In December of 1988 I got a call from a law school classmate. Karl and his wife wanted to have me over for dinner one evening. “Oh, would it be a problem if Mary invited one of her friends? ” He said something about how they were trying to fit in as many visits with friends for the holidays as they could, so, efficiency. Sure, I replied, and gave it not another thought.
That had been a busy month. I had come off of doing two jury trials in a three week span of time and was happy for things to slow down as Christmas approached. On December 19th I arrived at my friends’ house for dinner. Mary’s friend turned out to be much more attractive and interesting than I had been expecting. An enjoyable evening was had, and as we left the house together, the new girl (Marianne) pointed out her new car.
She was quite proud of it. It was the first “nice” car she had ever owned. I could see that it was a nice-enough dark color, but the nearby street light did not offer much chance to take it in. No matter, because once you have seen one Honda Accord you have seen them all. This thought was kept inside, so as to not make me sound like an insensitive jerk – which can be an occupational hazard for someone in my line of work. But really, to a guy who had grown up surrounded by Oldsmobile Cutlasses, another boring middle-America, middle-size middlemobile was the last thing I had any interest in.
She probably had similar thoughts of automotive disinterest when we went out for a date in my ’66 Plymouth Fury III. That bit of quirkiness in my personality that would lead a young lawyer to be driving a 20+ year old Plymouth sedan did not seem to bother her at all. Things progressed and I found myself spending a lot more time around that Honda Accord (and its delightful owner) than I had expected to.
I was pretty familiar with the Accord. They had been the popular choice of classmates after we got law degrees and first jobs – although not for me because I had been drawn to something more interesting. I remember being a little put off by the 1986 restyle, but got used to them after one showed up at my office.
My law firm had four partners – two were older (Wendell and Bob) and each drove a Cadillac. Bob had grown up quite poor, and was fortunate to have been a really good basketball player. He went to college on a basketball scholarship and, after graduating about 1951, played professional basketball for a season or two.
Bob once told me how he hated pro ball – there was no money in it then, and he was a competitive guy surrounded by others who played like it was just a job. He joined the marines, then sold Solo Cups, became an insurance claims adjuster, and finally went to law school at nights with a young family at home. He was one of the hardest working men I ever knew and after about 20 years in practice, finally treated himself to that Cadillac he had grown up wanting. Bob’s Cadillac was a 1981 Sedan DeVille with the troublesome V-8-6-4 cylinder deactivation system. He never admitted it to me, but Bob’s wife once told me that he had been extremely disappointed with it – not that particular car’s well-known weaknesses, but with the whole “Cadillac Mystique”. He felt that there “was no there there.”
In 1986, Bob could have written a check for any car he wanted, and he traded that Cadillac on an ’86 Accord, the first year of that generation. It was a nicely done car. I did not find it extraordinarily interesting, but I spent enough time in it to conclude that it had been executed in a highly competent way and was far advanced from the Hondas I had been around a decade earlier. Bob must have been satisfied because he drove Honda Accords for the rest of his life.
By late 1988 and with my exposure to Bob’s car, I thought I knew all there was to know about Accords – so Marianne’s Accord was not that interesting. It was an attractive darker blu-ish gray color and the blue interior was a very nice place to spend time. It was comfortable, and we would drive it when hot weather made my Plymouth a less attractive proposition. I became quite comfortable in the Accord, and it slowly wormed its way into my good graces.
I remember being a little surprised when I learned that she had never had a single repair or warranty adjustment on the car in its first several months. That had not been my new-car experience at all. But then 80’s Hondas were not 80’s Volkswagens. I also remembered in reading car rags at the time that a 1986 Accord had better objective performance numbers than my former VW GTI, which had received so much applause from the automotive press. I learned firsthand how the Honda was like one of those highly skilled people who doesn’t brag about his abilities, but just goes quietly about his business with superior results to many others who have better PR.
The Honda almost didn’t make it to our marriage because of a nasty hail storm. Marianne was sick about the hundreds of dents all over her car. It did not help that I was the one who talked her into driving to my house that particular evening instead of going to pick her up (and thus removing the Honda from its parking shelter). It also did not help that my ’66 Plymouth, parked next to it, had nary a blemish after the storm. I went with her to several dealers looking at potential replacements, but in the end it was decided to take the insurance check and keep the dents. From then on, it was always easy to identify our heavily dimpled Accord among the many others.
