20th Aug 2020, 20:09
I'm still the original poster now 11 years down the road. Having retired early, I no longer do highway commutes, and as such my mileage has stayed down around 103 K to this point.
The car has had yearly rustproofing last 8 years, and as such the body is holding up well in our salt laden Atlantic climate.
At this point the front brakes needed pads and rotors about 2 years back. Back is still good.
These sway bar stabilizer links are a pain in the a**. Just replaced yet another. It has to be a design thing as I'm known to be easy on vehicles.
Currently just back from the garage where also the original exhaust was in need of replacement to get rid of the race car sound.
The unexpected gremlin that has cropped up is the driver's side wheel bearing gave up the fight. Not unexpected, BUT it seems it has welded itself onto the drive axle. Repair now adds a new axle and hub to the fix. My mechanic says at least in this area it's common with the roads normally winter salted on the driver's side.
What else? The strut bearing are now a little notchy when parking lot steering, but I'm willing to sit on this for a bit.
Oh and the low profile tires, 45 profile on my model really don't last. I've just installed my 3rd set at 103,000 km. Keeping in mind I run snow tires on steel rims during winter, these low profile summer tires are not the hot ticket for longevity.
A few gripes, but at 11 years down the road my costs on this car are still less than other Honda and Mazda products I've owned. To be fair I ran higher highway mileages on to the other brands traveling to work. My perception is perhaps just a bit unbalanced at this time with multiple repairs required at once. I'm still willing to hang in there another year and avoid a car payment during pandemic times.
15th Sep 2016, 13:07
I'm the original poster. Currently at around 75,000 km. The Accent is still really reliable. I'll slot in with other posters that say reverse is hard to engage at times. Usually pull forward a foot or two and Bob's your uncle.
Now on the negative side this model seems to have propensity for developing a loud annoying rattle under the front when the road is anything but smooth. Dealer has called this a stabilizer link. About a $33 part. Combination left and right of these has been replaced about 5 times in the last 3 years. Past November both sides were replaced under my extended warranty. BUT now out of warranty about 10 months later the left bar again needed replacement at roughly $90 dealer charges. The dealer blames local roads, but they're not that bad. In my defense I usually drive slower and smoothly for gas mileage and rarely drive any dirt roads. We'll see how this plays out as the right link is still hanging in for the moment.