For all those who hate Honda Owners...

I don't HATE Honda owners, I just feel sorry for their poor, misguided souls. LOL!!!!
 
Any discussion about foreign cars quality and reliability is just pure BS. They break down and need repairs, too.
 
A little story about Honda reliability.....My buddy had a 1988 Prelude, something happened to it and he needed a new top end on his engine. It took SIX months for them to get the new parts from Japan and fix his car.
 
A little story about BMW reliability.....My buddy bought his wife a nice, used, certified 2004 325. He has had to take it back THREE times in less than a year for warranty work. Not too bad, you say, except the BMW dealer is 45 miles away!!!

The small explosions 2 mins into the video appear to be the windows and tires blowing out.  But even before that, judging by the intensity of the fire inside the van, there had to be some kind of accellerant inside the van besides the plastic and fabric.  Of course once the fire got to the fuel line, then it was hell on wheels.
 
Don't get me wrong, I'm not a fan of Honda either.  But I have to think there was something else at work in that one.  Even if it was caused by a bad custom wiring job.  I couldn't help but notice that the fire re-ignited 2 or 3 times after the firemen put it out.  A severe electrical problem could cause this.  Hence the reason most fire departments like to open the hood and cut the battery cables.

I personally think all car makers do their best to build a vehicle, with the highest quality they can afford, and still compete in the particular segment they are aiming at.
 
That being said, the automotive writers over the years have created this "Image" of the japanese cars being superior in almost all respects to our own North American Models. Somehow, this image has been sold to the public, and now, many won't even give the domestic autos a chance, because they already have the mindset that the import is better.
 
I have not had any degree of problems with any of my cars or trucks for as long as I can remember. They all have worked well, and done everything I asked of them. They have mostly all been GM models, but I have even had the odd Ford and Chrysler product thrown in from time to time, and they too did the job.   I have never owned an import brand.
 
Why would I buy a foreign brand. Yes many are now built in North America, but the offshore makers do not support anywhere near the number of US or Canadian workers that our domestic makers do. The offshore guys also don't have to shell out anywhere near the amount of money the domestic makers do for retired employees. The domestic auto makers have been and still are a huge contributor to our economy. There sure aren't many jobs out there that pay average working men what the auto companies do.
 
I say......Support your own, there is a lot riding on the continued success of our North American Auto Industry, and they do make good vehicles. (Sometimes, I just don't think people get it........wake up people, before it's too late.)  

I owned 3 honda civics.  First one i bought used,a 1981 hatchback. Drove it a total of 130,000 miles. Besides the preventive maint., i had to replace the carb at a cost of 400 bucks. Traded to a new `85 hatchback. Drove this one to 240,000 miles and it needed no parts. Traded that one on a `93 coupe. Drove it to 270,000 miles before selling it. Replaced the A/C clutch 3 times. I guess I can say I had good luck with them.

i think most cars will last a long time if you take care of them and don't do burnouts, floor it at every light, and just treat it like crap.   if you drive osmething reasonably all the time, i think anything on the market today will llast a long time.

Yep, I agree...mine were used as commuters...140 miles a day at roughly 65 mph.  Great gas mileage.  But most anything will work well if it`s taken care of....

Exactly my point fellas. Im not trying to single out just hondas. Im just trying to point out that defects can happen to any make or model. It just seems that when a recall happens with the big 3, its all over the media. Now when something happens to an import its mostly kept quiet. And Im just sick and dog tired of the "honda aura" some owners think thier cars are invincible. it is a machine, and will eventually fail.

As for the explosions, a fireman that lives next to me has informed me that those are the airbags going off, which happens to all cars at that heat level.

I was incorrect on my analysis. He also tells me he believes the fault is was most likely related to the power sliding door on this particular one, the intense heat probably melted the tank, which is pretty much standard across the market. Not many manufacturers use metal tanks these days.

