Faults:
Air conditioner has never worked; had been completely cut out of car when I got it. Not sure why.
Trunk seal leaks -- which is bad in Oregon; everything gets wet, sometimes so bad that it gets all the way to back seat and people sitting in seat get wet.
The engine fan hasn't worked. I have a toggle switch to turn on the fan. I can't stay running while sitting somewhere or else I risk over heating. I have never overheated though, but the temp gauge has went all the way up before.
Like any car, I've had to replace tires, entire brake system, spark plugs, clutch, fuel pump, alternator, etc etc. I don't know what kind of condition this car was in prior to me owning it, but I trust that this car will continue to last for me. I've kept up on all of the maintenance. I just ordered shocks for the rear and a catalytic converter.
When my clutch went out, the whole thing just broke; it's hard to explain without drawing a picture, but basically where the entire pedal bracket is held into a place by a couple of bolts split. We had to take the whole steering wheel assembly apart just to weld back together this metal thing.
Unexpected things: Turn signal switch.
Small oil leak. White smoke pours out when car is started (but only for first minute).
The radiator use to leak, but that was because I needed a new water pump.
General Comments:
This is a small car, so things are harder to get to. When I had to replace my alternator, we had to take out the whole left axle to get to it.
This car has never had anything majorly go wrong with it where it left me stranded somewhere, which I am very thankful for.
If your in a bumper to bumper accident, more than likely your headlights will point in wrong direction and have great difficulty closing. I'm glad there is a switch so I can choose to keep them up all the time. (this car has flip up headlights)
If your turn signal switch goes out, you have to replace the whole mechanism that controls the switch on the other side of the steering wheel (your wind shield wipers, etc); so instead of being a $30 part, it's a $100 part, not including labor.
I like this car because it's reliable, even after 200,000 miles. Honda's are known to last up to 500,000 miles. I get high gas mileage; and 98% of the stuff I've fixed is all regular maintenance. My husband beats the crap out of this car, and it still is strong.
30th Jun 2008, 17:11
I am the same person that left this original review; thought I'd leave some more details:
Shortly after I left this review, the rear ball joint broke on the left back tire (so my tire went slanted instead of up and down). But again, this car is 22 years old, and those kind of things are expected.
In the past month, if the car is heated up to normal engine temp, and then shut off, it dies when I start it back up, but I don't have this problem at night or on cold days, just on the warm/hot days. If I heat up my car, I know I need to make sure I'm going to be at my location for at least 3 hours for the engine to cool down. If I don't heat my engine up to normal temp, I can make errands as long as I don't heat it up fully.
But last night it died when it had been sitting all day, so it's at the shop to be looked at now. We are guessing it's either a carb or fuel pump problem. This is the first time I have ever had this kind of problems with this car. Making me wonder if I should just get a new car.
I paid $800 for it originally, and spent well over a grand to keep it going. I'm not going to get my money back at this point, especially since there is a dent in every panel.
This car runs great, it's cheap to fix, labor is easy, but I think I'm gonna sell it after I fix this problem, while it still runs good, before something else goes wrong.