Faults:

The year I bought the car, I needed to replace the rear brake pads, which was a cheap fix on any 10 year old car.

I also needed to replace ball joints twice, as well as CV joints and axles.

The front rotors went out of round last year, as well as another front axle.

Recently, my alternator died while on my way back from out of town, but the car made it back on battery power. A new alternator cost me about $540 with labour.

Also, I have replaced 3 blower fan motors within the last 2 years. These are about $150 a piece, with the last one, being a Denso, cost about $240.

Trunk seems to collect condensation in the carpet, a periodic airing out fixes that.

The car needed a new flex pipe to pass a recent safety. As well, the exhaust system has been through many pipes and mufflers, the most recent muffler change being when the old one was accidently folded when taking the car off roading. This car is not designed to drive over rocks.

The transaxle controller went out a couple years ago, and the tranny was stuck in second gear. This was at a cost of about $600.

Car needs an alignment badly.

General Comments:

This car has been in my family for the past 12 years. My parents bought it new in 1990, and took very good care of it. For a 12 year old family sedan, this car has balls.

The 4th generation Accords with an automatic transmission included a sports button on the gearshift, which changes the shift points and delays, which make the car a blast to drive.

This car recently T-Boned a 1986 Chevrolet Caprice, and won. The Accord drove away from the accident, the Caprice was seriously disabled. This generation of Accord is built like a tank.

This car has only let me down once. This is when the alternator went, I had to cab it to work once. Overall, even when things did go wrong, the Accord was still driveable.

For a 4 cylinder engine, this car goes. Has plenty of power in town and on the highway.

Faults:

At about 170,000 miles, the transmission computer went berserk and started putting us into incorrect gears, shifting too early or late, shifting between gears back and forth. We spent about $500 to put in a computer from a junkyard Accord, and it seems to work well.

At about 175,000 miles, the alternator fried. We were able to replace it, again from a junkyard Accord, for $150 parts and labor.

Minor issues: at about 165,000 miles, the left front window (power) fails to go up. It goes down, and the driver can still put it up, but the passenger can't. We haven't gotten it fixed, although we bet it's a faulty switch (cheap). The driver's door handle is starting to fall apart: the plastic casing that fits into the door is cracked, and the casing has to be held in place with one hand while the lever is pulled with the other. Again, probably a cheap fix, but not really worth it to us.

Very recently (~ 179,000 miles) we have noticed some lateral instability in the rear end of the vehicle when it's traveling at high speeds (65 MPH +). We are guessing it's the struts, which would be costly to replace (maybe $600?).

All told, though, the car has been excellent. It's never really broken down (even when things go wrong, the performance tends to degrade gracefully), and it's never failed to start.

General Comments:

This car is not a fantastic performer, but it is superbly reliable and economical to drive and maintain. Also, there are going to be a lot of Accords around for parts for a long time coming, which lowers the cost of repairs. Highly recommended.