I can't "hate" them too much, my son is one of them. I've lost count how many he's had, 4 driveable ones and a few wrecked ones for parts. Right now I think he's putting 2 together to make one. All of his friends drive Hondas. It looks like a ricer convention when they all come over.
Here's before and after pics of the first one. The after is after some idiot decided to cut across lanes without looking.


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This is the one he just traded for a '99 model. His friend took the pic and submitted to Honda Tuning Mag (or is it Honda Tuner? , heck I don't know, LOL) and they published it.


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Congrats on your son's car being published.
You both must have been very proud!  Even if it is a Honda. lol. (just kidding).

My family has 10 cars, all of them domestics. 4 of them have over 120,000 miles. We have a 90 GMC suburban with 160,000 miles, 93 caprice wagon with 122,000 miles, 99 ford f150 with 120,000 miles, 98 jeep cherokee with 130,000 miles. Besides the jeep, these vehicles have had no mechanical work done to them and the only parts replaced where wear items. The jeep is the same other than a replaced leaky oil pan. I used to have a 93 f150 before the monte. It had 170,000 miles and had no mechanical work done to it other than wear and some custom goodies I fabbed up (custom intake and full length headers and custom dual exhaust). So anytime anyone says domestics arent reliable I tell them about reliability with what is sitting at home. Each and every one of our daily driver domestics start right up the first time and get us anywhere we want to go.

As for imports, I work in a body shop/mechanics shop and it seems like every day we are working on some honda or nissan that doesnt run right or doesnt start at all.

Must be all those black hoods the ricers like to slap on their rides. (sorry dustybird im not picking on your son) The black paint must get the temps under the hood so hot it fries those little 4 bangers. Lol.

Back to honda owners in general. Me and some buddies were standing outside quaker steak and lube waiting to get a table and some guy in his little honda civic pulled up to the curb and revved the engine to "impress" the crowd outside. Lol. Well that prompted me to explain to him that his car was gay. Well he didnt like that at all. He told me that he would get out of his car and kick my ass. Well that made me laugh at him. So being the big bad tough guy he was, he revved his engine and almost stalled the car by dumping the clutch and trying to burn out. He pulled away and came back 5 minutes later and parked. He got out of his car, walked right past me while avoiding eye contact and walked into the restaurant. Lol me and my buddies laughed our asses off about it the rest of the night. It gave us a little inside joke to laugh about. "DUDE, your car....IS GAY!"

Taz, he was on cloud 9. I think we have three copies of that magazine. He traded it for one he has now - he wanted A/C, it get's hot in Texas, LOL. The kid he traded with painted it flat army green - YUCK. He had a Panda theme going and was at one time going to put roll bars in and have me airbrush them to look like bamboo. Now he has black and red, when he gets the some other stuff added. I'll take a few pics - if it doesn't break my camera, LOL.

mrl390, most of those black hoods are cardonfiber, to get rid of the weight. His first one was painted black, no $$ to spend on "plastic". But what you say, may well be a real possiblity.

He's never really had a whole lot of trouble with his cars with stock motors. It's when he starts moding them that sometimes there's an issue, but usually resolved pretty easily. He works on his own and anyone in the car club with Honda problems comes to him for help. Most of the ones we've been around have been reliable. The one he has now, has almost 150K on it and who knows how it was treated before he got it. The one he traded had a motor in it that had to be shipped from Japan (he bought it with the motor swap already made).

They are not my choice of vehicle but I really don't have anything against them, well, at least no more than any other vehicle that's not a Monte Carlo or truck. Heck, we had a Geo Metro, GM product but the motor in it was a 3 cylinder Suzuki. Excellent gas mileage. Of course his Hondas get crap fot MPG due to mods.

A friend of my sisters came over one day in his Mustang. Nice car, but made the mistake of making a slow comment about the Honda. My son took him for a ride. Let's just say, he has a whole new respect for THAT particular car. ;)
 
That is funny that he almost killed it. I wouldn't have come back, LOL.

