Faults:

I had some paint peel and some trim peel, but only after the car was about 9 years old. Paint peeled due to light front end collision and a cross-country trip. Trim peeled due to automatic car wash.

The only problems other than that occurred because I lived in Chicago where they dump a lot of salt on the roads every winter, so some parts rusted out underneath the car (radiator, muffler, etc). Despite the stigma of foreign car repair prices, all repairs were inexpensive.

The tranny had a slight skip in it when I bought it, so I thought I would have to replace it. But 30,000 miles later, it was still going with just barely more of a skip. Most people say once the tranny starts to go, it goes out quickly, but this one has lasted a long time despite not being in perfect shape.

General Comments:

The car is a workhorse. If the backseats are folded down, there is some road noise, and I get some noise from the front wheels, but it's what I would expect from a small car. The car's comfortable for people in the front seat (you don't buy this car for backseat people... even though I have had four adults in the car for over an hour at a time, it's not an ideal situation).

The car is easy to drive, handles well, doesn't break, and looks great. I got about 26 mpg on a ten year old engine, so I've got no complaints. I never gave it a tune-up other than changing the air filter.

I bought this car mostly because I expected reliability, and I haven't been disappointed at all.

Faults:

The exhaust pipe broke, but I think that was from bottoming out a lot. Weird rattle at the back of the car. But it had 150,000 highway miles and was only a 99.

General Comments:

This is a great car, but you should really consider a Club AND an alarm and any other anti-theft device you can think of, because mine was stolen the other night!

Faults:

Around 70,000 miles, the antenna broke off, found it had been an aftermarket antenna. Replaced it with a cheap $20 one from Autozone since Acura wanted $203 for one.

At 76,000 miles, the timing belt broke. This cost me $400 to fix, since I didn't have time to do it myself at the time. Also bent a valve, giving me essentially a dead third cylinder. Shop quoted me $1300-1600 to rebuild the head and replace all valves. Ended up buying a used head on Ebay for $120 and swapped it myself. Fixed the problem.

Lowered the car around 80,000 miles, dropped it 4". All 4 tires wore out in three months. Were replaced under RoadHazard warranty, Replaced suspension with a more normal 1.75" drop, Tokico Illumina 4-way adjustable springs/shocks. Much better now. Cost: $400.

Replaced clutch myself at 100k miles, cost $120 for ACT 6-puck clutch and throwout bearing.

Installed turbo kit at 103k miles. Ran into multiple fuel management problems and other issues and got sick of fixing problems related to it, finally took it off. Obviously much faster with it, however.

Now at 111k miles, has a check engine light saying it is running too lean. Could be the O2 sensor or mass air sensor. Still deciding what I'm gonna do to replace it. Temporarily bolted on a mechanical FMU in order to cancel out the lean mixture.

General Comments:

The car was purchased with a salvage title because it had been hit on the side. I speculate it might have been hit on the front as well.

I used to love this car, but I drive about 35k miles a year, and want something more comfortable now.

Most reliability issues arose because of aftermarket mods on the car and not because of natural reliability problems. The car had some racing mods before I got it and had probably been raced regularly. I continued that driving trend.

I'm very surprised that the engine hasn't blown up yet with what's been done to it. It's been over-revved plenty of times, and hit the fuel cutoff before. Missed shifts when the turbo was on it, had boost spikes as high as 14psi with no internal engine mods. Still runs like the day I bought it, and barely uses any oil. Made a 1200 mile trip recently and didn't burn any oil. Very satisfied with the car.

It's annoying that there is no button/lever to pop the trunk.

One thing that has always annoyed me is the insurance costs. I used to pay $125/month for my 96 Saturn, the same coverage on this car is $240/month, and it only cost me $6000 to begin with.

I find the cloth seats are NOT comfortable at all for long trips and the shifter feels like it is positioned too far forwards where I have to lean in this awkward position to shift. I've gotten used to it, but nothing like driving other small cars, like the BMW Z-roadster, or even my old Saturn for that matter. Not that I expected this to be like one, just a general comment.