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What bothers me is the fact that money moves out from what used to be a car (steering, suspension, transmission), into electronic gadgets. While I am typing this, I see at the top of this webpage "The all-new Accord" advertisment. It says: "With a standard rearview camera". Wow !!! How impressive !!! It has a camera, like any cheap cell phone I could buy at the local grocery store ! The fundamentals, like Honda legendary reliability, double wishbone suspension, etc, don't matter anymore. Only the electronic gadgets matter.
Did somebody see the "Idiocracy" movie ?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiocracy
I am afraid we are going in that direction.
Peace
THANK YOU. I was beginning to think I was the only one seeing this. It's almost like buying a bunch of electronic gadgets (that you may or may not want) with a car attached to it. I think this is one of the reasons so many of the carmakers have gone to such cheap quality interiors - they had to do it to pay for electronic toys.
Cheapening the interiors was the first step, many years ago, when cars had just a few electronic gadgets. These days, the 2013 Accord has way too many gadgets. They needed way more money. So they cheapened the fundamentals (steering, suspension, transmission). This provided enough money to finance all the electronic toys, and also some interior improvements (the 2013 Accord interior is more luxurious than the 2012). If this continues, you may get a luxurious leather sofa, with all the imaginable electronic toys. No car though. Exactly like my living room. Comfort and toys. Static.
I have had to change the brakes front and rear and have changed the brake fluid at the 2. year mark.
when is the radiator, transmission, power steering and whatever i have left out require flushing or draining and refilling? in miles? or years?
i think the manual says it will show up on the odometer screen . but i have never seen a code to tell me.
thanks in advance.
i would be happy to receive an e-mail if i am allowed to put my email address on the discussion board.
Here's what you need to do at the 45,000 mark:
Service Details
Service due at 45,000 Miles
Action: Description
Inspect/Adjust/Change Alignment (optional)
Inspect/Adjust/Change Inspect charging system and belts
Inspect/Adjust/Change Service front and rear brakes
Inspect/Adjust/Change Inspect hoses
Inspect/Adjust/Change Rotate and balance tires
Inspect/Adjust/Change Inspect front and rear brakes
Inspect/Adjust/Change Inspect drive shaft boots
Inspect/Adjust/Change Inspect exhaust system
Inspect/Adjust/Change System Road Test
Inspect/Adjust/Change Replace drain plug washer
Inspect/Adjust/Change Inspect and Top Up all fluid levels
Inspect/Adjust/Change Inspect tire pressure, lights, horn, and wipers
Inspect/Adjust/Change Replace engine oil and filter
For further lists/mileages, try THIS WEBSITE and click on "service and repair" and insert the mileage schedule you wish to know about.
Finally between "To keep, or not to keep", I decided to "not to keep". I traded my old & faithful 2001 Accord, for the last 2012 manual 4-door Accord in Eastern Canada (5 states). I had to drive over 550 miles one-way to get it (no dealer in my area had any 2012 manual leftovers). It drives OK, I would say. It's a bit noisier than the 2001 though. Road noise is a bit louder (Dunlop tires ??), and at low speed (1st and 2nd gear) there is a faint whining (from the engine or the gear box, I don't know). At higher speeds either it dissapears, or it's covered by the road / wind noise. My wife was impressed. She likes it. Me too I like it. I may actually like that faint whining.
Obs: installing the manual gear shift lever turned to the right (at an ~ 30 degrees angle) is really a weird idea. I say "weird" to be polite. It really shows that the desire to change became absurd. They make changes, when absolutely no change is required. The ideal car was manufactured in the past. It's not in the future. It's a pity I cannot post here the picture of the shifter lever. When I saw it for the 1st time I asked the dealer if somebody rolled over the car, and the gear shift got bent. He said: "no, this is an improvement" ...
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I remember the glorious times when I was the owner of a 2005 Chrysler Pacifica (bought brand new). I was here, on Edmunds, every afternoon. Each time I had a couple of new pages to read !!!
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As a joke, I modified that into: "Clunking comes standard" (while chatting on Edmunds about the low speed suspension clunking many Pacifica owners experienced). Later I saw my joke quoted all over internet. No dealership was ever able to fix that clunking. It was there since day one, and it also was there the day I traded it (for a 2008 Honda Pilot).
"Break-in Period: Do not change the oil until the scheduled maintenance time" ?
For highway driving I heard that may be 12,000 Kms (7,500 miles). So a lot. Is there something special about the oil they initially put in the engine, at the factory ?
Honda makes 14 million internal combustion engines each and every year. Yes 14 million. I am not much a car man although I own a 2008 Honda Accord, a 1997 F250 and two Model A Ford Sedans. My wife and I figured that Honda knows more about their engines than we do. She helped fight that urge to change oil immediately; and yes I waited, waited and waited for the dash oil change indicator to roll around to a change oil status. When that happened we went to Mobil1 and have stayed with it. Today, my Honda drives new and I still love it. There have been a couple threads on this very subject by people much better informed than I but not better informed than Honda. I'd did check my oil often and after a couple of months when the oil stick showed oil was needed, I added dino. This process was really hard for me. Waiting, Waiting. Honda's "break in oil" looked sick; but, since the date of my car's build, Honda has made 70 million more engines and the world loves them.
