Ours looked like this, but it was white
(welcome long-time CC reader/commenter Kyree Williams who starts a new Saturday COAL series starts today)
The humble Accord actually started off as my mother’s daily driver. She’d just totaled her 70s AMC Concorde (note: crashing into the back of a dump truck in icy weather is very bad for your car) and needed something in which to get around. I recall her being pregnant with my younger sister, so that puts mid-to-late 1998 as the year we acquired the Accord. I also remember seeing it at some junky car dealership with the doors off of it; I think my parents purchased it from some salvage-repair outfit.
1990 Honda Accord interior
1990 was the very first year for the fourth-generation “CB” Accord Sedan and Coupe, with the Accord Wagon arriving for 1991. Ours was an EX Sedan model, in white, with an eggplant-colored interior that I came to realize was vinyl, not leather. To this day, I’m not sure if that was a factory upholstery option, or something the salvage lot did. I’ve also never seen that interior color on another one. I’ve seen red, but not eggplant. Honda didn’t add a driver-side airbag to the Accord until 1992, for the Accord’s facelift, and as such ours had the annoying motorized seat belts that would slide into position when you closed the door. Under the hood was Honda’s venerable 2.2-liter “F22A4” inline 4-cylinder engine, mated to a 4-speed automatic. Alloy wheels, power windows, power locks, and a sunroof rounded out the options list. To be fair, that’s a fairly short list from a 2019 standpoint, but 19 years earlier, it made for a fairly nice car. Oh, and I think our Accord had a “J” VIN, indicating that it was manufactured in Japan, rather than Ohio, like most of the US-market examples.
An easy way to tell the pre- and post-facelift Gen 4 Accord apart is by the taillights. On the left is the 1990-1991 version. On the right is the 1992-1993 version (coupe shown), with narrower, rounded taillights and migrated turn signals/reverse lights.
I don’t have pictures of this car, so you’ll have to forgive me. It’s hard to make it sound exciting, because it didn’t really provide any excitement. What it did do, however, was transport our family through almost a full decade. My dad stopped driving us all around in his 1964 Chevrolet Impala coupe with no seatbelts in the back (I know, I know), and the Accord became our family ride. My sister was taken home from the hospital in it. We brought it with us when we moved from Denver to Oklahoma City. And it ferried me to and from school for years.
My parents kept the Accord in good condition, even by 2004, when it was getting seriously old, and had well over 100K miles on it. But…in the fall of that year, my mother, sister, and I all went to grab a bite to eat, when someone pulled out of an apartment complex without yielding as we were driving past, and ran squarely into the right rear area, spinning us around in a full circle. Fortunately, we weren’t hurt, although we never did catch the rogue driver. When we surveyed the damage, we found a nice big dent and cracked paint in the right rear driver’s side door and quarter panel, but the door still opened, and the rear axle hadn’t sustained any noticeable damage. Mom kept driving it.
In March of 2006, Mom finally decided she wanted a newer car, and she and Dad selected a fully-loaded 2003 Kia Sorento EX 4WD from the local Kia dealership. The SUV went into the garage, and the Honda sat on the street in front of the house, looking rather sorry for itself. By then, the damage to the right rear side had rusted up, instantly condemning the car to “hooptie” status. What’s more, the tires were flat and the cheap window tint had begun to turn purple and bubble up. And the relentless sun had done a number on the vinyl upholstery, whose surface began to crack and whose stitches started to come apart.
Don’t you just hate seeing this?
As you may or may not know, 80s and 90s Hondas are tempting targets for gypsies, tramps, and thieves. They’re fairly easy to steal, and there’s a roaring trade in parts on those cars, or at least there was at the time. So it was only a year before some lovely individual noticed the unused car, and made an attempt for it. One day, probably in 2007, I noticed the front driver-side window was completely out of alignment as I was coming home. I looked inside, and–yup!–someone had shimmied a tool between the window and the frame, just enough to pull it out and access the manual door lock on the top edge of the door panel. (To this day, I’m not sure why automakers use those, as all they do is advertise the security state of your car.) This enterprising person then attempted to use something flat, like a screwdriver, to turn the ignition switch and get the car to start, since this was before Honda’s use of keys with security chips. All they’d managed to do, however, was tear up the ignition switch, and the car had stayed put. With that, the Accord was rendered inoperable.
