I’m typically not one to complain out things. Bad things happen and I frequently find it better to just look at the bight side of things. Sometimes this gets me into hot water though, as I miss opportunities to make things (including myself) better. To that end, I’m hoping that the end result of this negative blog post will result in something positive.
Back in December of 1997, my wife and I bought our first car together, a 1998 Honda Accord 4-door EX Sedan. I traded in my beloved cherry red Honda CRX-si for a car that was more practical, and, unfortunately, more boring. But this was ok. We planned on having a family and a 2-seater car (the CRX) was just not very safe or convenient for a family. So we settled with what then was a beautiful dark green color Honda Accord.
As time passed, the car became mine and my wife got a Honda Odyssey which was a much better “mommy taxi.” She shuttled kids to and from school, play dates, activities, etc. I used the Accord to drive a few minutes a day back and forth to the train station. As of this writing, the 11 year old car has only 58,000 miles on it while our 2001 Odyssey has about 105,000.
A few years ago, I noticed that my Accord was starting to show some odd discoloration on the roofline. I thought this was odd because I took pretty good car of the car, with regular waxings and cleanings. It was, however, parked outside. We needed to have the Odyssey in the garage to allow for easy kids and grocery schlepping.
What started as a discoloration (a patchy whitening) then turned into a full fledged peeling of the clear coat surface. The surface just started to flake off, easily exacerbated by a fingernail, leaving underneath a dull metal surface. This erosion of the clear coat surface continued to spread, but interestingly, not to all parts of the car. Specifically affected were the: roof, trunk and hood (in order of magnitude), but the side panels or bumpers seemed to be fine.
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