2008 Honda Accord LX 4-door from North America - Off Topic Comments

Sadly, imports are not all their ads make them out to be. I've heard of countless stories of major problems with Camry, and quite a few with the normally reliable Accord. Our Civic was one of the most poorly made, unreliable cars I've ever seen. We long ago went back to 100% domestic vehicles for all 3 of our cars and none of our domestics has ever had one single problem ever. The current crop of domestics is better in every respect than most imports. A domestic SUV, the Chevy Suburban, has the highest resale value of any large SUV, while the lowest resale value is an import (the Nissan Armada). Though Honda has excellent resale value, it is more than offset by the much higher purchase price and repair costs on the newer models.

As for styling, yes, the new 4-door Accord is almost indistinguishable from a decade-old Saturn LS sedan. My advice is to try the new Ford Fusion (highest rated car Consumer Reports has ever tested) or the world-class Chevy Malibu. Either is more affordable, more reliable and less expensive to purchase and maintain.

That’s not going to happen. I never buy American cars and I don’t agree with the resale value. Don’t know where you got that information. The resale value is much higher for Japanese cars.

Import resale values do NOT offset the additional high purchase prices and higher maintenance costs. If you pay $7000 more for a car, keep it 4 years and get $3000 more for it than a comparable domestic, you've still LOST $4000.

Add in a $5000 transmission replacement and you're even further behind.

Car and Driver just featured an article about used cars and one was an Acura with only 78,000 miles on it. It had already had one engine replaced and TWENTY FIVE sets of front brake pads!! In the 8 YEARS I've owned my GM car I've had NOTHING replaced except ONE set of front brake pads. If I GAVE the car away I'd be better off than that Acura owner!!

After making comment 10:58, I went to my office and discovered that a good friend had just bought a 2009 Honda Civic. He paid $19,165 for a basic 4-door with automatic. He then paid an ADDITIONAL $1000 to extend the puny 36,000 mile warranty to 100,000 miles (which comes on ALL GM cars for free). Honda (and Toyota) now have the second worst warranty in the auto industry (the worst is the Smart car's 2-year warranty).

If my friend had followed my suggestion, he could have bought an identically equipped Ford Focus with a 60,000 mile standard warranty for a total of $7000 less. I can already hear shouts of "RESALE VALUE!!! RESALE VALUE!!" from import owners. Well, I looked it up. I went to KBB and put in the identical mileage and equipment for a 3 year old base Civic and a 3 year old base Focus. The Civic was higher... by about $1850. Which means my friend will LOSE $5150 on his investment over a three year period. To me that IS not a wise buy. $5150 will buy a LOT of gas.

This just goes to reinforce my previous comment. Any possible "savings" in higher resale value of Honda is more than offset by the much higher purchase price, even if the car does NOT trash the transmission at 40,000 miles.

Actually Honda's come with a 5 year 60K power train warranty standard. Not sure where you heard 3/36 was standard or if you were talking about the bumper to bumper warranty only. In any case it seems the Focus has the same warranty. I agree the Focus would be a better choice though as it is a really nice car for the money. Unfortunately old habits die hard and import owners are tough to sway when it comes to foreign cars versus domestics, which is why the resale values are higher on the foreign cars. Look at a base Accord for $21K or so and a base Malibu for around $22K and you'll come out way ahead on the Accord. Point: There is an argument for every side of the car debate. Nowadays most of the import cars sold here are designed and/or built in the U.S. (or Mexico/ Canada) so it really doesn't matter so much what you choose. Imports have declined in quality and domestics have gained quality so to me they pretty much are at the same level...finally. Just buy what you like and move on...

Hello I don't understand what some people are saying about Honda and that it is not reliable, I had an 08 Ford Focus that I purchased BRAND NEW and yes it is a great car for the money but within 5 months of owning this vehicle I had the rear window regulator to go and left me with the window completely down in wintery weather. Dealer fixed for no cost to me but if the vehicle was not under manufacturers warranty it would have cost over $500 to repair so domestics also cost to repair, the bottom line is that in this day and time if a vehichle is domestic or imported it will cost to fix the smallest things.

I've owned a lot of small cars over the last 3 decades. I've been most impressed with the Hondas. I just bought my daughter an 09 Civic LX Coupe, and I paid $17,200. Probably not the very best I could have done, but I was tired of haggling, and it was quite a bit less than others have paid for 08 and 09 models. Dealers will tell you their cost prohibits them from selling an LX for less than $18,000. Don't believe it. I love the new styling on the front and back end vs. the previous models. It's a beautiful car, all around. For those considering the new Honda Fit, I'll give my opinion. If you need the versatile fold-down seats for cargo (or 10 cup-holders), it beats the Civic, but the Fit has less power, a rather noisy, bumpy ride, and gets slightly worse gas mileage than the Civic. Accelerating to highway speed felt way too slow for me. I feel the Civic is just more solid, responsive, and fun to drive.

My God son test drive a new Fit and came away with the same impression as commenter 19:39. He opted to go with a Pontiac G5, which has a much better warranty (100,000 miles), is rated at 37mpg, and saved him nearly 5 grand. That will buy a LOT of gas.

The Fit is only rated at 35 MPG highway? That's terrible for a car that small.

