1996 Honda Accord LX from North America - Comments

At just before 100,000 miles, the car's harmonic balancer went out, which in turn busted two of my oil seals. All of the sudden my oil light comes on. Well, I just had an oil change, so I thought something went wrong there. I put more oil in the engine and brought it to my mechanic. By the time I got it to him, the low gear cylinder was cracked. Replaced the engine with another Honda Accord engine with roughly 33,000 miles on it. About 8 months later, received a recall on the harmonic balancer for my old engine. About a month after that, the same thing happened to the "new" engine, luckily I didn't blow a cylinder this time.

Honda payed to fix my car the second time. Trying to get back the over $2000 I spent fixing the problem the first time. They are only willing to pay back about 10% of what I've put out so far.

Another minor note, the car is low in the front and tends to scrape bottom when crossing dips.

If Honda had just made this right to begin with, I would have no qualms about buying another Honda. I've really enjoyed the car other than those two incidents, which I've been very distraught over. However, I don't want to deal with a company that will not make things right.

Also owned a '96 LX, it had several stupid problems, like the driver side window would not want to go up, and the windshield actuator had too much slack and made wiper strike edge of windsheild seal. Also, wires became loose inside of distributor, causing the car to randomly go dead while going down the road. Oh-- best for last-- transmission died at 94000 miles. I fixed it and sold it.

When you learn how to maintain your car you will not have so many problems, besides you have a Honda not a Porsche. Your paying a very cheap price, and you expect Porsche quality.

The harmonic balancer did not fail, the balance shaft seal dislodged from the housing-that's where your oil went. The camshaft timing belt is recommended to be replaced at 90,000 miles. Any good tech would know a retainer should be installed at same time (no additional labor would be required. The retainer approx $2.00). Simply blaming the quality of Honda instead of owner's lack of good maintenance is what this sounds like especially since your 2nd engine did the same thing and no one new enough to prevent it again. What do you think about that?

I would also like to mention that a qualified Honda Dealer probably never got the opportunity to maintain your car. American Honda offered a free product update or recall on this particular problem and that obviously never happened either. As you can tell, your complaints really bother me. I deal with similar idiotic complaints every day and rarely see a company respond to their customers better than Honda. To sum it all up, you cannot drive a car into the ground without maintenance by someone who is qualified and knows the product. You have to put your faith in someone, it might as well be a good trained Dealer. Good luck with the new Ford, GM or Chrysler product.

I just bought my 96' accord Yesterday. It is my very first car, and I am really excited, except for the few minor problems. Besides the fact that I have never driven a stick shift and that's what this car is, I have noticed that the lock on the driver side does not work, and the hood comes up a little bit when I am driving. So far it seems to ride very good. I think once I get a hang of the shifting and the clutch I am going to love the car.

I have had about 12 Accords, Civics and one Acura Integra (also a Honda). These have been the most amazing vehicles! They require maintenance, of course. As do ALL CARS! Don't expect to get in and drive it into the ground without it at least complaining once or twice! Go read a forum on Ford or Chevy! Thank your lucky stars you HAVE a HONDA! And to the person who just bought a new Honda, they are awesome cars! You'll love it!