[PeppyGPhiB]

I bought my '99 Honda Civic new in Dec. 1998 and will be celebrating its 10th birthday this year. It's finally coming up on 100,000 miles and it drives almost like it's brand new. AND even the exterior and interior are in practically the same condition as when I bought it, despite the car spending almost two years in sea-salty Malibu and plenty more uncovered in rainy/blustery/sunny/snowy Seattle. The only work I've had to have done on it is routine maintenence, other than the exhaust manifold cracking at around 65k miles which the dealership covered under the standard warranty! The back brakes still have 60% left on them, and I just replaced the timing belt at 96k miles just because I didn't want to chance it. I will drive that car until it no longer drives, which will likely be another 100k miles. I always took it to the dealership up until the 80k miles mark, because I knew various systems were covered under the Honda warranty up to that point.

By contrast, my boyfriend, who grew up in Michigan, interned at Ford, and got his engineering degree from U. of M., drives a '99 Ford Mustang, which he bought because he had a sentimental attachment to it (it was the first car he ever learned to repair). Though our cars are the same age, you would never know it. His dashboard is coming loose, his driver seat came off the tracks a while ago, and now the knob that controls the back of his seat broke, so his seat reclines flat unpredictably. And it's had all kinds of mechanical problems. It is a pathetic excuse for a vehicle, and it costs a fortune to have the shop do work on it because of how poorly everything is laid out under the hood. He marvels at how clever Honda's engineering is. He is deciding now on whether to buy a Honda or Toyota and has decided he will never again buy an American car, even though he grew up in GM's/Ford's backyard. His first car was a Toyota, but he wanted to give Ford a chance, and they blew it.

We stopped at a Honda dealership the other day because we wanted to check out the new Accord and Pilot, and I looked up where the Pilot was made - 100% assembled in ALABAMA. The salesman told us that almost all Hondas sold in the U.S. now are majority assembled in the U.S.