2008 Honda Accord Coupe EX-L Nav review from North America

I was quite excited to have purchased a Honda given its extremely good reputation for quality. However I have been very unimpressed so far with the build quality of the vehicle. Upon driving it off the showroom floor, it had a rattle in the rear window "shelf" that required 2 separate trips to the dealer to have fixed. The entire back seat and shelf ware taken apart and reassembled to fix this issue. All under warranty. So far, this has remained fixed.

At about 8000 miles, another rattle developed in what appears to be coming from passenger side rear seat side airbag unit. I have yet to find the time to take it to the dealer for inspection.

At about 11,000 miles I discovered yet another rattle coming from the rear window shelf again.

The fuel door release usually only works after pushing it at least 5 times, and sometimes requires more pushes than that. When I asked the dealer to inspect this during my first oil change, it opened the first time he tried it, so no work was able to be done on it.

I love to drive this car and it looks incredible. I love to walk up to it in the parking lot after work knowing it is my car, but it is frustrating to buy a US $30,000 plus car from a manufacturer with such a high reputation for quality and be so disappointed in the quality of the product. The car drives beautifully, but the build quality is so awful.

I know the dealer will fix this all under warranty, but due to Honda's program of no loaner cars, it is very inconvenient to find a day to sit at the dealer while they attempt to fix my car. I traded my old Pontiac with 98,000 miles before it started to require frequent trips to the dealer. Guess I should have held on to it since even at 98,000 miles there wasn't a rattle to be heard anywhere.