1998 Honda Accord Reviews, Pricing & Specs

Something wrong with remote control fob from the very beginning. Both original remotes have had the same problems: even with a fresh battery you don't know if remote will work or not, which defeats the purpose late at night in the dark. If anything accidentally touches the Panic button, it will set off the car alarm which is embarrassing and scary when you don't know how to turn it off. (Press the Unlock button.) Door locks are kind of unpredictable, too. They sometime lock themselves soon after you exit the car--so you'd better make sure you have the key with you. It's a pain when doors lock and you still have lots of stuff to unload from the car. Other weird issue with the locks/alarm system is that if the windows are down but doors locked and you stick your arm through the window, that might or might not triggers the alarm. So as far as I'm concerned, Honda should have offered to fix the problem for free (I asked dealerships); being potentially locked out of your car is beyond mere aggro. Whoever designed the visors should be shot--you practically have to wrestle them open, which is distracting and dangerous when driving. And the visors themselves are too long or the pull-out visor extensions are, because there is no way to completely shut out glare if you want to be able to see the whole rearview mirror, let alone reposition it. Major annoyance bordering on defect IMHO. The rearview mirror is adequate, but again, you practically need the strength of Atlas to flip the lever that shifts the mirror angle for night driving/headlight glare. The whole mirror actually fell off around age 12 when I pushed the lever. Something about the design (where door edge or window trim is positioned?) also limits visibility in some way, making it super-critical to doublecheck for blind spots when moving left a lane. Rear bumper should be sturdier. Both sides have developed cracks, which a body shop can glue underneath, but come on. Plastic for a rear bumper? Probably doesn't help to live in a cold climate, but still. Speakers are fine, but enough highway noise gets through enough to make it hard to hear the highs and lows if you're a music buff. Replaced tires at age 11; had to replace catalytic converter around age 12, which was expensive of course (over $1000 if I remember correctly). Now as the car approaches year 16, I worry that transmission will be the next major expense despite being pretty good about laying off the clutch. Car has great legroom but that makes car longer than most sedans and thus takes up more space to park. (More of an issue now that the trend is toward smaller cars.) The Accord was the same length as our Volvo 240 DL wagon, which had about the same amount of legroom but a lot more cargo space. See "Comments" section for more info about trunk and back seat features. Speakers are fine, but enough highway noise gets through enough to make it hard to hear the highs and lows if you're a music buff. The Accord has a nice throaty engine, but the horn? Ridiculous. Practically sounds like a toy. And the horn is very poorly designed, because you almost have to pound it to make it go off. W-a-a-y too hard to press. There is no separate button on the steering wheel for the horn, not even a label on the center panel indicating where to press. Which says to me: Press anywhere, or at least aim for the middle. Right? But more than once I've hit the horn and nothing happened, which is *not* a good thing when a distracted driver is plowing toward you. I'd be very interested to know if others have had the same experience. I'm no car mechanic so I can't cite specs; all I can say about performance is that it's decent for a 4-cylinder engine. The only time I've had problems are on very steep hills--but since I have a manual transmission, I just downshift. Sometimes when I' take the car in for an oil change, the mechanic forgets to reset whatever it is he's supposed to, meaning that the oil light on the control panel goes off. Scared me the first time it happened. Whatever it is that is supposed to be reset should do so automatically. (Another design flaw IMO.) Since moving to a cold clime, I've notice little glitches that might be caused by extreme cold. Probably a lot to do with the age of the car, too. One morning last winter the heat decided not to work despite the fan being on full blast. Mechanic said it's not uncommon (at least here in MN) for the sensor under the temp knob to detach, and the fix was fortunately quite easy--just pop on a new knob that cost around $15. Deep glovebox but almost too deep--wish it were less vertical and more horizontal so you could see at a glance everything in there. Dealer replaced the seatbelt anchor or whatever it was that was recalled several years ago. I've only had to replace headlamps twice, I think, in 16 yrs which is pretty decent.May 12, 2014