Faults:

I've needed to replace the transmission twice. Both times were due to a hard shift from 2nd to 3rd gear. The first time I went to a Honda dealer since I had an extended warranty, and they just replaced it instead of trying to find out what the actual cause of the problem was. A few months later, it had the same problem, and I just had some friends replace it for me. About a year later, it started doing the same thing, and I took it to a transmission specialist, and they were the ones to determine it was a faulty velocity sensor chip... Instead of the dealer finding out that the problem cost $90 to fix, they replaced the whole transmission, but NOT the actual source of the problem.

Supposedly at least one of the catalytic converters is faulty now, so both need to be replaced so it will pass inspection. Why a vehicle needs 2, who knows.

Other than that, just the driver's seat looks like it's leaking padding on the floor... and the back seat is very hard to get to fold up.

General Comments:

Overall, I enjoyed driving the vehicle. Roomy and comfortable for taller people even in the back, and loved it in the snow. And the gas mileage wasn't too bad (for an SUV this old) when working properly. Took a 10 hour road trip one day and got on average 22mpg, even when I was doing 80 a bunch of the time.

Some things just seem like a real pain to work on by yourself, and you need to take off a lot of other parts to get to stuff you think would be readily available, like the alternator.

Unfortunately with all the transmission problems, it has turned me off of automatic transmission for quite a while. Manual gearboxes have so much less that can go wrong, and it's too much fun not to have anymore.

Faults:

The fuel pump went out. It took about a year for it to completely die. It worked intermittently before that.

There was an unknown electrical problem. My dad took everything apart, could not find anything and put it back together, and it has started ever since. He's an electrician, by the way.

The transmission switch went bad, which caused me to put a new (used) transmission in it. The new transmission switch was bad so my dad cleaned up the original one (removed old crusty grease) and so far it is working fantastic. If I had known that the switches go bad so often, I probably could have saved the original transmission.

Now the rear wiper is not working.

Front wipers get stuck on intermittent.

The radiator O ring had a slow leak, which was eventually found, but I had to check the fluid and refill once a week for several months. It was a hard find.

General Comments:

It drives fantastic in the snow.

Pretty roomy in the back storage area.

Seats two kids pretty nicely.