05-Accord - Questions

Congrats on the new Accord. I have an 04 EX-L. Samr engine but we have the

5-speed auto. I would not tow for the first 5 or 6 hundred miles. The engine needs time to set things right. Just drive carefully for the first 600 miles and try to vary your speed and rpm's. as far as washing the car i would wash as i wanted. Just dont wax the car for the first few months, and dontchange the oil for the first 5000 miles. Hondas come with special oil from the factory. The only gripe i have on those tires is that they are noisey . Although we get no snow here in Arizona, so I dont know about them on snow , We had the same tire on our 01 Accord and they lasted 45000 miles with no problems. Hope any of this helps. Scott

Sure go ahead, the people that wrote the manual just threw that line in to see how many people would fall for it. Seriously though, you said it yourself, you have to 'carefully break the engine in'. Towing is not part of that break in period.

The paint hasn't been fresh since the car was painted in the factory. Check the date of manufacture on the car and see how old the car is, really.

I liked the Michelin MX4 tires that I had on my Accord. Fairly quiet and handled the road well.

Brian

Rick, I advise you to follow the instuctions in the manual. It's not wise to put extra stress (such as towing) on an engine that is not broken in. I don't advise you to replace the tires for at least a year. It's a waste of your money to throw away brand new tires. Since Honda knows more about their paint than we know--follow those instuctions. If you damaged the paint by not following the instuctions--I'm sure that Honda would NOT repaint it for you for free. If you can find a tire seller that will pay you a reasonable price for the tires on your car--replace them. Most tire sellers will not buy used tires but they do sell used tires but many of them keep the best used tires and sell them at a discount to people. I saw such a rack of used tires outside a tire sellers business--some of them appeared to be new. Jason

1) You should not tow due to the added stress it places on the engine, transmission, and brakes. Let all of these mechanical system break-in properly prior to towing. I personally do not believe you should tow anything with a 4 cyl fwd car. Hopefully you're just pulling a small utility trailer.

2) I have never heard of not washing the car for a month. Sounds a bit crazy to me since the paint should be plenty hard by now. A quick Maaco paint job might need some extra time to cure, but not the factory paint.

3) Why would you get rid of the OEM Michelin Tires from the get go? They're paid for, are made by Michelin (the best tire maker in the world!), and are factory mounted and balanced. Wait until these tires wear out before you replace them (unless you need snow tires).

have you ever been to europe? there, they regularly tow trailers with that kind of car, some of which are not light. the 1600cc 4 cylinder euro spec toyota corolla station wagon has a factory rated towing capacity of 2866lbs. front wheel drive. all this garbage about towing capacities we see over here is just protectionism for the [very high margin] domestic truck market. and the fact that trailers here are unbraked - something i think incredibly dangerous. it's not as if trailer braking technology is expensive or hard to implement.