I remember one day in the late 70’s. I was a teen and found myself driving my step-mom’s ’74 Cutlass Supreme. It was still fairly new then, and I remember thinking: this must be what it’s like to be a grown-up. I got that same feeling in the Accord. By 1992 I had passed my 30th birthday, had a wife, a kid, a house, something like 5 cars, a pilot’s license (albeit an inactive one) a career and all the rest. I guess there was no putting it off, I was a grown-up.
The Accord turned out to be a keeper. Our first baby came home from the hospital in it, it took us on many trips, and never gave us a moment’s trouble. That oldest son took an early interest in cars and, just as it had been with me and my mother’s Oldsmobiles, he was excited about every one he rode in – except one. His mom’s Accord was evidently the boring Oldsmobile of the 90’s. Except that it was far better than any 90’s Oldsmobile. And in a real change-up in my life, the Accord stayed around long enough to make the transition from being the “good car” to being the second car (also spelled “my car”).
The Accord taught me one really interesting lesson. When it came time for brakes, I knew a good independent shop by then (assuredly not the one that had worked on my New Yorker) and saw no reason to go to the dealer. A few months after that brake job, the pedal developed a nasty pulsation. We lived with it for awhile, and I became convinced that the rotors had warped. We had the car in to the Honda Dealer for something I don’t remember, likely a minor recall, and I mentioned the brakes to the service advisor. She dismissively quipped that “it’s probably because they aren’t Honda brakes” and said they’d take a look.
“What a stupid thing to say” I thought. It was surely warped rotors and aftermarket brake pads could not possibly have caused that. When I picked the car up, the advisor said “It was just the pads. We put Honda pads on it. The rotors were fine.” She was right. That car stopped as smooth as glass from then on. I wish I understood more about that, but this would not be the last time I tested this wisdom and had it proved to me that there was something about Honda brake rotors that was very sensitive to the choice of brake pads.
I learned one other lesson which involved batteries. This is not restricted to Honda, but I learned that my old experience with batteries had become obsolete. I had spent many a year with older cars and had developed an ear for when a battery needed to be replaced because of slow cranking. One day Marianne drove me to some outpatient surgery, then brought me home. She needed to go to the pharmacy and the Accord, which had never given the least hint of a weak battery, was dead, dead, dead. But replacing an OEM battery at about 4 years was nothing to really get out of joint over.
We put many thousands of miles on the Accord, and it eventually earned the award as the best car I could ever recall from any part of my extended family, including the sainted ’64 Cutlass I had grown up in. It carried us (and eventually more than us) to several states and never once gave us any concern beyond tires, brakes, a battery, and finally an exhaust system. As I went through a handful of other daily drivers for myself, the Accord remained a constant in our life as the go-to car for almost any occasion.
That Accord was actually an excellent car for long-distance travel. The seats were comfortable for long distances, and the car was reasonably quiet. It tracked straight and required very little steering correction. And once it was up to speed, the engine had plenty of power for flatland cruising. And Honda’s method of selling the different trim levels with pre-packaged equipment combinations was well thought out, with our LX being the perfect middle ground between the somewhat sparse DX and the super fancy LXi, with its alloy wheels and sunroof.
My only real gripe with the Accord was the combination of 4 cylinders and an automatic transmission. It was at least a 4 speed automatic with an overdrive, and it was quite a durable design, but it was still a 4 cylinder/automatic car – a configuration I had scrupulously avoided in my life. Marianne had driven nothing but sticks before the Accord, and only bought the automatic because she had developed a shoulder problem. That car would have been a complete and total delight with a 5 speed stick, but that was not what she had chosen. Once the Accord became “mine”, I was prepared to spend the next several years listening to a drone that was only slightly less annoying than the drone every other four made as it churned through a torque converter. But fate intervened again.
Our Accord had a difficult time with weather. The hail storm had given it the finish of a blue golf ball, but that would not be the last storm to batter the Honda. In the summer of 1995 I was driving our new primary car through an initial shake-down period. Marianne was happy to drive the Accord, which by now needed to accommodate two child seats in the back. She had taken the boys with her on an errand and the weather had been fine. But on the way home, the clouds opened and the rains came forth, as in Genesis. God may have seen that it was good, but for a certain Honda Accord it was not.
Marianne was driving through a neighborhood that abutted ours when she saw the water began to rise in the street. She was doing fine until another car tried to blast through and then stalled in the fast-rising water. The other car’s wake caused the Accord to stall too. As the water continued to rise, Marianne got the driver’s window down and (several months pregnant with our third youngster) did a NASCAR exit through the drivers window before pulling the two little ones (ages 1 and 3) out of the back seat.
