Bellied up: Da New Family Ride

[Jeff N.]

Needed to consolidate vehicles.

Wifey's 2000 CR-V (squirrel powered) and the beast - the 72 F250 camper special (aka The Boat Tower). Wifey's new driver. Looked high and low and decide the new Honda Pilot seemed like the best answer. Took delivery on Saturday. Purdy nice....occasionally makes ya wonder about the merrits of driving a 15 year old car. The Pilot sure don't track like the E34 ... Nawww...I'm sticking with the Bimmer!

[Matt P]

You could have come over to the Touring side (waves hand) ;-)

[MicahO]

Needed to consolidate vehicles.

Wifey's 2000 CR-V (squirrel powered) and the beast - the 72 F250 camper special (aka The Boat Tower). Wifey's new driver. Looked high and low and decide the new Honda Pilot seemed like the best answer. Took delivery on Saturday. Purdy nice....occasionally makes ya wonder about the merrits of driving a 15 year old car. The Pilot sure don't track like the E34 ... Nawww...I'm sticking with the Bimmer!

Dere ya go Blahlah! Plenty of room, and no maintenance either!

Funny story about the new CR-V's - wifey's parental units got one a few months ago. It turns out that there has been a spate of roasted CR-V's immediately following the first oil change. Apparently the oil filter is located right above a large bit of the exhaust system. There were many documented instances of a factory tech doing an oil change at the dealership, and allowing oil to pool on the exhaust. A few miles or even days down the road, the oil finally hits combustion temps, and FOOM!

Luckily, your Pilot's not going to be affected by such a thing! Enjoy it!

(What'd you do with the F250? I keep meaning to put mine in the shop to get the rear brakes done, but I can't find a time when the rest of the family isn't borrowing the damn thing for picking something up or making a trip to the dump or pulling stumps, or.......)

[Jeff N.]

...up a 4000ft mountain pass!

Maybe the M5T is up to it?

You could have come over to the Touring side (waves hand) ;-)

[Jeff N.]

Yeah...you got it Micah... We would have kept our 2000 CR-V 'cept it can't tow nuddin. It's been a great car, almost hate to get rid of it. Funny you mention the oil filters. Mostly, I admire Honda's engineering but they sure did a dipsydoodle on the filter on the CR-V. It's on the back of the tranverse mounted engine and sandwiched 'tween 9000 hoses, support brackets, you name it. When bubba at the service station puts the double twist on this thing, it's absolutely impossible to remove. No wrench room on nothing. Boy have I cursed that dumb filter! The problem you mention must be specific to the new model as the exhaust manifold is no where near the filter on ours.

The ol' F250 is for sale. It gets started run about 12 times a year and is suffering from lot rot. If I had a garage, it might be different but the weather's just killing her slowly. Too bad as everyone needs an old truck. The replacement function is the Pilot and my brother's 12 foot flatbed "garden" trailer. That should pretty much take care of what we need to haul.

[Bill R.]

Needed to consolidate vehicles.

Wifey's 2000 CR-V (squirrel powered) and the beast - the 72 F250 camper special (aka The Boat Tower). Wifey's new driver. Looked high and low and decide the new Honda Pilot seemed like the best answer. Took delivery on Saturday. Purdy nice....occasionally makes ya wonder about the merrits of driving a 15 year old car. The Pilot sure don't track like the E34 ... Nawww...I'm sticking with the Bimmer!

[Jeff N.]

Question for the professional mechanics here:

The factory Honda warrenty is 3 years/36k miles. The dealer is offering a HONDA extension to the factory warranty for $1300. The two options are:

- 5 years / 100k miles
- 6 years / 75k miles

Typically, I'm not inclined to purchase this sort of coverage but I'm curious what the experienced folk think about this. The fact that it is an uplift of the factory warrenty is encouraging particularily if it covers fit and finish items - I need to read the fine print.

With the amount of miles we drive, we'd likely wouldn't fit well with the 6 yr/75k package. Our 2000 CR-V has 66k on it now.

It would only take one big burp of the Navi system or the auto tranny to pay for this I suppose.

Thoughts?

Jeff

[Jeff N.]

BTW, this is one of the new Honda beasts that specs 5w-20 (!!) oil! I plan to run Mobil One in it once it's out of break-in. Need to figure out a suitable grade...

Jeff

[MicahO]

Had the same quandary with the wife's Quest. The time to buy the extended warranty is definitely when you are making the purchase, that's when they'll give the best deal, but you can add it after the fact and pay a bit more. We chose not to buy it at the time of purchase, based on two things--

1) mileage - we're racking it up quickly, now at 11 months and almost 21K miles.

2) resale - with that sort of mileage adding up, I'm planning on selling the car within 5 years, before it hits 100K, and before the resale drops completely through the floor.

The Quest has a lot of doo-dads and gimmikery on it. The parts that worry me the most over the long-haul are not the navvie or entertainment systems - they're based on pretty standard hardware at this point and I figure it's like a stereo for the house - if it's going to break, it's going to be early in the cycle. Sure enough, we've got one dead button on the navvie control panel that's getting replaced (the whole panel) this month. Other than that everything looks solid. To me, the scary wear items are things like the power sliding doors and power liftgate. I keep that stuff well-lubed, as it's really Nissan's first foray into that sort of stuff, and there is no historical precedent for reliability. Your Pilot doesn't really have that anchor weighing it down.

If the extension really covers 'everything' and you're going to have the car for a period and mileage that fits the extensions that are available, $1300 seems like a good insurance cost. If it's just powertrain...... don't bother - good fluids will keep today's Hondas and Nissans (and Toyotas and BMW's) going for much more than 100K, and you already know how to keep an eye on maintenance.

(the 330's got the complete 4/50 coverage - I even get replacement brake rotors and pads included on that car)

[Jeff N.]

n/t