll find particularly exciting/interesting. I’ve only ever had two rentals that were actually enjoyable cars–an ’06 Maxima (had that one for two weeks after my car was totaled, that was actually pretty nice) and a ’13 Camaro convertible for a trip to the Florida keys. Everything else has been pretty vanilla.
Just don’t do anything stupid, whichever car you drive. Every year, too many “cars that wrre meant to be driven” on California Route 1 in my county wind up on an off-road excursion of the worst kind. The kind you can’t fix no matter what.
Happens more often to Porsches than to 1962 Ford Fairlanes with a dented hood, I guarantee.
If you don’t trust your DD for this trip, repair or replace it now .
Have a great trip ! .
-Nate
I certainly trust it. It’s been as reliable as a rock.
I wimped out earlier this year and rented a car for a trip around Virginia. Enterprise gave me a brand new Hyundai – 25 miles on the odometer – and it was a treat to drive. It was also 80 bucks for 5 days, due to an internet deal, and add 30 for the insurance and it still wasn’t bad.
It comes down to peace of mind and cash flow. If you can swing the rental it might be worth it, just so you’re not chunking up added miles on a car you love or risking a breakdown.
take the Acura. Make sure it is featured in a few photos along the way and then you can make a “memo-book” about your trip. When you’re grey and old you can tell your grandkids about the memorable road trip.
I’ve done that with my beloved Subaru. It’s a nice thing to have on your bookshelf!
I drove an 18 year old Dart from Phila to Bamff, down to Denver, than back home. It had a lot of modifications like Rack and pinion steering, disc brakes, Mcpherson struts, and a big old 360 4 bbl. I took it everywhere, up mountains that the dirt bikers said that jeeps wouldn’t go. I put 498,000 miles on it. I would have kept it, but I was tired of re doing large sections of sheet metal. Take the Acura, as long as you can fix it yourself.
I seriously fail to understand what is so special in a 4000 km distance in this time and age. You are not driving a Ford T.
So unless you really want to try something new, take you TL by all means.
I am struggling with something similar for a trip in Feb. If I were you I would take the TL. The point of having a car like that is to enjoy it and what better way than a trip down the coast?
Besides those will be easy miles, it’s not like you’re going to make it a DD for a 60 mile commute each day. That would be hard on the car. Actually any commute that involves a parking lot would be hard on a car you care about.
“It’s not like you’re going to make it a DD for a 60 mile commute each day. That would be hard on the car.”
Apparently my dad’s roughly 120 mile round trip commute is wreaking havoc on his car.
The only reasons I could see to rent a car are, you don’t trust your car, you need something bigger to carry everything that you plan on taking or bringing back, or you want the false sense of security of an AWD/4WD.
Personally I’d recommend taking the coast only one way, the way down. Sorry to burst your bubble but half the time or more you’ll either be going through towns/areas with low speed limits or stuck behind some guy in his old motorhome or pickup lumbering along.
Another reason to take your car is to avoid having to buy tire chains for a vehicle you do not own. By law in the winter months you must carry chains in the vehicle through the OR and CA mountain passes. Now if you do have an AWD/4WD you can keep going with approved traction tires (snow flake on the mountain) most of the time, however they can require you to chain up with a 4wd. They can stop you and ask you to prove that you have chains and if you don’t you can get a hefty fine.
Sounds like the Acura’s in great shape, and you enjoy it, so go for it!
3,000 miles is like what? Half of the distance between oil changes?
I don’t see any reason not to take the Acura. In fact, it sounds like you enjoy the car, so that’s even more of a reason to take it. With only 123,000 kms, it’d be good to get some nice highway miles under the belt (our 2010 already is pushing 140K kms). Several years ago when I drove across Western Canada, we used a 92 Caprice with 260,000+ kms on it at the time. It ran through the mountains with easy and never gave a lick of trouble. Like your car it was well maintained and cared for, so I never gave it a second thought.
And if your other choice is a later model Taurus, that’s even more reason to take the Acura. I recently had one on a work trip. Soft suspension, poor transmission, medicore fuel economy, poor visibility. Luckily my trip was only about 700 kms round, more than enough time in a Taurus. I’d take a TL over a Taurus any day of the week.
I took my 1965 Chrysler 300L hardtop on a road trip to southern California, and it simply wouldn’t have been the same if I’d used one of the Accords, let alone something I picked up at a rental counter.
Wife and I did our honeymoon from San Diego to Seattle in a rental. We chose rental over my 300,000 mile Volvo because we only had a week to do it, and wanted to make the trip as trouble-free as humanly possible.
