Honda, the Making of a Reputation

One of the benefits of working in the automotive Industry is the ability to watch the history of car makers and the products they produce; in this case Honda. I remember the first shop I worked at: Tunstall & Williams in Raleigh. I also remember the shops in between over the last 25 years. One of the most memorable events is the fact that most shops at the time had an old Honda somewhere on the premises, normally used to run parts or as a toy, I also remember the guys in the shop talking about how they couldn't kill it. They told storied about how it just keeps on running.

My personal experience with my first Honda came when a co worker had one that he was selling, he said it needed a CV joint but that it ran good and drove good. So hopeful I could replace the joint myself I bought the car for $250, hyper extended the joint as I turned the wheel, dropped out the un-bolted worn joint and replaced it with a new one, took all of 3 hours I think, not bad for a 21 year old. I drove this car for 2 years with no maintenance issues at all. Finally sold it to a roofing company who proceeded to abuse the car like a toy. Now keep in mind, back in those days we used to laugh at the tiny Asian cars and call them junk, but there was always one in a garage somewhere still running.

My second experience with Honda was with an Accord and the body shop I was working at. The manager of this particular shop handed me the keys and said there was an Accord out front that needed to be painted, he said it had $280,000 miles on it. I remember thinking to myself what a piece of junk this must be and why in the world would they want to paint a car with that many miles on it. Well I would soon find out. Looking at the car from the outside I could tell it had many miles on it but also remember thinking the interior was probably falling apart. Well after getting in and looking around I was very surprised to see the inside was almost new looking. So I said to myself "ok Ill give em the interior, any one can keep a car clean", But it probably runs like junk. So I turned the key, started the car and could not believe what I was hearing, it ran like a new one. I literally sat in this car with the engine idling, not believing what just happened. Now keep in mind, this was back in the day when a domestic car had 60,000 miles on it, the owners would start thinking of trading it in and we used to make fun of Asian cars.

What Honda was doing during this time of their early cars who we all made fun of was creating their reputation as a reliable car, they made such a mental impact on me and others like me in the auto Industry that the word Honda and Reliable replaced the fun we used to make. As their reputation grew so did the domestic car makers, only the domestics went the other way. Its not that the domestic's were so bad, its that the Honda's were so good.

Over the following years of watching the car makers duke it out, we watched the Asian makers, focus on what people want; A better car. They proved themselves year after year in the used car market, this is where used car buyers started learning who currently had the better cars.

Now we totally understand the domestic car makers thinking, "we are not in the used car business, we are in the new car business". But its the used car business that tells the tail of a cars quality.

Unfortunately the domestic car makers fell into the profit margin instead of the build a better car and people will by margin.

Now the good news: History shows us, that to get the attention of the domestic car makers, you have to hit them hard and hit them where it hurts, in their wallets. Only then will they change. So we look forward to seeing higher quality car utilizing current technologies from the big 3 us car makers, which I'm sure we will be seeing soon. Lets see how these cars do in the used car arena. That will tell the tail...

Robert M.