It remained that way until 2011, my last year of high school. For various reasons that all start with “I was lazy,” I did not get my driver’s license until after my 18th birthday, at which time the Accord became mine. Let’s just say I wasn’t in any hurry to get my parents–who were divorced by this time–to fix it. I was embarrassed of it and its sorry state, and was hoping I could make it through high school without being seen in it. I considered the bright yellow school bus a preferable mode of conveyance to a battered white sedan that was old enough to order a drink at a bar. I suppose I had grand dreams of being surprised with a brand-new Bentley or something one day, not that we could afford one (although a student driving a new luxury car or new loaded pickup truck wasn’t an uncommon sight at my high school, on the nicer side of town where we lived).
A lot of my high-school classmates drove these, purchased new
No such luck. No dream Bentley, BMW, or even Buick ever descended from the skies and landed in my driveway. And around April, Mom found a guy through our church who was able to repair the ignition column and get the Accord running once more. After that, she turned me loose with a clothes steamer and told me she’d found a video on YouTube that said you could use one to remove the failing window tint. There were a few other issues to fix, like the passive seat belt that wouldn’t slide back into its “activated” position. But once those were solved, I was turned loose in the Accord.
The Accord proved itself reliable transportation during my final two weeks of high school, where I parked as far toward the back as possible to prevent being seen. It always started and drove, and the A/C surprisingly blew ice-cold without ever having had a recharge. That said, it wasn’t fun. The car’s low-slung shape and lack of airbags left me feeling quite vulnerable. And there was no radio, since the hollow power-retractable antenna had long since quit working. Or perhaps someone had stolen it and used it to shoot up drugs; I don’t know. The head unit, which was an aftermarket model with a removable faceplate, refused to spit out its CD, so I spent my time listening to the album my mother had last left in before she’d quit driving it. This is why I intimately know the lyrics to the Toni Braxton/Babyface duet and platinum hit “How Could An Angel Break My Heart.” Also, I recall a particular time my friend and I were driving back to campus from lunch, and it began to rain torrentially. I couldn’t see a thing ahead, but kept driving, thinking all the while that something was wrong with the windshield wipers. Turns out, no one had shown me how to use the defrost button, and pressing it out of curiosity quickly resolved that issue, since the A/C was already on. D’oh! Fortunately, she does not remember that incident.
Surprisingly, they still sell Double-DIN head units with removable faceplates. Huh. Who knew?
And then summer came. My plan was to get a fast-food job to save up some cash for my upcoming freshman year of college, and it was a plan that the Accord tried its absolute hardest to ruin. Promptly after school ended, I began to have increasingly frequent incidents of the car coming to a jittering stop, and then refusing to start again for some time. On the final instance before we did something about it, it stopped in front of–of all places–the Honda dealership, where we left it until we could get a tow truck in the morning. I’m sure they loved seeing a car with their brand’s badge affixed to the grille broken down in their entrance.
The same guy that fixed the ignition wound up coming to our aid and taking the Accord back in at his shop, at no charge. Both of my parents were struggling quite a bit financially from their divorce and having to maintain two households, so he was a real godsend–not that I was grateful, since the car still embarrassed the hell out of me. While it was out of use, I wound up keeping my mom’s 2005 Nissan Murano SL during the day, and getting her and my sister to and from school/work. The Accord’s issue turned out to be a failing head gasket. It was letting oil into the cylinder head and saturating the spark plugs in oil, which of course prevented them from firing.
Spark plugs really don’t like oil
Since the mechanic was fixing the Accord for free, we didn’t pressure him to hurry, and he didn’t wind up getting to it until the week before I was to leave for school, in another state. Mom said I shouldn’t take the car, and I enthusiastically agreed. I wasn’t concerned about getting around the new city (I could walk and my roommate lived there and had a car, and parents with a washer and dryer they let us both use). And getting back to Oklahoma wasn’t an issue, either. One of the people at our church was an administrator at the school, and she had set up a second residence in that state. What’s more, her daughter was an entering freshman at the same time, and she planned to take frequent trips home, trips on which she was more than happy to bring me. So, the Accord stayed home.
At some point–I remember it was the latter half of my freshman year, so it would have been early 2012–my mom called me from back home and told me a coworker of hers was in real need of a car. She asked, making it perfectly clear that I could say no, if I wanted to loan the Accord to this coworker. I agreed. I didn’t see the harm in it, and also wasn’t attached to it. She drove it without incident for at least a few months.
