Reliable 97 Accord Lx

Is the Reliable 97 Accord Lx a myth? With the exception of British Pound sterling any other currencies for the year were continually striding until exactly a year later, when most of Asian’s got tumble down toward 1999s. Does a car model reliability record correlate to any financial crisis at all?

Later model Accord seems to have more problems enough to reverse the perceived reliability image of Honda, the transmission headache of 2003 and it gets many more troubles on 2008 model, the year where the Wall-Street drags much of the world.

It would be any body concern to have a reliable car, particularly to the most of drivers with budget constraint. And it is quite a privileged indeed for having a Reliable 97 Accord Lx with exceptionally condition at merely 46,927 kms mileage. Granted it had been fully kept in our garage for a decade with no replacement whatsoever on any of its Driving Light Applications, the car continues to reward us with one of the best motoring experiences.

Exactly a week ago that we managed to get 15km per L of fuel consumption on the toll segment of our journey to the ascending portion going to Bandung in a reasonably brisk driving manner with the air condition blasting on at its max. While its Double Wishbone suspension at the four corners tends to dampen road irregularities toward sport handling ride, it provides balanced handling and ride composure. 

Though in the area of the NVH is still acceptable, it may not be on par with the level of quietness of our 2008 Nissan Serena compact MPV, the tire noise at highway protrudes into the cabin of our Vintage Honda Accord, yet the overall impression as we get to the destination is that despite of its old classic car, upon our arrival we still feel fresh from two hours journey with hardly any fatigue at all.

Car Leisure makes frequent trip on a fortnight basis from Jakarta to Bandung, a mere 150 kms journey through the punishing toll road with road irregularities and often there are some potholes along certain segment. And about 60 km from Bandung the road offers exhilarating long climbing section which occasionally interrupt driver’s awareness especially those driving smaller than 1,600 cc engine.

There is no doubt that any car equipped with Automatic Transmission would work extremely hard along this section, but our Reliable 97 Accord Lx does not have to be revved as hard provided its Overdrive is switched off manually to attain its optimum torque. Its shifting process is still smooth on either way, down or up.

This Reliable 97 Accord Lx comes with VTEC and rear wheel disc brakes as OEM standard equipments. Accordingly we have replaced numerous parts, as what happened to many long time garaged cars, the air conditioner is the first item to fail not to mention the uneven tires wear out, few Lead Acid Battery replacements, and then the extra or cooling fan motor got seized recently (see photo no.2).

Some future attention would be around engine and transmission mountings, as well as suspension mountings. The shock absorbers on all four corners have been replaced, so is the ball joint and some rubbery parts along the steering system, cv joints etc. While the engine and main drive train parts have been largely untouched.

Note Photo No. 1 depicts the original rear lamps, motorized antennae down to muffler tip. Photo No. 3 below the radio cassette as it came out the showroom.