Our insurance company sent the car to its chosen shop, which kept the car for two or three weeks as it was dried out. We got it back, but both of us were uneasy. Marianne was convinced that the car’s air conditioner was not what it had been previously. And I knew how many seals, electrical connections and other things had been submerged and was far from certain that the insurance-arranged blow-dry had solved all of the potential problems. The car was still at under 100,000 miles, but surely danger lurked in many hidden places. We thought about it and agreed that we should sell the faithful 7-year-old Accord.
We listed the Accord for a private sale. The hail damage was there for all to see and I told the guy who came to look at it about the flood/dry-out. He bought it on the spot. For my asking price. Marianne had absorbed prior lessons from watching me bargain on cars, and said “You didn’t ask enough.” She was right. And I think I may have also been wrong about the car itself because I saw our Titleist-finish Accord running around our part of the city for several years thereafter.
This and the opening photo are the only ones I seem to have of our Accord – and both of them were taken by my mother during visits home.
Marianne was sorrier to see it go than I was, because she had been the first one to adopt it from its litter and bring it home. I believe that there may have even been a few tears. I did not have that same emotional attachment, but I knew that it had been a really, really good car that forever changed my perspective on Japanese cars. Everything about it was thoughtfully designed in a way that seemed, well, foreign to most US manufacturers. Everyone says the generation that followed was the best Accord of them all, but I always found it a little dulled down in its styling, which lacked the crispness of our car. I might have felt differently once the ’88 started to rust, as they all eventually did.
I remembered the ’74-75 Civics my mother got as service loaners from her Pontiac dealer and the ’76 Civic wagon we got while the body on Mom’s Luxury LeMans was being repaired due to the combination of my youthful stupidity and a fire hydrant. It hit me that I had been on almost the ground floor of Honda in the US just as I had been on the ground floor of the Oldsmobile Cutlass phenomenon that started with out 1961 F-85 wagon. Our Accord was Honda all grown up. Very few cars are the total package, in looks, utility, comfort, quality and reliability. That Accord was probably the first I had ever encountered that checked every one of those boxes.
For most of us, when we marry a spouse, we marry a car too. In 1958, my father married a 1953 Chevrolet 210 and my mother married a 1957 Buick. None of those marriages (whether to cars or each other) had staying power. In both cars and in a spouse, I married extremely well. I have owned other cars I loved more, but never one I respected more. The Accord was the constant that saw me slowly morph from a single guy into a husband and a dad with a growing family. The only thing that turned out to be more durable than that Accord was the marriage that brought it into my life – that one is still going strong.
Great story; so many lessons encountered and learned.
I’ll pick two.
First lesson: “I married extremely well…”
The sheer life-long joy of marrying well and having an intact family is a blessing that you are wise enough to appreciate. My neighbors have a brother living with them and I see his two young children playing outside every other weekend. The sight of these innocent children navigating their way through a divorce makes me want to cry. I shared parenting responsibilities after two divorces and can say with conviction, a split family is hardly ever, probably never, beneficial for the children. (Unless of course one of the parents is completely incapable of good parenting behavior.)
Second lesson: “ Bob must have been satisfied because he drove Honda Accords for the rest of his life… .
There’s a growing sense (perhaps political, perhaps not) that Honda/Toyota (and other Asian makers) proselytizers are not properly loyal in these difficult global market times to the good old USA big three makers.
Or, that perhaps they were once right, but now it’s an even playing field. Well… maybe they have a point.
We recently put a good deal of money into Debbie’s 2005 Element on major suspension components, a full exhaust system, all new brakes, Michelin Defender tires, and an alternator, and it only has (about) 140,000 miles. “What’s so great about that?” some say, “… our Suburban has 200,000 miles with no issues at all”. They may indeed have a good point, but that little silver over blue truck rides like new (maybe the springs are a tad stiff) and I recently unloaded many bags of garden gravel that she was driving around town with for a couple of days.
I gave all three USA car makes many (many) chances to win my heart. Only my first gen PT Cruiser came close, and Chrysler cheapened them down under Daimler ownership.
Now, one has to ask: Is JPC a true Honda (or other top tier Asian car) convert, or will he be seduced by the dark side?
RL, I will agree with you on divorce and children. Unlike most of my age group, I grew up as a child of divorce and have been heartsick to watch that social contagion grow ever more common. It has a deep, deep affect on children, even in the best circumstances (which would probably include my own). My parents were both financially secure and, while they did not get along well at all, each lived good lives. My father’s remarriage added some wonderful people to my family, so I am not saying that there were not positives. But I still envy those who grew up in an intact family.