And then the Accord stopped working altogether, and my mother’s coworker had it towed back to our house, feeling just terrible about the whole thing. We, of course, knew it wasn’t her fault. This time, it would crank, but wouldn’t even pretend to turn over. Mom didn’t want me to go yet another summer without a car, so she set about getting it fixed. This time, a different person came to the rescue—actually the husband of the college administrator I mentioned earlier. He quickly found the issue: the timing belt had snapped while my mom’s coworker was driving it. He was going to put another one on, but decided to open the valve cover and check things out. The Accord, like almost every Honda ever, had an interference engine. What this means is that the open valves in the head extend into the piston area, and that a broken timing belt will likely result in them staying open at the wrong time and getting smashed. And that’s exactly what happened to my Accord.
At that point, we felt it was time to let go of the Accord. It certainly wasn’t worth fixing or replacing the engine on what was then a 22-year-old sedan in lousy shape. It stuck around in the garage, collecting dust, until I finally sold it for about $500 to a scrapper. It meant a lot to me as a car that I spent much of my childhood in, but as my personal transportation, it was mostly an embarrassment and a hindrance. Unfortunately, I wasn’t in the clear because the car that replaced the 1990 Accord was almost as elderly and substantially more unreliable.
Welcome Kyree, I’ve seen your name here (and there) and am glad to finally be getting to know you through the COAL vehicle. Hondas of that vintage seem to be like the VW bugs of my generation, in that they can run badly long after other cars have stopped running at all. But a broken timing belt in an interference engine is the kiss of death regardless of the condition of the rest of the car unless you want to replace or rebuild the whole engine.
It is a pleasure to read your first COAL on a nice spring morning and I look forward to your subsequent chapters.
Hello, Kyree!
Excellent debut COAL! I wondered how a ’90 Accord would be compared to first car experiences of my generation: air cooled Beetles. At first I thought you must have hit the jackpot until you got to the part where someone hit the rear quarter.
Even though it embarrassed you for the humpty dumpty looks I think you respect the car for its durability.
My friend has the Accord that came before this one. He and l are in the process of slowly fixing it up from years of neglect, because he will need to use it daily for quite some time. I’m glad yours lasted as long as it did.
My first car was also an Accord, a gray 2000 EX. I drove it all through high school and found it be the blandest car known to man.. It didn’t have the tank-like quality of yours though, and was constantly breaking down. I remember there being lots of kids with new pick ups and fancy luxury cars. Then there were saps like myself, driving whatever we could afford with our own money, and people with classics, like my friend that owned a 1982 Datsun 280ZX
Hi Kyree, I’ve enjoyed reading your comments over the years. So glad you’ve decided to write a COAL series as well. I look forward to reading about your automotive adventures!
Around the same time of your Accord story, around 2009 or so, a friend of mine had a 93 Accord two door in that 90’s teal color. It was in excellent shape. Unfortunately, it was stolen from the parking lot at work. We watched the surveillance video, the guy took the car in less than a minute! Sadly, it was never recovered.
Excellent article. I’ve always enjoyed your comments, and it’s great that you’re writing longer features. Sadly, Hondas are still targets for thieves, apparently; their airbags are a hot item. Looking forward to your next posting, though your foreshadowing sounds ominous.
Kyree, after years of your polite demeanor and informative comments here and elsewhere, it is good to see a COAL series. Thanks for sharing.
This Accord is one of those legendary high-water mark models that was praised effusively at the time and remembered wistfully decades later. A low mile example recently sold for ten thousand bucks on bring-a-trailer, no reserve, and it had the automatic. What I really like about your review, however, is that any car can be brought back down to earth by real world circumstances. This wasn’t the shiny off-the-showroom example on the 1990 magazine covers, extolled for driving dynamics and seen as aspirational. It was the battered workhorse that got your family through. Magazine editors opined on engine verve and interior plastics and steering response, your concerns were whether it ran when needed and how embarrassing a rusting old car can be to a high school student.
How can you call this car humble ? It was one of the best cars of its’ day, and the best Accord of the 90s.
Humble means unpretentious and workman-like. I think that’s a pretty good way to describe an Accord, especially the older gen models. Clearly wasn’t meant as an insult.
A friend had one of these Accords, in white, like yours. He was known for always keeping it clean, and he always wore nicely pressed shirts, clean and polished shoes, the best ties, etc. In other words, he liked things ‘just so.’
One day, his young daughter decided to take her crayon set to the car and make beautiful lines. That she did, in all manner of colours, all over the sides of the car. On a sunny day. In the summer. Ever try to take crayon off a car? Go ahead and try, I’ll wait right here.
