Now some of you may not agree with me but just my experience...

my first car out of HS was my parents 91 accord, I noticed that it rattled more and had more wind noise than my uncles same year accord with similar miles... its was wierd because his car was never even garaged or maintained on time. When mine was always garaged and maintained on time... his car was just quieter inside overall and felt like it was built solid.

Thats when I started noticing the quality differences between honda's built in the US vs Japan.

Around 1998 I needed to purchase a new vehicle and I liked the new accord so I went to the local dealer and test drove the new accords... I noticed the same problem, the cars built right here in the US (vin# starting with "1") were noisier, than the cars with VIN# beginning with a "J" (built in japan). I purchased the japanese built 1999 model year accord and thats what I currently drive... the same uncle traded in his accord for a newer accord around the same time but this time he purchased the one built here in the US.

Now compared to my car, his has started to rattle and is noticably noisier than my car, not to mention his car has been to the shop more than 3 times for non-scheduled mainentance related problems. My car's paint is still in excellent condition where his has too many chips and the color looks faded. He recently drove my car and told me (eventhough my car is lowered and has low-profile tires on it) that my car was quieter and even felt more powerful than his? (no performance mods here)

Ever since my experience with my 91 accord I have always been just by siting in someone's accord able to just guess where it was built without having to look at the vin# and I have been right all the times I guessed so far.

I have driven my current 99 accord hard (sometimes like a idiot). I am just surprised that its lasted so long (now 60K+ miles). I have driven it WA - CA (and back) several times and most of the time fully loaded with passegers/stuff. It helped me move from CA to WA and was not garaged for a good year and a half, right in the snow.

No problems... still feels the same as the day I bought it.


In my cast its just been a quality difference between vehicles built in different countries. I am not sure if thats the case in your accord though.