As for your Element, I think I would have put the money into it too. The mileage is not that high, but the car is approaching 20 years old. I have spent much time in some of the US’s better vehicles, and it is my suspicion that it is the rare Suburban owner who can go 17 years/140k with the maintenance record you racked up.
As for your last question, that plotline has a few twists and turns in it that will play out over the next several weeks.
My mother was mentally ill, and when I was 6 my psychiatrist (yes, I was seeing a psychiatrist at 6) told my father he must divorce her for my well-being. At least there hadn’t been anything comparable to Annie dumping the saucepan of hot rice over you. If it sounds as if your story has resonated with me, it has! My mother at least recognized that she wasn’t up to being a parent, didn’t contest the divorce, didn’t fight for custody.
My father used to tell me that I was with him because fathers had started out as boys and therefore were best equipped to raise boys. Of course he wasn’t going to say, “You live with me because your mother is a flake.” No doubt he would have had a diplomatic explanation if I’d been a girl.
Some years ago I read an editorial piece on the pros and cons of divorce, and the author made a very good point: Don’t compare the children of divorce to the children of healthy marriages. Compare them to the children of terrible marriages that nevertheless continue.
I would never suggest that parents stay together in a situation such as yours where mental illness, substance abuse or violence is a factor. And you were surely better off than if your parents had remained together.
However, in my experience this does not describe most divorces, which are more commonly about “I think I would be happier with someone else than with you.” Parents can rationalize that they do it for the children, but pulling the trapdoor out from under the kids and destroying the only thing they have ever known as a family is not good for them.
My Dad agrees with Bob. After a series of Chevy and GMC S10’s, S-15’s, Jimmies, Blazers and Trailblazers – he’d replaced Mom’s problematic Caddy DeVille with an ES300 – and within a month gave up on GM and replaced his last Trailblazer with an RX. That was 25 years ago and it’s been a series of ever-never RXs since.
But I say Gen 5 was the best Accord. I had a 1994 LX coupe and I wasn’t going to win races or raise my BP – but that thing was smooth and flawless.
My best man inherited his father’s ’88 Accord in his last two years of college at Cornell, and I remember Mike driving me out for blueberry, cherry, and apple picking in that car. It did three years of counterflow commuting from Brooklyn to Newark in the late nineties, and then made it out to Chicago in 2001, and finally was put down from Illinois road leprosy sometime after we got matching morning coats and top hats from bergdorfs in the summer of ’04 for my wedding.
I should tell the story about $28 worth of apples a Cuisinart two pillowcases nine washed and reused champagne bottles, white wine yeast, and nine Trojan condoms without spermicide. And Annie Proulx’s book on cider making.
Your friend got a good long run out of that Accord. I used to see the occasional Accord of that generation out and around, but those were the last Accords that suffered from the kind of rust that Honda had become famous for in its earlier years. I have asked myself if I would have kept the car once the rust bubbles started appearing. At that time I would probably have gotten rid of it, but might have a different answer today.
And yes, you need to tell that story.
22 years ago I married an 89 Buick Regal. It was not exactly trouble-free, but one important life lesson the Regal taught me was that the wife gets the good car, meaning the Regal instantly became mine to drive. And drive it I did, for about a year and a half, when I worked my way up to company car status. The Regal sold for $2300 in just one weekend.
Although the car was not long term, the girl was and we remain happily married. We still refer to the old Regal lovingly as the Blue Goose.
Congratulations on 22 years!
Different couples do it different ways, but our method has been that there is not a “her car” and a “my car” – but we have two “our cars”. We each pick one as primary (and we have done like you) with the “good car” for her and the other one for me – mainly because I am better at keeping tabs on an older car’s needs. But when we go out together, there is usually a “which car do we take” discussion, that gets different answers depending on the purpose/destination of the trip.
Though on a macro level, I don’t think USA did itself any favors allowing Japan to replace the big three as the makers of mainstream family sedans, I agree with Jim that the 86-89 generation of Accords was the best. The low hoodlines on these Accords, the 83-87 Prelude and 1988-92 were quite sleek and had nice detailing.
88-92 Civic
Imagine how the world could have been different if the Taurus or the Intrepid had been designed and built in the way these Hondas were.
Just a personal opinion, but we didn’t realize back when we had it what a benefit it was to have our cars designed and built by people like us. That way cars represented where they came from. Japan and now Korea just build whatever in the hunt for foreign exchange, with little hint of who those peoples are.
“People like us”. John, please leave, your overt racism is completely unwelcome.
