98-02 was onlee an american production accord basically, with it being sold in other countries sparinglly as commercial and taxi. The platform was sharedmainlly with the Acura CL(which where Acura's are strictlly and onlee assembled in Japan at Honda for shipment elsewhere) It shared the platform with the Honda Inspire and Acura CL and not the TL( JDM Accord) like everyone thinks.Anyway platform wise engine and braking and cooling and most egronomics were the bugs were kinked out during the run of the platform a year and half earlier as it went to the USA as an Acura CL, except with the damn transmission issue.The body however was designed in a Honda Corp America design workshop, they told HOnda Motor of JP that they wanted to design the body to appeal more to american buyers, i guess they though the older Japanese designed ones were to ricey.Even tho they still took, and had to , take design ques from the previous model.Accords usually run just a 4 year period, thelast 2 years of its 4 years freshioned up, mainlly headlight /grille and tail light tweaks, if yuve seen 94-97 how the first 2 headlights arent full composite like the 96-97 and the larger tail lights.Anyway Japan was not all happy about the 98-01 run of the american honda accord, and saw how the NEW TL released in 98 as a 99 to which was spawn of the asian market (JDM) Honda Accord, was doing so well in sells. Without knowing wut to do this is how the Accord ran another year to 02 when it was spossed to be redone for 02. Honda's antidote was to take the home market Honda Inspire , make it a left hand driver and rebadge it as the Honda Accord for the American market!So there is why yu may have a few flaws in the beggining, they had to convert a car that its sole powertrain was the J30A V6 and adapt it to also be fitted with a 4cyl engine and transmission., on top make it left hand drive with other things to make it ready for the market.So as someone said yeah they have to get the bugs out.