Personally I get it!
And I never drank the Honda cool-aid!
Well, I've had multiple Honda vehicles, and aside of one, they have all been stellar. My list of Honda's:
1) 1991 Honda Accord (most problematic of them all. Everything was solid exept the head design, which liked to blow gasekts about every 50k miles)
2) 1997 Honda Civic Coupe (had 260k miles on EVERYTHING original, aside of maintenence items like tires, timing belt, and the distributor coil. Even the manual clutch was original)
3) 2003 Honda Element AWD (175k on everything original except the a/c compressor, but that was a user-error failure. I drowned the front end up to the hood in water, got stuck, and remained there for 45 minutes attempting to get unstuck. The entire time I forgot to turn off the a/c and the bearings on the compressor clutch shredded about 6 months later. Otherwise, the car was perfect until it was t-boned and totaled by a phone distracted sorostitute who thought stop-signs shouldn't exist for her and her 3 week old Lexus SUV). The utility of this car is unmatched by any other vehicle I've ever owned. The biggest problem was that its AWD system was too long in the gearing to be able to make it up steep mountain jeep roads/trails that we visit in Colorado. This meant that we made it up until I smelled burning transmission fluid, then we parked it and hiked the rest. My 4Runner purrs and crawls up those same roads without a hiccup. 'THANK YOU, 4Low!"
4) 2007 Honda Ridgeline AWD (Had 135k on it, but I sold it after a year for $3,000 more than I purchaches it for. Would have kept it otherwise, but the opportunity to turn profit on a vehicle is rare, so I took it).
5) 2006 Acura TSX (My wife's current car. At 115k, everything on this car is solid. The only problem is that it blew an A/C compressor late last summer. Not a cheap fix!)
Consistently, the biggest problem I have found with Honda is that their A/C systems are too undersized in order to try and maintain higher mpg's (I assume), so the a/c's get overworked in hotter climates, eventually leading to them grenading. It's never a cheap fix whenever they go, either. This is my one and only consistent complaint with Honda.
All of this said, I KNOW that I have never owned a vehicle that I am as fond of than my 4Runner (although the Element comes REALLY close) Not just because it is built so solid all around, not just that it feels rather bulletproof comparatively, but it is just such a "good-feeling" vehicle all around from a comfort, fun-to-drive, solidly built, and utilitarian-capable (including its quite impressive off-road faculties) point of view. It just performs solidly all around (minus the mpg's, that is).