John, you sling out these statements with such utter lack of insight and truth. There are two major issues with your statement:
1.) These Japanese and Korean companies have been designing cars specifically for the US market for decades. The US version of the Accord started deviating from the Japanese one a long time ago. And the Camry was designed from the get-go with the US market in mind; it was a poor seller in all other markets except the US. That’s just a start: Honda’s large platform, which underpins all of their larger minivans, SUVs and pickup is a US-exclusive platform, designed in the US for the US. I could go on, as the same applies to many/most other products from these companies, as the US market is the most profitable one.
2.) It comes across as racist to me: “built by people like us”. How are they different? All very short? Or? Guess what, they are like us, and Asians have been Americans for a very long time. Dude, this isn’t 1849, or 1949; the Japanese and Koreans opened design studios in the US many decades ago, and of course opened numerous factories. Your comment suggests that Americans have unique qualities that these Asians have no clue about. What is it that Americans really want: Cadillacs with defective V8-6-4 systems?
I continue to be amazed at your comments, and not in a good way. What century are you living in? And I’m warning you; racist comments are not allowed here.
If you are aiming to make a point about how cars can reflect a nation’s culture, I can agree with you, for the most part. I miss the “American-ness” of US cars. But I don’t miss the part of American-ness that had by the 70s included poor running, sloppy build quality and cheap plastics. Or by the 90s that solved much of that but were needing expensive repairs as they aged.
Actually, my favorite parts of that Accord were how Japanese it was in its execution – It was done so thoughtfully, with controls right where I wanted them and in a way that unobtrusively served me with comfort and utility. I don’t find modern Hondas as Japanese as these were. I think all car manufacturers have become more like the others and less like the country where they originated, for better or worse.
I learned to wrench on American cars. As a salesman for American manufacturing, my company cars have always been American nameplates even though some – like my Chevy SS – are anything but American.
Like most, I eventually owned some foreign cars even though I still instinctively prefer American names. And yes, many of those foreign nameplates have been well built cars – some exceptionally so. No matter how well built, all cars do need maintenance now and then.
This is where I start to hate foreign cars. I have to learn what different quirks might lurk in any repair job – or what different special tools might be missing from my amassed collection of special tools for American cars. I’m not saying the foreign cars are badly designed for repairs. Sometimes they are actually better designed – once you learn their specific tricks of the trade.
I’ve come to realize that I’m less open to learning new things than I used to be. Probably the reason I dread the day I have to replace my personal vehicle (2006 Jeep with the old AMC 4.00).
Opps. Gotta cut this short. I need to chase some neighborhood kids off the grass.
With any hope Karl and his wife were on your Christmas card list. They did a good job introducing you to a great sounding Honda (and Marianne, also! 🙂 )
The period of life in which you co-owned the Honda is a period made even better when you have a drama-free car. It sounds as if the Honda was as close to perfect as one could expect, which is always worthy of respect.
The brake pad thing surprises me, yet doesn’t – if that makes sense. It makes me thing some brands have optimized their tolerances, which isn’t a bad thing.
For what it’s worth, Mrs. Jason and I will be having our 25th anniversary next summer. I tell her she looks to be in her mid-20s. She smiles and tells me I have bad eyesight.
While we were engaged, Marianne would occasionally kid me that I was just marrying her for her car. I will acknowledge that the Honda made for a pretty good dowry, but her statement would have been more true if she had owned, for example, a nice Chrysler Newport convertible.
Congrats on the upcoming 25th! I think a good, long marriage pretty much depends on iffy eyesight and poor long-term memory. 🙂
I am always telling Debbie that she is beautiful and her answer is always some variation or combination of the following:
1. Your eyesight is failing;
2. No one thinks a 71 year-old granny is beautiful;
3. You may be experiencing the start of mild cognitive impairment (MCI).
But I keep telling her that she’s beautiful.
And I’m not lying!
… and deep down inside, I think she loves it.
I know that this is just us tough guy talking here but if I knew Debbie, I’d show her what you wrote!
JPC, IANAL, but may I ask what area of law you’re in?
Mostly insurance defense, coverage, subrogation, with some wills/trusts/estates and small business things added in.
Really great story, 12 years ago we got married and 10 years ago bought an Accord. Both are still going strong and we all remain faithful to each other. That car has been a solid stablemate for the family, even as it was relegated to “second car” a few years back. It’s my plan for the kids to take it over someday. To RLPlaut’s point, I have no issue being one of the few non-trucks at work – we have fleet trucks if I need one. I also remind folks that my car is made by Americans and those that don’t have to be in a Union.
You are right, the question of what is or is not an American car is getting hard to answer.