Dustybird, I know all about the carbon fiber hoods, but I was poking fun at the honda kids that paint their hoods black to make it looks like is CF, instead of getting a  real carbon fiber hood.

quote:

ORIGINAL: mrl390

Dustybird, I know all about the carbon fiber hoods, but I was poking fun at the honda kids that paint their hoods black to make it looks like is CF, instead of getting a  real carbon fiber hood.

 
People really do that?!?  Never personally seen a painted black hood, maybe ricers are more creative in your area, lol.

quote:

ORIGINAL: mrl390

Dustybird, I know all about the carbon fiber hoods, but I was poking fun at the honda kids that paint their hoods black to make it looks like is CF, instead of getting a  real carbon fiber hood.

 
LOL, I kinda did the same thing, heck, I wasn't handing over the $$ for him to buy one, so that's what he did with the first one. We laughed, but it didn't phase him. I'm glad now it was still metal, you can see what happened to it in the first set of pics.
The white car did have a CF hood and the car was painted with "rattle cans" as he calls them.
 
One of his friends just shelled out the money for a new CF hood, had it maybe two weeks and his girlfriend's mom backed into it and cracked it.
 
I'm still trying to figure out where I went wrong in raising him. My son is a ricer :( I wonder if they have support groups for that, like AA.

black hoods are nothing new... some of you older guys might rememebr flat black hoods?
 

quote:

ORIGINAL: Cowboy6622

black hoods are nothing new... some of you older guys might rememebr flat black hoods?

 
Or just black hood scoops?!?

Well its a bit different with the hondas than it was with the MOPARs and such. It actually looks good on the mopars!! Lol, im just messing. Hey its their car, whatever pleases them you know.
 
"People really do that?!?  Never personally seen a painted black hood, maybe ricers are more creative in your area, lol."
It must just be in my area then. They are everywhere! Every little honda civic or CRX i see that is all riced out seems to have crappy interior, stock paint job, black painted steel hood, 14" aftermarket wheels that look like they hit the curb quite a few times and a rather large fart can sticking out the back that looks like a paint can without a lid.
 
I guess I cant say it is just hondas tho. Today I saw a kid in a cavalier that was all black with a crappy purple looking tint job, two fart cans sticking out the back (one of which I am pretty sure wasnt attached to any exhaust pipe and a spoiler that was taller than the car's roof. I passed him once and then he kept following me on route 19 today during lunch hour when I was on my way to mcdonald's. Every time I changed lanes he sped up and went behind me. Finally I got fed up and found an open lane and punched it. I heard him stomp on it but for some odd reason his car kept getting smaller and smaller in my rear view mirror. Lol. Stupid ricers.

quote:

ORIGINAL: BillFromTR
People really do that?!?  Never personally seen a painted black hood, maybe ricers are more creative in your area, lol.

 
Yep, they sure do.

My wife's Civic is still going strong with well over 110K on-the-clock. Jiffey Lube and the Maintenance Schedule adhered too by yours truly. We had the Timing Belt done at Honda as suggested. Other thann that ... it's just been Brake Pads and Spark Plugs. Seems like we're getting out money's worth.

Every now and again I get to drive my daughters new Acura. I love that thing. Drives like it's on rails. I always "Play with the Manual Shifting" and have done a few visits to the Rev Limiter in that car on occasion. Seems like a fun machine.

That a scary Video, though. It did seen to go-up in flames pretty fast. I hope it wasn't something that's wide spread throughout the Line.

I'm getting Chevy Fever. I'm just very happy to have my Monte and getting it into fighting shape is a labor of love. I wish I had this car back when it was new. I'd have had the Fog Lights installed before delivery.

quote:

ORIGINAL: mrl390
 I heard him stomp on it but for some odd reason his car kept getting smaller and smaller in my rear view mirror. Lol. Stupid ricers.

 
 
HAHAHAHA, I almost spit Diet Coke on my monitor. That was funny.

Wow, that is actually frightening.  I didn't know the Monte has fire retardant materials in it either.  That is one cool bonus.  :)