Hello all,

I was very surprised to see that the alternator in my 1998 Accord V6 is made by GM. I was not surprised that it broke after only 52,000 miles.

If I wanted to buy GM quality I would have bought a Pontiac Grand Prix GTP, but I opted for the Accord because of the Honda reliability.

Is there a way to see what other GM parts are in my Accord?

Thanks.

 

The majority of the parts on your car are Japanese. However, since most US Accords are now being designed and built in the US, expect to see more expensive items like that floating around your accord.

I guess it is part of a spinoff deal from GM buying all those V6 engines from Honda.

 

A honda accord has more domestic parts than the Ford Crown Victoria. The accord is technically considered a domestic now and the Crown Vic is actually an import. Crazy huh?

 

not crazy, just sad

 

Modified by CardDealer at 4:19 PM 11/17/2006

 

yes it does

 

Let me tell you guys an interesting story. I have an engineer cousin who works at a company in El Segundo CA that designs and manufactures bearings. They have (had?) a contract with GM one year to provide the bearing for their alternators. Long story short, while the alternator application called for higher-temperature resistant 'stainless steel' bearings, GM in its cost cutting wisdom, decided to use nickel-plated steel bearing instead to save .0216 cents per application. The moral of the story: GM (and other domestic car manufacturers) mostly suck. If you can, find those rare Japanese-VIN cars (with 98.9 percent japanese content) for your long-termers. That's exactly the reason why we hunted a 2001 J-VIN Accord down for my bro. Unfortunately, those cars are only like 10% of production.

2nd moral: The phrase "Buy American" should mean buy a Toyota or a Honda. Why buy American when buying american means purchasing a car that was made in another country by foreign labor, with more foreign parts, with profits that will be possibly reinvested in that country? When Buying Japanese means buying a car that was made here in America with American labor with American parts and by a company with plans to drop its profits here in America? I constantly feel like the wool is being pulled over 80% of America (but then again...that rule would conform to the 80/20 rule)....

Ok...i'll get off my soapbox now...



[Modified by RotaryBzzz, 12:14 PM 8/27/2002]

 

no it doesnt

GM and other domestic companies that build vehicles in Canada and Mexico do it because it is cost effective. Its the same reason Honda builds alot of their cars here, its cheaper to do it in location B than it is in location A. Its too expensive to open plants in Japan, so they take the cheaper way out and build here. The difference in US content and Japanese content in accords built in both Japan and the US is only 10%-15% isnt it? I cant remember what the stickers say on the windows. Major components like the drivetrain etc are identical, it doesnt matter where its assembled. Have some god damn pride in our country. We pioneered assembly lines. All those folks building Hondas in Ohio do a good job. We are talking about something that isnt even a problem. There is no difference in quality between japanese and US built Hondas. Sorry to burst your bubble.

As far as GM goes, it builds cars here in the US, in Canada and Mexico too i believe. It saves them money, just like Honda does, and the profit goes right back into the pockets of the people who own the company, american citizens. Just like all the major stockholders of Honda have gotten rich in Japan with the boom of Honda sales in the 80s and 90s. I dont see how this money goes back into our economy other than Honda may employee more workers here or open another plant etc, or possibly expand their Ohio research facilities, and if you think Honda brings more money into this country than GM you really are oblivious.

 

Unfortunately not. USDM accord's can typically be in the range of only 55-60% Japanese content. The rest can be of questionable origens...you'll notice the sticker saying 'of US, Canadian, and other foreign parts' (i.e. non-usa production). I'll bet that GM starter above was a BOSCH unit built in Brazil...i can't see how it would be stamped "GM" though.

In fact I do. I absolutely believe we as American's do a great job. Talk Snap-On, Classic Fords and Aerospace and I'm in love. It's going into the philosphy of (current) car company's that's engineer the products where you run into trouble. You have GM that views cars as consumer products - essentially widgets; disposable, mass production, on the level of a typical consumer good like toilet paper, soap, lawnmowers...blahblahblah. Whereas other car company's don't (or at least make very-very-very good widgets.) Again, the theme of Honda arising as an Engine builder and then happening to be a car company is prevalent and you can see just how a damn company could create a car that makes 240hp from 2.4 L and gets good gas mileage and has good reliability/emmissions. That's real soul.

I didn't say that. I was talking about profits: new money. Is GM openning up new plants here? Are they planning too? Probably not. In fact, they are shuttering them (think Oldsmobile). Is Honda or Toyota planning to? Yes! Are those new plants (that reinvestment in America) going to bring more jobs and prosperity to our people? Yes!!


[Modified by RotaryBzzz, 1:05 PM 8/27/2002]

 

6th gen Guage clusters have a Ford oval on them.
Or 250hp from 2.0 liters.

 

my personal opinion is that quality control is much better in japanese factories than those in the US.

Where are the new accord/TL/CL/Prelude auto-trannies being built now? Since the current generations started, I have heard countless stories of auto-tranny problems... no surprise that honda has moved the majority of the accord production lines from japan to north america.

 

i remember back in 1998-1999, many of the honda accord forums were being cluttered with posts about the 6th gen...they were all having problems. The one thing they had in common was where it was built. Now, I don't know if they fixed it, but back then, american-made hondas were bad.

 

they are pieces of **** because of how they are designed, not because of where they are built! holy ****!

 

Im not compleatly sure for the TL/CL but Im pretty sure until they stoped making the prelude it was built in Japan. Correct me if Im wrong tho. But I just think honda had a bad design fault w/ the prelude, TL/CL...but w/ the TL/CL they're mean was good, because from what I found out on the TL/CL board is, honda actually got rid of tranny coolers and supposidly used a tranny fluid that was self cooling. Supposidly it does'nt work as good as its suppose to, or as honda belived so it caused trannies to fail. The reason why they replaced it is because they though it would last longer than than a tranny cooler or something like that. But again I could be wrong.

 

Where? I've never seen it, and I've had that thing out a couple of times.

 

Where's the oval on the dash? I never noticed them?

 

Not all Accords have them, my friends wife's Accord does though, its right on the front of it, bottom center.