Our First Honda Accord

Thursday night, Doug pulled out of the Tijuana Flats parking lot slowly.  The reverse gear had hesitated and he was concerned that he had done something wrong.  I had noticed this happening several times in the past few weeks, but hadn't sad anything yet.  I was hoping that it was an isolated incident or that I was wrong.  Just like today, the Pilot had run fine after putting it in drive, it just hesitated when backing out.  It did the same for Doug and it started a conversation that both of us had been thinking about having. "When should we buy a second car for Florida?" was the topic for the rest of the evening.

Once we got home from dinner, I started researching nearby dealers that sold Hondas.  Although, I really wanted another Odyssey when the Pilot died, we weren't sure that the Pilot was on the way out.  It only had 170,000 miles on it, well below our current Odyssey that just hit 222,222 this week.  Doug had wanted an Accord since he bought his first Honda in 1992.  The Civic fit better in our budget then and he chose that instead.  We talked about an Accord several other times throughout the years, but there was always a reason that we chose a different Honda model.  Thus, I decided that this time there would be no excuse.  If we found a reasonably priced Accord, I was most interested in us purchasing that for Doug.

The Honda dealer in Ocala didn't really have much to chose from, so I looked at Gainesville instead.  I found a silver one with less than 60,000 miles on it that fit our budget.  I called the dealer before it closed at 8 p.m. and was promised by the sales person that I would have a video of the car in the morning.  It was the first thing that I saw when I woke up Friday morning.  The car didn't look quite as great in the video as it did on the website.  The dealer admitted that before I could ask anymore about it.  Doug and I still wanted to look at it yesterday afternoon, but while I was waiting for Doug to get home from work, I found another one online that I liked a lot better.  The salesman agreed immediately and sent us another video.

Doug was home early and we arrived at the Gainesville dealership by 3 p.m.  The salesman had the Accord ready for us to take a test drive.  We both liked it a lot and Doug decided that he was ready to talk about the price difference between this one, a 2019, and a new one of a lesser model.  In the end, Doug went with the one he test drove.  He really liked it and it fit our budget perfectly.  It also left room for us to replace the Pilot if needed.  We had an appointment on Monday with a transmission guy in Dunnellon who was going to let us know if there was an issue with it or not.

Between spending time with the salesman and meeting with the finance person, we were in Gainesville three and a half hours yesterday.  It was a long day, but we were both excited our Heinisch family Honda #10. Doug and I picked up the car this afternoon after the fuel pump was replaced.  All Hondas, including the Pilot, had this same recall, so I was glad that it was taken care of before we drove it home.  Doug and I made it back by 3 this afternoon.  I was thrilled to finally have the Pilot to myself and extremely happy that Doug finally had his red, Honda Accord sitting in our driveway.