Congratulations on what appears to be a long and happy marriage. I can completely relate to marrying well, both automotively and personally. We have been in this for 32 years now and have almost always had similar tastes and preferences in cars (with the exception of my like of minivans and her taste for old British sports cars).
My wife owned a VW Jetta when we married and though it lacked the reliability and high quality of assembly and materials of your Honda, we enjoyed driving it immensely. We went on to own six more Volkswagens and despite the occasional drama, keep coming back for more.
Thank you, and congratulations to you as well. Marianne has her preferences and I have mine, and we have been pretty good at accommodating each other through the years.
With cars, we have a great side benefit – we are not too far apart in height, so we can get into either car and not need to re-adjust the seat or mirrors. I don’t appreciate that as often as I should.
Four cylinders and automatics; they’ve come a long way, as I’m reminded every time I drive Stephanie’s TSX, and that’s not even a turbo four, which sort of doesn’t count. It’s so smooth and powerful. But driving the Tracker brought back the reality of what they were mostly like back in the day.
Congratulations on your happy and long marriage; give my regards to Marianne. We’ll be celebrating our 45th in a few months. Add “bad hearing” to “iffy eyesight and poor long-term memory” to that list of ingredients. 🙂
Newer cars have indeed made great strides in mating automatics to 4 cylinders – the increased number of gears to 5 and 6 speeds has helped hugely. Some seat time in my daughter’s 98 Civic with its 4 speed auto gave me the same reminders your Tracker gave you.
The bad hearing is a great addition to that list, and congratulations to you and Stephanie.
My daily driver is a Honda Civic, bought around Xmas 2017 with 113,500 miles on it, now closing in on 161,000. I’ve had to replace front wheel bearings, an alternator, and a radiator, the latter when we had a heat dome last summer in Seattle and temps hit 108F (!). I think that’s quite excusable for the car’s mileage. Shortly after buying it I replaced the headlights–thanks, Daniel Stern, for making me aware that cloudy headlights need replaced.
I’m thinking I’d like to get the next-generation Civic for goodies like ABS, TPM, and a 5th gear.
It’s true, it takes some effort to keep the headlights clear on the newer ones. My daughter is still driving her grandma’s 98 Civic. It has barely over 100k, but it’s starting to have some age-related problems.
I failed to be serious about Honda at the time (70s and 80s.) A number of friends drove Civics, preludes and Accords. But I was in love with Audi. Had 3 of them in turn, All of them the “80” model. (Nee, Fox, 4000, and 4000S in N.A.) Everyone praised their Honda. and being a passenger and on occasion, driver. I had to agree. I did consider a Honda, often, but never did the jump. More’s the pity.
My 2011 Honda Jazz has now done 149 000 miles, all serviced at Honda who have been terrific. Only my alternator has failed. At my last service I reached the end of the entries in my service book, and the car still runs tight and looks great. Having a Honda in my life has removed the angst I experienced with my Fiat Uno, when hardly a day went by without some drama popping up. This wasnt all Fiat’s fault, I’d bought a second hand dud which had been sketchily repaired, hence my decision to always buy a new car in future for daily driver duties.
I look forward to this series every Sunday. I dont always get to comment, just want to say thanks for taking us on this wonderful journey!
It’s just my observation, but I tend to feel that Hondas generate a kind of brand loyalty that not every car brand does. I know a number of individuals who were long time Honda owners, who then transitioned to families of loyal Honda owners. Somehow, Toyota doesn’t seem to generate quite that same level of enthusiasm, despite obviously doing quite well in the market.
Even in my own limited case, I have managed to inherit both a Toyota and a Honda. The Toyota a 2015 Prius, was so unloved in my household that it was sold and out of here under a year (this despite the fact that the other mainstay car in my house is a hybrid Toyota Highlander). On the other hand, the Honda – a 2015 Fit – has managed to hang on here for several years and counting. I’ve learned how to work in it (somewhat grudgingly). And folks here keep driving it as it’s a quirky yet practical little thing that has personality. I’m not sure just WHAT the personality is, but that’s ok.
Congrats JP! It certainly sounds like both you and Marianne have made some good choices in life.
Hi Jeff,
I had an opportunity to drive a new Toyota Highlander (3.5 V6) for a few weeks in some very snowy weather (14 -16 inches) when my Tacoma was being certified for a long term rust warranty, and I must say that the Highlander is a wonderful all-around and all-weather luxury cruiser.
I even enjoyed the electronic nannies and played with all of them.
The Highlander is IMO a fine work of automotive art and competence.
BTW, I shoveled the gap the Highlander is parked in (below), and then continued all the way up to and including both garage entry ways.
