1995 Honda Accord LX from North America - Comments

The original radiator began leaking at 197,000 miles.

The original water pump went bad at 200,000 miles.

I consider these two "problems" regular maintainece.

My only real problem; When cold the automatic transmission has a slight slip shifting into third and fourth gear. However after driving 34,000 miles the slip has not gotten any worse.

I'm not going to lie, I run my Accord hard everyday. I launch it over hills, drive it off road, and I go through snow like a Rally Car. A Accord's top speed is 115 mph if you're curious.

This car is amazing. After the 233,000 miles the original engine and transmission are still going strong. I change my oil every 3000 miles, and it doesn't burn a drop between change. It starts right up every time and has never left me or it's previous owner (a good friend of mine) stranded. The A/C has never been touched and it's ice cold on the hottest days.

The paint has held up extremely well, as has the interior. Most people guess that the car has 100,000 miles on it and are amazed when I tell them it has 200,000+. It rides comfortably, although it has a somewhat high level of road noise.

With gas being 3.40 a gallon right now, understand that these cars only get about 27mpg.

My 94 5speed gets 33mpg and it has 228,000 miles.

**UPDATE**

I wrote the original review.

In response to the above comment. My best gas mileage to date is 30 MPG. My Accord now has 263,000 miles. I still beat this car daily. Note the transmission slip has not gotten any worse. Since writing last I've had to replace upper ball joints, an inner tie rod, spark plugs, brake pads and some tires. I bottomed out in a field pretty bad last week and broke an exhaust weld. I'm going to do what I can to rig that up. The fact that this car still runs and drives smoothly is a testimate to Honda's build quality.

Unfortunately this car is not as pretty as it was last time I wrote. I've been hit by a deer and a dump truck, all doing their share of body damage. But it's still legal to drive so I'm going to keep on running this car into the ground (and a few other things I'm sure)

I'll keep you posted.

Mike.

****My 300,000 Mile UPDATE****

First I want to say if you are considering buying one of these cars it will probably be the most reliable car you ever own. I'm a very car oriented person so you might not understand this, but this car has been there for me through everything. Life gets hard sometimes and I have always been able to count on this Honda to get me where I had to be. It had never let me down and to me that is priceless.

Well anyway, today this same Accord turned 300,000 miles! I still beat this car HARD. I run it to redline several times in a trip. My radiator core support is actually crushed in a little from the hard landings jumping and off roading in fields. Everything works on this car, the a/c is still ice cold. All the electronics work. It drives strait and smooth. The transmission still has the same slip I originally discussed, it hasn't gotten much worse, which I am amazed by considering all the abuse. I almost think if I start driving in normal at this point it will die on me.

For you real car guys I hooked up an oil pressure gauge to see how it was doing with oil pressure. At hot idle with 5W30 I had 30 pounds of oil pressure and when I revved up it went up to 80 pounds, this above Honda specs.

Since my last update I have had to replace the following parts in 37,000 miles, aside from brake pads and tires which I wear out every 20,000+ or - miles because of how I drive.

1 Drive-axle ($80)

exhaust ($200)

Tune up ($100)

Belts&radiator hoses ($60 I think)

Battery ($50)

Oil Pressure sending unit ($20)

Yep. If you've got good oil pressure, you've got the world by the beans. I actually drive my Toyota cars much the same way, and got a laugh when you said you're afraid to stop driving it hard. I feel the same way. At one point, I had a '93 Tercel and my friend had a '91 Accord; we were both 18. It was like 'The Fast and the Furious' long before the movie ever came out, except it involved corn fields and limestone quarries! We both sold them eventually, (we're also both kicking ourselves over it) but I'd be hard pressed to decide which one would have died first. We also drove them like we could afford to buy 10 more that day and they couldn't be killed, despite zero maintenance and a life of torture.

***** 340000 MILE UPDATE!!! *****

Hey guys, this is my car I posted about all those years ago. I was talking about how great of a car it's been on another forum, and came by for an update. This Accord is still kicking butt! I don't beat her quiet as hard I did in the past, but what I consider driving easy most people find similar to Formula 1 racing. Haha. She still runs great. The trans still slips a little bit, but this Valvoline High Mileage trans fluid I started using offset some of the wear and tear. I've hit 2 more deer since my last post. So this car has taken out 4 deer so far. She doesn't look pretty, but I'm keeping her till the bitter end.

The only major work I've done since the last post is a timing belt/water pump. A half shaft and upper ball joints (lowers are still original and tight.) And I also broke my original gas mileage record this spring, getting 32mpgs on a very long trip. Go baby go.