Everybody knows somebody who loves a Honda

Wife totaled a 2010 CRV a few months ago. the car was $24K new. It had 67K miles, and in good condition. She had a deer hit the left front while doing 35ish around a sweeping curve in the woods. She tried to avoid the impact, and hit a basketball sized rock in the shoulder. This took out the right front wheel, and any possible recovery effort. The next rock was the size of a two person kitchen table, and effectively killed the little beast. The hit was dead on, and low. The drivetrain was pushed several inches to the rear, and the roof slightly buckled at the sunroof. She had severely bruised ribs, and an odd taste from the air bag powder.
Couple of interesting lessons learned. Except the damage to the bumper cover and underside, the entire car looked fine. The insurance paid out $19.3K. As we were negotiating the settlement, a salvage dealer was in route to grab the car for a high bid of $6300. In the end, we replaced the car with a new CRV, with $5K out of pocket. Hard to imagine that any other small SUV would of provided that kind of return in a similar situation? Personally, I was less than impressed with the 2010, but the new one is significantly improved, if you are willing to overlook the fact that they somehow managed to make a homely car look even worse. Dang, this ugly little bastard is hard on the eyes.

As an update to our Honda Story... We prepped our 2003 CR-V for a road trip to Minnesota, took off on July 8th and got into the high desert in 110+ heat and the black death struck.. Catastrophic failure of the AC compressor. Expensive to fix and we said nope, had the car for 10 years time to sell it and we did.

Got 6K for a 2003 with no AC, 132,000 miles, new Michelins and in very good overall condition..

Here she is sitting busted at the dealer in Henderson NV.



With no AC and needing to drive to Minnesota we were going to rent a car and complete the trip, but we stopped first at Ford Country to look for a Red Focus my wife's been wanting and sure as shit they had the car she wanted. Took 5k off the sticker, stored her Honda for two weeks and we sold the Honda when we got back home after 2 days of advertising it on Craig's List.

By By Honda... You were a damn good vehicle served us well...

i have only owned one Honda car. 1997 Civic HX. Coupe. Estimated 47mpg, and it got about 45. When gas went over 4$ a gallon the first time, I put it up for sale since it was SOOOO boring to drive. I sold it for $4500.00...I bought it for 900 bucks two years earlier.

This is the first vehicle I bought with my head and not my heart. I needed fuel economy, lots of haul room and reliability without worrying about sportiness or where it registers on the automotive "cool" scale.

Today it turned 100k miles and has been everything I hoped for and much more.

It's not your usual Element since its the SC one with the full plush interior and ground effects and factory 18 inch wheels with lowered suspension. The real unusual part is that its a 5 speed manual rather than the common auto trans. Year in and year out, its given me 25 mpg. I did get one tank of 24 mpg and have never exceeded 25 a single time. Summer or winter, high speed or low speed, always 25 mpg. The fuel light comes on somewhere between 300 and 310 miles and it hold 12 gallons every time.



I suspect I'll keep this one a long time. I just got a set of wheels off another Element to swap the 18s I have now for the 16s that the cheaper Elements came with. The 18s really hurt the ride and noise level. I just need to get the new wheels powder coated and buy some tires.

My wife bought one of those last summer. Same color, 5 door Focus. She's at about 15k miles so far and really likes it. Her mileage started out at 35mpg but has climbed up to 38 as its broken in.

Quirky car though. I was changing the oil the other day and just looking it over while I was under there. The oil pan is scalloped out on the bottom and has the AC compressor nestled up into it underneath the center of the engine.

Same motor as we had on the CR-V, service your AC. There is a pattern failure the compresser experiences and the failure damages other parts with metal shavings being introduced into the system... An expensive fix with Honda parts..

Not a single other mechanical issue (just wear and tear normal stuff) is known with regard to the CR-V and the Element. Very good vehicles..

wanker...



what is not to love? runs perfect, hauls ass, handles exceptionally, and gets 40mpg. ok, I will keep it!

Mendo

Spaceship.