Shortly after that Debbie, tired of watching me turn red from my macho (and dumb) efforts, got a snow blower.
Snow-shoveling-induced heart attacks are fairly common among people our age–I’m 5 years younger than you. I think we can conclude that Debbie wants you alive.
I’ve got a heart condition. When I shovel snow, it’s never a marathon. It gets done, when it gets done. Shovel some, rest, shovel some, rest. Don’t get winded. Remember the turtle racing the hare. Slow and steady (with rest breaks) wins the race.
I hope it was a Honda snowblower! No surprise, they’re among the finest.
That is an interesting observation. To me, Hondas have had a higher level of engagement with the driver – the fun-to-drive factor seems to have been lacking in most of the Toyotas I have experienced. I am not sure this is still true, but I think it was for quite a long time.
Also, a car usually has to give people a reason do switch to something else. Honda has traditionally done a really good job of keeping people happy (or at least satisfied). Toyota has done a good job of keeping its customers too, I think, but I have not experienced a lot of people who flit between the two.
In a way I was the perfect customer for a “Honda car” (we used to call them that back in the late ’60’s to differentiate them from the motorcycles) ) since I had made my way through a string of Honda motorcycles as a youth. No matter how much I loved and venerated the Harley Davidson, the Hondas were much better engineered and built., They were long lived and reliable. While the HD motor was full of replaceable bearings and bushings that made them infinitely rebuildable, the Hondas were long lived and just never needed to be rebuilt.
My experience with several different Honda and Acura cars up into the early 2000’s was much the same, well engineered and built. Unfortunately I just don’t find myself interested in the newer models, so I look to other manufacturers. Maybe not a logical choice, but cars aren’t always a logical choice for an enthusiast.
Bring back the Acura Legend!
I agree that I have a harder time working up enthusiasm for modern Hondas. I don’t like CVTs, and Honda seems to be going that direction.
I can remember crossing a strip mall (with gym) parking lot to get a closer look at an old Cadillac limo with driver, and the car next to it was an Accord of this vintage, common in NoVa. When I walked between the cars, I noticed the Honda’s passenger seat back wasn’t visible, but the backside of a man’s jeans was. At least he kept his pants up to spare my blushes.
Lots to comment on here!
Accords in the ’80s and ’90s: I’m a few years younger than you, and when I was in my 20s and my friends were getting their first “real” cars, this generation of 1986-89 Accord was usually high on their lists (used). I’m not surprised that the buyer of yours took the chance on one that had been flooded. A good friend of mine was fortunate enough to buy his mom’s 5-speed LXi – I drove it several times and was very impressed. As smooth and pleasant to drive as any car I can remember.
Rich People with Accords: The story of your colleague Bob reminded me of a family I once knew. I knew a young woman who came from a wealthy New England family – the old type of money where they didn’t feel the need to show off. These were surely some of the wealthiest people I’ve ever known, and both the husband and wife owned Accords. They gave one to their daughter at some point in the late 1990s, and bought another Accord for themselves. Certainly outliers among Accord owners, but these cars were good investments.
Marrying a Car: Most women I’ve known couldn’t care less about cars, and on dates I avoided the topic like the plague. However, on my second date with Margaret (my now wife), she asked me what kind of car I drove. (Ford Contour was my answer, and she later said that she was relieved I wasn’t yet another guy who drove a pretentious foreign car.) Turns out she knew quite a bit about cars, drove a Thunderbird, and we spent a good part of that date talking about cars. I knew she was a keeper. We still have the Thunderbird.
Honda Brakes: I don’t know if that’s still the case, but I’ve heard it said before that independent mechanics often mess up Honda brakes. We now have 150,000 mi. on our Odyssey, and there’s only two non-warranty repairs that I’ve had done at the dealer: timing belt and brakes. I had those done at a dealer near my in-laws’ place in Illinois because we often drove the car there, and that dealer was better than local ones here in Virginia. But now we don’t take that car on those long trips, so I’m not sure where I’ll go for those repairs next time around.
On the brakes, this may or may not be relevant to your life – but – I recently learned that OEM brake pads are no longer available through Honda for my 07 Fit. I went through my history on Honda brakes with my Indy mechanic, and they ordered the highest grade pad in the line they usually get (I forget what brand). So far, which has been maybe 8 or 10 months, it still stops beautifully.
Interesting about the brakes — thanks.
Akebono is the OE supplier for Honda, and they’re also made in the USA. I’d imagine they make a size for the Fit. Just a guess…
Congratulations on your long and happy marriage, and that was an enjoyable read about your favorable experience with the Accord!