Most Honda models today are basically domestic makes with a foreign name. Most notably, Accords, Civics, Odysseys and Rideglines are all manufactured in the US along with the CR-V. Yes, the resale values on these vehicles are higher typically when they are well cared for.

FYI

Most of the Japanese cars are made in the US nowadays. My father owns a 99 Honda CR-V in SAUDI ARABIA, and it's made in USA... even the manual, which is in Arabic, is printed in USA.

There is no such thing as imports/domestic cars any more. The thing is that build quality is becoming the worst thing about cars, my 97 Acura with 170k drives and feels much better than my 07 Dodge with 12k, which is made of nothing but cheap plastic, I think 100% plastic, the cheapest kind.

Don't get me wrong, new imports are somewhat plastic too, but still a better decision, at least for me.

Why for me... I've had over 10 so far, and I have a big family, which means much more cars to test drive or hear about.

Your comment repeated the statement just prior to yours. Lines from Lexus, Infiniti and Acura are still sometimes produced in Japan and certain models from Mercedes-Benz, Volkswagen and BMW are manufactured in Japan, Volvo from Sweden. The cars made in their home country have fewer problems. The reason the big 3 are in trouble is because they overpay workers, think they can skimp consumers on the quality they are looking for in a vehicle, overcharge them and now it's costing them BIG.

It's people always buying this Japanese junk that's killing big three.

I'm 19 and am the proud owner of a 1998 Ford Crown Victoria. It's safer, better built, and in my opinion better looking than any ugly spaceship-looking Honda.

If more vehicles were constructed with body-on-frame construction and rear-wheel-drive, I believe there would be far less reliability complaints.

Big Three needs to go back to their body-on-frame cars and quit building cheap Japanese wannabees!

If anyone wants to argue about the reliability of a Crown Vic/Grand Marquis/Town Car, go ahead but those little Japanese cars can't hold up to the streets of NYC or police duty like these cars. Just look it up. There was a big safety and reliability issue with these front-wheel-drive econoboxes not being able to take the abuse of a taxi and not being near as safe in a crash. So once again body-on-frame, rear-wheel-drive is tried and true, and the Japanese will never get that!

"The reason the big 3 are in trouble is because they overpay workers, think they can skimp consumers on the quality they are looking for in a vehicle, overcharge them and now it's costing them BIG"

A MAJOR misconception. High fuel costs and a recession are hurting U.S. auto makers, not product quality. Except for Hyundai no import manufacturer has the confidence in their products to offer the same warranty as Ford, GM and Chrysler.

For the 4th straight year, the highest rated car in reliability in the world is a Ford (the Fusion). In a survey of very high-mileage vehicles featured in the October 2007 issue of Consumer Reports, the longest running vehicle with no engine or transmission repairs was a Ford (Ranger truck) with 488,000 trouble-free miles. The one featured with the LOWEST overall miles in that article was a Honda.

Ad hype leads to many urban myths. One of the biggest myths is that U.S. auto companies build less reliable cars than Japanese companies. Not so.

You have your opinion and I have mine. As the owner of both a domestic and import vehicle, long-term ownership costs for my import were far less than that of my domestic car.

Consumer reports are sometimes biased in that they encourage consumers to "buy American," so they get higher reviews.

My '96 GMC Sonoma pickup did last me 225K miles but was nickel and dimed every step of the way. I actually kept my truck serviced and odd things went wrong with it. As soon as I had it out the shop for one thing, something else was falling apart on it. Cheap plastic materials were used inside and pieces began falling off my dashboard for no apparent reason. I'm sure I could've put a down payment on another vehicle with the amount of money I put in repairing that wreck on wheels.

My 1987 Nissan Maxima on the other hand gave 20+ years of reliable service. Even after the car was 20 years old NOTHING was ripped, torn or falling off the dash of my car. Only routine brakes, alignment, tune-up, timing belt, tires and oil change service was done on the car. The biggest irritation was my sunroof that leaked during a heavy ran or a run through the car wash.

I used my car on a 120 mile commute 3 days a week and the car NEVER left me stranded. I can't say the same for the Sonoma, which left me stranded several times, leaving constant doubt in the back of my mind everytime I drove it.

Ford Fusions have not been in production long enough to determine long-term reliability or ownership costs, so that is a poor example to use. I do however see MANY Honda Accord, Civic and Toyota Camry, Corolla models on the road constantly that are 15 years old or more. I see few Ford models on the road that are over ten years old. GM models are better, but not by much, and let's not even talk about Chrysler.

All models from the Big 3, typically with the exception of trucks and SUVs have poor resale values. That is not the case with the Japanese Big 3. The Detroit Big 3 sunk their own ship by mass manufacturing poor quality vehicles using little or no quality controls, then charging a hefty price tag. My uncle purchased a 2006 Cadillac DTS brand new, he wanted to trade the car in earlier this year with 23K miles and was told the trade in value was a mere $25,000!

The Big 3 all deserve to be shut down due to their mismanagement of money, overproduction, badge-engineering and high prices. Sorry to burst your bubble, but high gas prices played only a small part in their failure. Sales have slipped across all model lines for the Big 3. I could see if it was only trucks and SUVs only, but that is not the case. They deserve NOT A PENNY of the taxpayers money. I don't buy the crap coming off their lines anyway!