As with all Hondas, the CL will take you to 200,000 miles easily if properly maintained. The only problem is a transmission failure, which occurs in approximately 1.6% of all Accords, Preludes, CLs and TLs sold which all use the same basic transmission. It isn't a widespread issue by any means, but since Hondas have such great reliability, people make a big deal out of it since they have nothing else to make a big deal out of. the CL will not be as reliable as a comparable Toyota/Lexus product, but will be more reliable than anything else. Of course the CL can be driven hard...very hard. If you want to know how it handles, go find a curvy road with it. Being a big car, the 5 speed automatic won't handle as well as a BMW 3 series or a Lexus IS300, but the 6 speed with a Helical Limited Slip Differntial will handle about equally as both of those. And if you throw a set of Potenza S-03's on there...it'll probably outhandle a base 325i. Also, if you're considering the 6 speed, the automatic tranny worries will be nonexistant.