Some success in the fight with the 250k Element

kmead

Old enough to know better
Over the last couple of years I have bought three different Honda Elements (2007, 2008 and recently another 2008). The first was a poorly considered purchase done at the last minute before a flight to Hong Kong so I would have a winter beater to drive. It also became the teaching car for my middle child to learn how to drive with supervision (at age 24 go figure) and became his first car. Just over a month after buying the first Element I came across a second which had higher mileage but was in generally better condition, I left that car parked pretty much with an occaissional bout of tidying up and fixing some minor things until my son could get his drivers test which was delayed multiple times by the Covid disaster.

The second one, a 2008 with @192k miles on it, suffered from a somewhat debilitating P2642 code which puts the engine in limp mode where the engine won’t exceed 2700 rpm. You can actually drive it that way as it will drive just fine, you just can’t drive very fast and you have to have a sensitive right foot to get the transmission to shift early and stay below the synthetic redline. With some fiddling, cleaning, testing and replacing some parts with OE (go figure that aftermarket stuff could be junk), I was able to eventually fix what ailed it. It became the vehicle to teach our youngest to drive and last July it became her first car.

I had been looking for my next winter beater and had been hoping to snag a manual transmission Element SC version, but they are few and far between and most way too far away for me to chase down. One evening a local ad came up for a 2007 SC with an automatic and 244,000 miles, I made arrangements to go look at it the next day and ended up buying it for 2500 bucks. I bought it because I was a bit desperate for something to drive and not feel bad about subjecting it to the inevitable salt and eventual damage but this one really wouldn’t care too much as it had been in a minor accident where it was rear ended and then hit the car in front. Parts had been replaced but no new paintwork had been done and the worst of the body deformation in the rear had been beaten out (literally).

No surprise for such a cheap car in the current inflated market, there were a fine variety of problems with it which I have been working through bit by bit but some of them have been confounding. The car had more trouble lights lit up than I have ever seen on a car, ABS, Engine, Stability control, Airbag and a few others which are peculiar to Hondas of this vintage. Mechanically the sway bar links were broken, two the of shocks were far gone (one had free play front to back and side to side which made steering rather like using the reins with a horse). Mechanical bits are easy if a little less than fun on a car with that many miles and rusty bits underneath (though not bad).

Today, after replacing rusted in ABS sensors, engine coolant sensor, excercising the airbag connectors to get rid of some corrosion on the gold contacts, all but one of the lights is now off. It is such a relief having a vehicle with only the one minor minor light on instead of a Christmas tree telling you about not having functional ABS, stability control or airbag systems. Hopefully that will continue.

More mechanical bits to tidy but those are fun afternoon interludes not spent leafing through a set of manuals literally 8” thick (I am not kidding). So far the 2500 dollars beater is a 3200 dollar beater with likely another 600 to go. I wonder who this one will get passed on to :)

Funny how those little idiot lights can make you feel anxious on a modern car telling you all is not well with it compared to driving an old car with some simple gauges, no active safety systems and so on where I feel no worries about having to rely upon my own abilities and knowledge of the car.

In any case, a simple set of victories to make my happily brief commute a bit more tolerable.
 
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I have a friend in NY that bought an Element when they first came out. I have not been in it in over a decade but I seem to recall it being a manual. I think it had over 200K on it when he sold it about a year ago. He was pretty happy with it overall. Another friend of mine came over with his Element last week. It was developing perforations in the sheet metal just above the windshield and just below the front side windows above the door handles. He was looking for some advice on how to fix it. I suggested some phosphoric acid for starters to arrest the rust until he figured out whether to do a quality repair or slap some Bondo on it. This is another 200K+ car so there is likely a practical limit on repair cost.
 
Good work Karl!

I like well used Pilots. Picked up a 2012 with 133,000 miles this year to replace my 2003 that had 267,000 miles. They make good tow vehicles.

Biggest issue with the 2012 is the Variable Cylinder Management system. Do the Elements have that too? Drove me crazy switching between 6 cylinders down to as few as 3. I found a company selling a VCM defeat module and I am much happier.
 
Good work Karl!

I like well used Pilots. Picked up a 2012 with 133,000 miles this year to replace my 2003 that had 267,000 miles. They make good tow vehicles.

Biggest issue with the 2012 is the Variable Cylinder Management system. Do the Elements have that too? Drove me crazy switching between 6 cylinders down to as few as 3. I found a company selling a VCM defeat module and I am much happier.
No just a low output K24 which is adequate. Honda’s from those years were massively overbuilt mechanically (aside front the 6 cylinder automatics :) ) All the folks I know who have Pilots love them.

They are good little cars, the mechanicals are good for 300k plus. Three things kill Elements: lack of maintenance, accidents as the value is now so low that insurance companies immediately total them and now rust as there are some weak points in the understructure that once it fails the car is a total loss. The worst and most critical is the front mount for the rear lower A arm which once it reaches a certain point tears out the bracket and the rear suspension

So just like Fiats, it is all about the body’s condition, unfortunately normally little of the degradation shows on the upper side side of the cars\ due to how much of the body one sees is a plastic covering. Underneath can be an entirely different story.

Just a good box, easy to see out of, large vertical volume and maneuverable in daily use. The biggest negative is fuel economy (the lack of economy as pushing a square box through the air is not efficient), being only a 4 seater and the actual load weight capicity is surprisingly low. Two of those don’t really affect me.

Anyway really stoked about getting the electricals resolved.
 
My daughter bought one new years ago as her personal car and wedding cake delivery vehicle (she is a wedding cake baker). I liked to borrow it to haul large Fiat parts. I found it comfortable enough but no real "fun" to drive. The engine was powerful enough but noisy. She had little in the way of trouble with it except it got in a few fender benders. I thought the rear seat storage method was tedious and not well thought out and she hated the rear side door arrangement a pain for loading her kids in the back seat....the reason she sold it eventually.

My brother up in Maine bought a beater Element and said, much like VW buses, there is a rabid following for them. He seems to be constantly repairing his but he still loves it.
 
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