After nearly 5 decades of car ownership, we have somehow never owned a Honda, although I seriously looked at one when the 1982 Accord was introduced and then about a year later for a used model of the same year. (The asking prices were too high in both cases.)
Regarding marriage, my wife and I must be doing something right as we have been together for 45 years as of last July. Like your wife, she brought a Japanese car into our marriage — a 1975 Toyota Corolla. However we traded it in after a little more than a year and didn’t get another Japanese car, also a Toyota, until 1997. The next year is when our Nissan Frontier was purchased, which we still have today. Once we sold our Volvo 240 in 2003, our fleet has been comprised solely of Japanese cars.
I occasionally think about the brands I have never owned. The list is surprisingly large for someone like me who has often bought on impulse.
Really like the way you’ve woven those 2 tales together, with respect for both elements of it quite clear. Well done.
A Fiat Uno 45 and an Austin Metro in our case (33 years), both with evidence of rust. Still, we had our adventures across Europe in them, even if we haven’t had a British car since.
Thanks Roger. I will give you a spoiler and tell you that I have never owned a British car. Though I am periodically tempted by the occasional Spitfire, TR-6 or MG (B or midget). Those sold fairly well in my part of the US (for sports cars, anyway).
I’m a bachelor, so never married a car (nor the person associated with it), though
kind of like a fish I spotted but never caught…closest I came (to owning a Honda) was in ’86 when instead I bought an ’86 GTi. I know they’re not exactly compatible, but that generation was the last to offer a hatchback…’86 was my most extensive car search by far, I drove many different models and even different types (cars only though, wasn’t looking for a truck). The Accord was close, you mention the option packages which it seems Honda pioneered, which group options such that you don’t select individual options but elect a package. I guess if I had been looking for an ’87 instead of an ’86 it might have not made any difference, but in ’86 Honda only offered fuel injection on the LXi. Back then, I was opposed to getting power windows and locks (which indeed have been a chronic problem on my current car, a ’00 Golf) but at least back then they weren’t universal…but that swayed my decision (I’ll admit I was biased though, I owned a ’78 Scirocco at the time). Don’t know what would have happened should I have choosen the Accord, by ’00 when I bought my current car, I don’t think I considered a Honda…but that’s the recurring problem I have, I buy cars so rarely, that sometimes they’ll offer a perfect choice for me…but I’m not ready to buy another car (if something works for me I stick with it)…and Honda has gone back and forth about offering hatchback models, whereas up to the recent times, VW has faithfully offered the Golf for people like me. Don’t know what I’m likely to buy next now that the Golf is gone; I had a GTi back in the day but think I’ve aged out of that target market.
Of course, I’ve been around Accords…my best friend bought an ’82 new (which was totalled in a silly accident where someone blocking the road trying to steal gravel caused someone trying to avoid them to hit and total his Accord. Another friend bought an ’89 while living up north, but got a job working with me in the sunbelt; his ’89 didn’t have air conditioning but I think it was a dealer installed option, but for some reason I don’t understand was more expensive if you waited and bought it for a used Honda than if you got it when the car was new….anyhow, it cost him $1200 in 1989 dollars to get dealer installed A/C on his almost new Accord…but on the dash, there was a lone addition, a green button that was labled “AC” . We referred to it as long as he still owned the car as his $1200 button.
Sorry to hear about the hail damage. My dear departed younger sister actually lost 2 cars to hail (both were totalled) and interestingly they were similar models (one was actually a 200SX, the other a 240SX…and my middle sister has owned qty-2 240SX’s including her current car which she bought new in ’97) and even more interestingly they both met their demise on the same calendar date (not the same year of course). We live in central Texas, and it seems there’s a likely date for hail to strike, which is in late March, which we’ve frequently had hail…maybe not every year, but having been here 40+ years there seems to be a pattern (along with a rainy Memorial day followed by almost no rain until/unless some tropical storm gives us a deluge). I kind of joked that the manufacturer should offer a “central Texas” option with pre-dented body panels (well, they are likely to be more regularly dimpled than normal on a hail damaged car.
Congratulations on your long marriage, I seem to have missed that “fish” as well.
You describe many of my thought processes when I eschewed Japanese cars (especially the Accord) in 1985 when I bought my GTI. Later on, I had to admit that the two cars were much closer in their capabilities than I had wanted to admit. I must also admit that while my initial distrust of power windows was ratified in some Ford and Mopar vehicles, I have yet to experience a power window/regulator failure in a Honda, and some of mine have been fairly old and/or high mile cars.