Faults:

Nothing at all!!

General Comments:

This car is the best car I have ever owned!

It is fast on take off and high end.

With 4 wheel steer it is almost impossible to slide the car off the road!

If I had the chance to buy another car like this, I would in a heartbeat!

Faults:

The problems? It was filled with electrical gremlins. The spedeometer, tach, odometer went bad the second day I owned it! It broke down on me a 2 times, I figured out it was the fuel pump relay and replaced that for hardly anything. But there were other major problems. The dash lights would go out and I had to flick the turn signals to make them come on. Sometimes it would turn over, but not start. Flipping the dome light and headlights on and off repeatedly would fix this problem =) I didn't have it for long when I decided to find out how long 3rd gen preludes last for. I went to the junkyard and checked the odometers of 5 3rd gen preludes there. They were all in the 130k range = (. I finally got rid of it when I skidded out in light snow, hit a curb, thus destroying the front left axle assembly. The cost of the repair, plus all the electrical issues made it impractical to fix.

General Comments:

When my old reliable Plymouth Reliant was on it's way to the grave I decided my next car would be a 3rd generation Honda Prelude SI with a manual tranny, STOCK not rice. Well it didn't take long for me to find it. It was an 88SI with 4 wheel steering, it had 131k on the odometer and the owner was asking for $1000 so I jumped on it. This was by far the most fun car I've ever driven and it was a joy to own... when it was reliable. I only had it for 6 months, but I have no regrets on this purchase.

Faults:

Timing belt broke at 149,000 miles resulting in bent valves and cylinder head. Don't let it happen to you!

Passenger side seat belt won't latch.

Car completely overheats before the fan kicks on initially, then maintains temperature. Does anyone know why?

General Comments:

I bought this car for only $1000 because I needed something "disposable" that got good gas mileage. After driving it for only a short time I realized this was anything, but a disposable car.

Except for the rust spots on the outside, this car is in showroom condition. Everything on it works and it is seriously fun to drive.

I do a lot of highway driving and the Prelude has the pick-up to quickly pass anything else on the road.

I can't recommend this car highly enough. I would buy another in a heartbeat.

Faults:

The A/C compressor leaks due to O-rings that were left off. It is the only thing that failed on my car after 20 years. Still not one single drop of oil leaks from the engine.

The car runs perfectly at 200Km/h. What I like most about it is the smooth balance at any speed. The trick was not to let any mechanic try to align the wheels, since they never had any problem.

Faults:

Worn clutch

Leaking power-steering pressure hose

Heater knob

Front driver side speaker

Slow moving power windows

Rear defroster stopped working

Some rust.

General Comments:

The car is great and reliable. Starts in -15C temperatures with no problems. It does pretty good in snow and ice as well. Not too difficult to control. Very quick and responsive, but desperately needs a sixth gear. At about 100km/h (highway limit) engine runs at about 3400 rpm. The four-wheel steering makes it possible to get into any parking spot no matter how close. Gets about 27 mpg in the city. The transmission is great for city driving. Not really the best highway vehicle or long trip vehicle. It needs a bigger fuel tank. The A5 engine is great. I put a short ram intake with a cone KN filter and an Apexi cat-back exhaust system and it sounds and responds great. The car is very fast, but the 4WS made me a little nervous at high speed. I got up to 190 km/h (120 mph) and did not feel too safe. The cabin gets really noisy (5500-6000 rpm) and steering is uneasy.

With repairs, an OEM replacement clutch kit cost me about $400 CDN, the power steering pressure hose was $250 CDN and that is all that I have had to fix. The last owner replaced the engine for less than $1000 CDN.