Hey Guys,

So I've had my new baby for eight days now, which included a valentines weekend / babymoon trip to Maine. After many many years of wanting an S, I finally picked this one up last weekend. It's an '05, 45,000 miles and in a great condition. Carfax showed lots of maintenance records at Honda Village in Newton, so I felt good that the previous owner cared about the car. Couple of pictures below...






Couple of observations after 8 days (including road trip) of experience.

I am surprised how high the RPMs are at cruising speed (75) on the highway. It's at about 4,000 rpm. It took be a bit of time to get used to it reving so "high" constantly. I'm used to most cars/suv's sitting at 2-3k at that speed.

Mileage has been great. I got 26mpg's on the first tank full, which included city driving for work. Second tank (mostly highway and driving around the ocean in maine) was close to 30mpg. I'm happy!

I am happily surprised by traction in the cold. When driving the S like a "car" and not a sports car, I feel very safe and comfortable in cold weather (as long as it's not wet obviously). I plan to drive this car year round. Took the top down a couple of times and blasted the heat inside - not too bad at slow speeds!

I did notice some gear or transmission whining. At about 3,000 rpm when decelerating with a bit of gas, I do get a slight whining sound from the tranny or diff (I'm not sure). A quick search on here makes me think this is pretty much a normal sound.

One minor thing I discovered, is that the stock driver side speaker seems to be broken If I have any music with decent bass in it, I get a major distortion sound. Anyone have a stock speaker they have laying around from an upgrade they wanna sell for cheap?

Can't wait to join in on some summer rides around the area.

Kevin

 

what tires are on the car?

if you plan to drive in the winter get some decent cold weather tires as the summer only tires can and will bite you in the cold weather (wet or not)

stock speakers suck!! save your money and upgrade even with the stock stereo - upgraded speakers sound a whole lot better



looks like the frt license plate bracket is missing - did they just screw your frt plate into the bumper?

 

welcome to the S2k family. a couple of us do drives and shows so we hope you will join us. as for speakers upgrade to aftermarket component speakers and radio. I did this in my 01 and it sounds so much better then stock. I drive my s all year round and in the winter i have snow tires on my stock 01 rims. in the summer I have the same wheels as your car.

 

I plan to drive it in the winter occasionally on dry days only, when I'm in the mood. I have a Honda Ridgeline that is technically my daily driver... this is technically my weekend fun car!

I have new OE RE050 tires. I would like to get new speakers and headunit, but I'm out of budget for now. By time you get new speakers, headunit and the modifry parts to maintain the controls, you're still close to 500 bucks. If I can find some stock speakers for cheap/free, I'll swap those for now. I guess I could buy only new speakers, but they really won't sound as good without upgrading the headunit.

The front plate - No frame. It had two little caps/plugs that came off, with threaded holes behind that to attach the plate - am I missing something?

 

yes you're missing the frt licence plate bracket part 35 - no big deal



maybe the old owner removed it

and your stock radio will sound better even with 30.00 speakers from walmart

 

Oh ok. Interesting...

I think I'll add a small piece of something squishy to protect the paint... seems ok otherwise.

Thanks, Kevin

 

Looks like the bracket is part #14 while #35 is the bumper plug for most of us who dare not to run a plate at all.

 

Those stock tires dont have much grip in the cold be careful!