New 2003 Honda Accord Ex 4 cyl

2003 Honda Accord EX 4 Cyl - Graphite Pearl

I just acquired a new car from my generous brother-in-law.  He wanted the car gone so he could buy his son a newer Acura.

Since it's a 12 year old car it's basically an old car and I can talk about it here even though it only had 35k miles on it when I took ownership.  Since I live almost 2,000 miles from my Sister and Brother-in-law, we arranged for my daughter and wife to make a trip to visit and to drive our car home

Driving it around, it still drives like it's brand new although this first year car has a laundry list of items that require some attention in order to make it a pretty decent car for a few years of continued ownership.

The car was involved in a left rear broadside collision but it was repaired.  Visually, the car is 5/10 due to a little rust, some dents, and lots of peeling clear coat.

I have some receipts from when the car was brought in to the dealership for repairs. Here's a run down of what the car needs.

1. 12 year old brake fluid (my brother in law paid $700 to have rotors and pads changed but it didn't help braking feel or stopping distance.) - bleeding the brakes with my son made a huge difference
2. Right Front door lock actuator preventing the door lock from working - the set I ordered on ebay for cheap didn't fit so I had to find one locally which fit perfectly.
   
   tip1: replace the door actuator for the door that does not work, there is no magic or complicated electronics with respect to door locking and unlocking. Some people get confused about which actuator to replace when faced with the problem.
   
   tip2: make extra sure the rod to the latch mechanism is properly working before you close the door because you will be sorry when you close the door without a way of getting it open again.
3. Moon roof will not close.  Tool kit is missing so I had to use a security torx to manually close the roof.  I need to purchase a limit switch and replace it
4. Dealer installed alarm beeps and locks the door when I don't want it to - I found the alarm control unit under the dash by the driver's left foot tucked (ie not secured) in behind some wires with 2 fuses taped up.  Unplugged the wire harnesses from  the unit and removed the fuses and now the car won't automatically lock and better yet no silly beeping. Interestingly, the horn now beeps to confirm lock which is much nicer than the stupid siren beeping.

   

   Dealer installed alarm control module - 03 accord

   
   
   
   
5. Rear wheel camber is not adjustable and 1 wheel has large negative camber that is chewing up the new tires.  I already have the adjustable upper camber links but can't remove the old ones until I buy a ball joint separator. Wacking on it with a hammer did not work for me.
6. Cloudy headlights - even with cloudy headlights, the road is well lit at nite. I will wet sand and clear coat the headlights - first attempt was not very clear but I'll try buffing the new clear to see if it helps.
7. Radio light does not work so I can't see the time or the station that's playing.  I will remove the radio and perform the soldering fix that I found on youtube.  Get a circuit writer pen so you don't need to solder.  There's no room to work. I tried this fix but it didn't work for me. I managed to damage that resistor so I couldn't be sure I was making a proper jump of those 2 terminals.

   

   offending resistor with by pass circuit drawn - 03 accord radio light issue

8. Windows need to be tinted since the car doesn't fit in my garage due to the length. The dark paint and clear windows makes the car quite hot.
9. Peeling clear coat on the rear of the car. - Not willing to pay for a re-spray, I'll try to spray clear rattle can  on some of the panels to see if it looks better or worse.  My goal is to make the car as trouble free as possible for a cheap as possible.  I can live with a few dents or cosmetic issues, but my wife wants it pretty (er)
10. Fuel filler door is unsecured because the dealer couldn't get it reconnected, so they bent the latch and removed the striker to make the door stay closed with a friction fit.  Unfortunately it still opens  everytime I  go for a drive. - I removed the spring and it seems to keep the door closed now
11. Headlights are randomly dimming when driving at night. This seems to be a problem with a defective electronic load device (38255-S5A-003) located in the fuse box under the hood.
12. Rear brake lights filling with water - I removed the rear bumper and the brake light assemblies to spread some clear silicone around the lamp housing where the red portion meets the reflector backing

This car is the perfect middle of the road cruiser. It's not fast and doesn't handle like a BMW but it's reasonably quiet and the engine is smooth.  The transmission appears to shift fine so hopefully, I won't have any big ticket problems later in the life of this car as I rack up the miles.

Update (Sep 2015):
I'm absolutely enjoying this car and never believed I would get so much enjoyment out of a 4 door sedan with under 140hp.

I just finished tinting the windows myself using a precut kit from NorthernTint. I purchased a 2 ply tint using 20% VLT in the rear and back doors and 35%VLT in the front doors. Having very little experience with window tinting I knew that I wouldn't be able to have a clean bubble/crease free installation so I had to decide just how much imperfection I could stand.  As long as I don't notice the imperfections at 10 feet I'll call it good.  There was a few problems installing the driver side front tint so I pulled it off and re-ordered for that window. In hindsight, it probably would have been better to order a roll and cut the window myself but I think I still spent less than a roll of film by purchasing precut tint even though I had to order another front window kit.

Still to do: sunroof limit switch, headlight voltage load controller (?), dark radio display, peeling clearcoat.