As much as I love my Volvo, I didn’t want the outside chance of a trip-interruption that may or may not cost a few hundred dollars and kill a day that we were intending to spend lounging around in Monterey, or some other scenic location along the way. The trip was about the (multiple) destinations vs. the drive itself.
Additionally, there were dozens of miles of dirt roads we wanted to explore along the way, and my lowered 2″, 17″ wheel and 40 sidewall tire wearing Volvo had already proven itself worthless on anything but flat pavement.
If I had to do it all over again, I’d take the Volvo, but plan for a week’s worth of “what-if’s” en-route and fill the boot with spares and tools.
Quitter .
=8-) .
Some years back I took SWMBO’s beloved white 1982 240D Mercedes to Death Valley , my back had been shattered by a gypsy Cab so I wasn’t up to riding my Moto this time out ~
I was having a grand old time , wheezed on out there in the 125* F heat , R-12 AC keeping me cool inside at about 65* F , I chugged over Daylight Pass on my way to lunch , stopped for some Vintage Moto Photos and just as I pulled back onto the road to head up to Rhyolite , Nev. (google it , nice but end of the earth) , the temperature gauge began to climb rapidly so I shut it off to discover the inner water pump housing had a nice little 3MM X 15MM long hole ripped in it thanx to me not taking proper care of the cooling system ~ a bit of solder bloom broke loose and the water pump’s impeller peeled it open like a sardine can ~ I really shoulda saved the coiled up bit of alloy I found but back to the story , it turned out to be a $2,500.00 water pump job on a worthless old car , in the middle of Summer , 3/4 of a State away…..
Notice I am not whining nor crying , it happens , I dealt with it and the car now has 340,XXX miles in it and is still going strong , I never hesitate to load it fully , hop in and roar off into the unknown .
Life is too damn short to worry about the bullshit , go and have a merry old time , if your new car breaks down , toss a match on it and buy a better one with the insurance money or rent a trailer and go get it , whatever floats your boat .
-Nate
If you have the time and the “what-if” money, absolutely take your own car.
If you’re on a time/$$ budget (our entire honeymoon cost less than $1000), take the rental.
Whichever you choose, my only recommendation is for you to continue your journey south of San Francisco to Big Sur, stopping in Monterey along the way. In my opinion it’s more beautiful than anything between Seattle and San Francisco.
I concur.
Take time to see some fabulous scenery south of SF.
“If you have the time and the “what-if” money, absolutely take your own car.”
Well no ;
It beat the living hell out of my budget but what the hell ~ you only live once , might as well have fun .
Some here would prolly sh*t if they’d taken the cross country trips in junkers I have .
I just can’t stay home and don’t really have the $ for rentals etc plus , it’s interesting when your 1937 Harley-Davison EL KnuckleHead seizes up a couple hundred Klicks North of the El Salvador border….
I made it back to Guatemala City alive so all’s well , right ? .
-Nate
The Acura. Unless there’s some compelling mechanical issue, you both need the trip….
It has taken me a little while to post the results of my Acura road trip, and the report is very simple: the car was fantastic. Smooth, comfortable, plenty of power, quiet, good fuel consumption and best of all, invisible. On the way down, the weather was horrible, so we didn’t go on the coast until Eureka. It absolutely poured through the redwood forest, which I went through after dark. This is where I really appreciated the Bi-Xenon headlights that are standard on the TL, and the Michelin MXV4 V rated tires, which are superb.
Going through northern California on US 101 was great and the weather good, so the scenery was lovely. I didn’t push it much along here, as I didn’t want to get nailed. I believe that it’s better to stay in the car longer and avoid breaks that to drive crazy fast. Traffic in SF was awful, and the car was securely parked the whole time.
The return drive was in two legs, one to Eugene OR, and the next back to Vancouver. Most of it was in I-5, so easy to make good time. I kept it at 75-80 mph the whole time, which was traffic flow in California. Drivers in Oregon suck, by they, left lane bandits all the way.
Like I said, the car was flawless the whole way and took whatever was tossed at it, safely and unwavering. It tracks better than anything I have ever driven and it is about as reliable as an anvil. The interior is spiffy and very comfortable, too. It was not a cheap used car when I got it four years ago, but now that I have doubled the km, I know it was worth it.
Glad to hear that your trip went well.
See ? Tolja so……
-Nate
Good to hear you enjoyed the trip. Along the U.S. west coast with the right car it’s a blast.
Now that our dollar has sunk further it appears this summer’s road trips will be on our side of the border.