It didn’t work did it? He had all sorts of trouble trying to get that thing clean, and I honestly don’t recall it ever being the same again.
Great write-up. Can’t wait to see what your next ride is going to be!
Could be worse. A friend’s small kid saw their car getting waxed and wanted to help, except instead of a waxing pad he grabbed steel wool.
Like this?
It was more like long flowing arcing lines that touched front to back along the sides. Reds and greens really stand out on a white car. Ouch. That screwdriver looks like some kind of serious business.
My parents had a 1990 Accord EX with the same eggplant colored interior. Ours was cloth, but it was an interesting color for sure. Not quite maroon, not quite purple.
Ours held up with 0 mechanical issues (1 new clutch, 1 new power antennae motor, and nothing else) for 15 years and over 150k miles until it was totalled in a wreck. Great cars, leaps and bounds ahead of their competition at the time.
Kyree, welcome to the COALmine, it’s getting crowded down here but we know how to party!
These cars were new right as I was ending college and while the prior generation Accord was a great car, these were a step above them and really took the fight to the Taurus (in California at least). Obviously there are still some around but few of the survivors seem to be complete hoopties, at this point if they’ve made it this long they’ve been generally cared for and will continue. Bummer about your car, but I can think of a lot worse ones to have had and as I age have come to realize more and more that what’s on the outside (rust and dents) is irrelevant compared to what’s inside, i.e. in this case the intrinsic goodness of an Accord; of course that isn’t limited to cars, it works for many things (and people).
Anyway, welcome aboard and I look forward to the next one. I think this is one of the few COALs where over the years through your comments I already know the last three or four installment subjects!
Welcome Kyree. One’s first car is always remembered, long after other rides have come and gone. It says a lot about Hondas that a 20 year old Accord, which apparently received the bare minimum of maintenance along the way, continued to run (more or less) until the kiss of death (broken timing belt) got to it. My first car was a 1961 Ford, only 8 years old when I got it, yet it was basically a rusty heap of parts. A lot of my contemporaries look upon the cars of our youth as magical devices, made without flaws. In our heads (if not our hearts) we know this is not true as cars have continued to improve over time. However, no matter how much better today’s cars are they don’t stir the emotions as do the cars of our youth, no matter when that youthful period was.
Nicely done! Just few days ago, I was accompanied with my classmates, getting back from a Škoda dealer picking up a delivery. As we were walking across the nearby gas station, a lowered and tuned blue Accord of this generation drove away. I informed my friends how you Americans like these. In Slovakia, there are thin on the ground. Too bad I didn’t get a photo.
I don’t have my genuine first car yet, but can relate to your feelings about driving a non-attractive car. Many of my classmates were provided with shiny new cars and park on the paid street, whereas I with our rusty and trusty Felicia search in the nearest block of flats for an empty space. Driving a car like that has a big advantage, though – one is not so concerned about occasional dents from parking lots or when it is dirty. Simply one less thing to care about.
Looking forward for next installments, this one was splendid!
The trusty Škoda Felicia I wrote about is on the left, with her almost doppelganger, but newer. (Škoda Fabia, stripper, workpants-blue, steel wheels w/hubcaps).
Here they are.
I hope third time will be the charm for the picture…
Death by cambelt, your first free mechanic likely caused that by not replacing the belt when he changed the headgasket, cambelts are not a reuseable item, theres still some of these older Accords on the road here often riced beyond all reason, kids luv em as they keep going, like most 90s Japanese cars Honda got it right then lost the plot.
I’ve never been in an Accord of that vintage, but I’ve wondered about the seats. I had to get rid of my 2007 Accord because I’ve found the seats unbearable an any drive longer than an hour. The lack of thigh support and overly-firm cushions make the drive incredibly uncomfortable, and message boards show I’m not the only one who feels this way. The seats in any old Taurus are wonderful by comparison. Do people accept the Accord discomfort because of the leftover “import mystique” North Americans tend to fall for? Were Accords always like this?
This story (very well written, by the way!) brings back fond memories of 2 well-used Accords I had at one time.
The first one was a 1990 coupe that I inherited from my daughter when she needed a newer car. She in turn had inherited it from her dad, who had inherited it from his mother. Although it had over 200,000 miles on it by that time, it ran well and looked decent. I had to replace the fuse at the bottom of the steering column and the trans control module, and that’s it other than maintenance. I sold it when we got a newer car.