I asked the question because there are two opposite recommendations, both coming from the very smart guys at Honda:
1) the 1st one says to not change the initial break-in oil till the change indicator tells you to do it. Given the distance I drive per year, this is likely to happen one year from now, when the car will have 1 year (future) + 1 year (since the car was manufactured, because I bought a new 2012 leftover) = 2 years.
2) The 2nd direction coming from the Honda too says to change the oil after one year maximum, doesn't matter the mileage (it seems that the oil shouldn't stay for more than one year inside any engine).
As you can see one Honda recommendation tells me to replace the oil now (because the oil stayed there for one year already), the other recommendation tells me to wait for approximately another year (till the break-in oil, if such a thing really exists, is used).
You don't really have to answer questions, if you only know that the Honda guys are very smart. We all know that. Also we all know they make lots of engines.
Prior to WWII the U.S. Army, Navy stockpiled hundreds and hundreds of trucks, cars, vehicles and machines of all sorts. The Amry found that oil/lubricants did not degrade by just being parked for months or years.
If Honda thought that oil wore out because a car sat on a dealer's lot they'd tell you. Oil does not degraded in a year's time just sitting in a crakcase. The one year BS refers to cars "driven" by an owner for one year but with mileage so low that the oil indicatior doesn't do it's thing. Yet, no one ever sends the oil for a test. May I repeat, 14 million internal combustion engines are built by Honda each year. To me and probably only to me that means Honda is way smarter about their products than I. However, my Honda dealer's svc dept. lies, steals and works extra hard to seperate me from my money. Once an oil pump for the valves failed making a heck of a racket. The svc writer and supervisor told me that was normal for Honda's with 30,000 miles. I came home, opened Google and typed in a description. Bang on, the various sites told me what the story was. With the facts the svc dept were forced to fix the car (they were ignoring a Honda Svc Bulletin). My engine wont make that kind of noise until it passes the 3 million mile mark. But, I digress. Know what? change your oil ! You'll be happier; but, do it because you want to not based on svc dept BS.
Peace !
Also they said the initial 0W20 engine oil contains some special break-in aditives. So it should stay there till the maintenance minder tells you to replace it. Replacing it early would be bad for the engine.
I can't see where the spark plugs are. Either they are hidden, or as a cost cutting measure the SE doesn't have them ... LOL.
On my previous 2001 Accord it was piece of cake (the screws were very accessible).
Do I have to remove the whole headlight to turn those adjustment screws ?! It would make no sense. Anything becomes more and more complicated.
Appreciate your help.
http://www.topclassactions.com/lawsuit-settlements/lawsuit-news/4946-class-actio- n-settlement-reached-over-honda-accord-oil-defect?utm_source=Infusionsoft&utm_me- dium=email&utm_campaign=Top+Class+Actions+Newsletter+092313&inf_contact_key=34a6- 224b8fd1f4b84c30d10984449a360f5dd64f25f3a17470b34c6d1afe3bcf
(1) when shifting from 1st to 2nd and/or 2nd to third, the gates feel notchy - sometimes 3rd gear feels almost like its not there and I have to pop back out into neutral and push it forward again, and
(2) when I upshift at anything more than 2000-2500 rpm, I get a shudder or what feels like slippage in the engagement of the drivetrain (this happens in 3rd gear ALL the time, even when I let out clutch to downshift, unless I throttle blip), and
(3) cannot accelerate aggressively or tranny shudders and slips at every shift below 5th gear (but not when fully in gear between shifts). High rpm shifts produce a lot of protest noises from tranny/clutch at each engagement point. Have never liked this gearbox - the one in my '04 was awesome, but this plasticky notchy one is a piece of crap and one of the reasons I just bought my wife a Mazda CX-5 to replace her recently wrecked Honda.
I am NOT super aggressive with the throttle - the car has 53,000 miles on it since I got it brand new in May, 2011, most of which are long-distance highway commuting. Both of my prior Honda Accords (a '91 EX Sedan and an '04 EX-L V-6 Coupe) and my last Nissan ('99 Maxima) were bought brand-new and sold with close to 200,000 miles on them with the original clutch, so I'm fairly confident that its not me.
I'm also pissed b/c this all started just past the 50,000 mile powertrain warranty and I'm now afraid to go to dealer b/c he will charge me a diagnostic just to even tell me what's wrong with the car.
Any ideas? Tech bulletins? Recalls? As always, thanks for your assistance.
-FS
I thought powertrain was only 50k - so that's good to know. Will make appointment to bring car in and update you all about what I find.
-FS
I got a great deal on a reconditioned rim from them.
Also, check if shimmy is in the steering wheel or just felt in the seat. If its in the steering wheel, it's likely one of your front rims, while if its in just seat, its probably one of the rears. If your unsure, try rotating them first to see if there's any difference in where you feel it. Any road hazard big enough to damage all four rims at once would almost certainly be a pants-wetting moment. In other words, you'd remember it. Short of that you probably don't need more than two rims at most.