When I was in my late thirties, I was visiting my wife’s family for a summer barbecue in Long Beach. Her brother and some of his friends were there. We were standing on the front lawn talking about some of my habits and routines: eating dinner no later than five; going to bed no later than ten; eating sufficient fiber; abstaining from alcohol but deriving great pleasure from sipping chilled prune juice; driving to movie theaters an hour early to make sure I get a parking space and a good seat; avoiding long drives because I find them mentally taxing; and buying a car only after scouring the reliability data in Consumer Reports.
At one point, one of my brother-in-law’s friends, a tall Viking-like figure with light blue eyes and shaggy blond hair, casually looked at me and said, “Dude, you’d make a great eighty-five-year-old.”
I was not offended in the least. His remark was as obvious as it was true. I am not a risk-taker. I like predictability and routine. I like reliable outcomes. I am drawn to things that give me assurance and safety.
Therefore, I am drawn to Honda.
I have been buying Hondas for the last four decades. I like the interiors. They are familiar. I know how to use the controls. The ride is smooth. There is no drama. The styling is not too busy. It tends toward vanilla. I even like the word Honda. It sounds angelic, whispery, and soothing. Repeating the word over and over is a form of ASMR.
My connection to Honda runs so deep that my wife and I both own Honda Accords. Hers is a 2014 with a naturally aspirated 2.4-liter engine and mine is a 2018 with a 2.0 turbo. When our twins get their driver’s licenses, we plan on buying another Accord, a hybrid EX-L that gets around 50 mpg.
Or we did plan on it.
But a crisis has entered my life and sent me down a rabbit hole of angst and distress. Honda has a major engine problem affecting many of its models. The problem involves the cylinder-head gasket losing its seal. This can result in coolant loss, overheating, engine misfires, and coolant entering the combustion chambers. The affected engines include Honda’s 1.5-liter turbos, 2.0-liter turbos, naturally aspirated 2.0-liters, and naturally aspirated hybrid models. Eight models are affected from 2017 through 2026. Honda has extended the warranty on these models to ten years or 150,000 miles.
My 2018 Accord with the 2.0 turbo is not on the list. While I’m relieved, I’m not exactly brimming with confidence either. It is more than eight years old with only 29,200 miles on the odometer as I write this twenty days before my sixty-fifth birthday, October 28. I no longer look at my Accord with confidence. I look at it with mistrust.
And this leads to a painful fact: I am afraid that Honda and I may be uncoupling.
I take this breach of trust personally. Having a car divorce after forty years is heartbreaking. Honda was always my cozy companion. Honda was my trusty sherpa, taking me to work, medical appointments, Trader Joe’s, and Target. The Honda service center is within walking distance of my home. I know the staff. I joke with them. I tell them how much I love Honda. They smile back at me tenderly. Like me, they own Hondas. They are part of my extended family.
But the breach of trust resulting from faulty engines has forced me to look elsewhere. Honda’s only competition for me is Toyota because, like Honda, it has a reputation for reliability. However, while the Honda service center is only one and a half miles away, the Toyota service center is an intimidating four miles away. Yet a little research offers some consolation: Toyota offers a pickup and drop-off service, which Honda does not. More importantly, Toyota has a clean bill of health on its engines, which Honda does not.
In my risk-averse mind, I’m uncoupling from Honda and moving toward Toyota. For me, this is far more than a rational consumer decision. The change has emotional weight. It’s like getting divorced and remarried. It’s like selling your house and moving across the country. It’s like making a career change. Imagine working as an engineer for twenty years and then opening a yoga studio. I am entering foreign territory.
But Honda has left me little choice. For years, its engineers had a massive engine problem growing right under their noses. This degree of negligence and incompetence feels like the automotive equivalent of marital infidelity. A massive breach of trust has occurred.
And this points to yet another problem: If and when Honda fixes its defective engines, regaining my trust could take at least a decade. I would need long-term data to be convinced that Honda reliability is up to spec again. I don’t want to be the car buyer who provides the data. I want to be the car buyer who studies the data after the fact and then makes his decision.
Buying a car is like choosing a bride. I don’t want some thirty-six-month dalliance with a car lease. I want to commit for the long term. Till death do us part.
The holy sacrament between Honda and me has dissolved. Unless Honda does something as dramatic as moving a few mountains and parting the Pacific Ocean to win back my trust, I am afraid the uncoupling is upon us.
I am looking over the horizon.
I see a beaming light.
It reads Toyota Camry.
Preferably in Dark Cosmos.
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