#2 was a 1991 sedan with about 90,000 miles on it. It ran and drive better than any of the other $2000 cars I’d been looking at. while I owned it, the only thing I had to do to it was replace the same fuse at the base of the steering column as I’d done on the previous car.
What was the fuse for?
I had a ’91 Accord DX. Manual windows and locks, unpainted plastic bumpers. A friend sold it to me for $500 in 2000. It was in rough shape. It had never been well cared for and he had hit a deer with it, slightly damaging the front end and prompting his wife to order him to get rid of it. I bought a new headlight assembly from ebay and drove it for a few years, dented front fender and all. It had over 150k on it and required a few repairs while I had it. The fuel pump relay needed to be replaced as well as the distributor. The distributor was about $400 as I remember. It was a 5 speed manual and reasonably fun to drive. The air conditioner still worked as did the aftermarket cruise control. The best part was after driving it for about three years I sold it for $850.
The weak point of these old Hondas is the timing belt. I just spent $700 having the timing belt replaced on my daughter’s ’04 civic. A tough pill to swallow for a fifteen year old car, but a broken timing belt is catastrophic.
Thanks for the COAL article Kyree. I enjoyed it and look forward to the next one.
Glad to finally see an article from you here Kyree! I’ve enjoyed your comments and conversation over the years, and let me join in welcoming you here as a contributor!
I’ve always had a fondness for this “CB” generation Accord, and it’s safe to say that it is my favorite Accord generation. The styling and proportions are nearly perfect as far as front-wheel driver sedans could go (the only exceptions being the similar-vintage Acura Legend and Vigor).
I’m 100% sure that Honda did not offer a vinyl interior on this generation Accord, especially on the EX models.
Great write up Kyree, looking forward to the next one.
These were a big deal when they came out and were everywhere through the ’90s but they’ve gotten pretty thin on the ground here in the last 5 years or so. I like these and the generation before it with the pop-up headlights.
And Toni Braxton has class!
Hi Tyree,
I’ve read your comments here and over at TTAC (where I have a different handle), and I know this’ll be a great COAL series.
Although I have to admit, I don’t find my son’s ’93 Accord a dull drive at all…it’s a hoot in fact. VERY engaging and responsive. I think it’s the base engine – a 2.2 VTEC, with automatic.
In fact I like how it drives better than my other son’s 2011 Accord, which has more of that wet dishrag feel. Ok maybe that’s unfair…it’s just not as engaging and responsive.
That said, it looks much like how you describe yours – except his dents were learning experiences (always look before you back out in a parking lot, for example), and then there’s that patented Honda Rust in back of the wheelwells so it’s a total hooptie but it gets him to work and I keep after it until he can afford something better.
225,000+ miles.
Anyway, looking forward to your next installment!
Kudos Kyree on a great first COAL. When I was in high school, my aunt and uncle (now divorced) offered to sell me their 5-speed Accord EX of this vintage, white with a blue cloth interior. Like an idiot, I told them I couldn’t accept such a generous offer and I’d stick with the ridiculous ’73 Cadillac Sedan DeVille I’d bought with the earnings from my after-school job. The DeVille was dead within a year of that offer, and I’ve never heard the end of what a dumb decision that was. Those Accords were fun cars.
…access the manual door lock on the top edge of the door panel.
I’ve wondered, too, for a long time why it’s necessary to put the ‘back door’ (a computer term for the unauthorised access to the secured servers and computers).
My father’s 1989 BMW 325i had a neat theft-deterrent feature: double lock. If you turn the key to the right on the driver’s side door lock twice, nothing can be unlocked or opened at all, rendering it impossible to break in without breaking the glass and entering through the broken window.
I accidentally double-locked the 325i without noticing that my friend didn’t get out of the car in time. My friend freaked out and started pressing the horn and banging on the windows. Being deaf, I didn’t hear the horn until I realised that people were staring in the direction of BMW. Embarrassedly, I rushed back to free my friend.
I am late but wanted to join the chorus of welcomes. I was expecting a more typical Accord story (“I bought it, I really liked it, I sold it, it never broke”) but got something else. It seems that your family found the Accord under the worst circumstances (sketchy salvage lot) and it ran almost forever anyway – only being taken out by a maintenance item that nobody kmew to replace.
I knew at least 3 people who owned one of these and would agree with others that this was Peak Honda. Thinking about it I owned this car’s minivan derivative (the original Odyssey) which was humming along at over 200k when someone made a left turn in front of me and totalled it.
Thank you all! I think you’ll really like the next one.