bought a V6 6 speed manual Accord

[Harbir]

Originally Posted by highwayblaze

Harbir you have a great car collection. I didnt know u'r a Miata fan as well. From the looks of it you're a "handling" guy more than "Horsepower". Your miata 1990-93 i assume since its 1.6 right? great clean ride. Btw nice family ride you got now. Drive safe !
Btw if you've got any miata stories we'd love to hear em. Do you autocross etc.?

Blaze, thank you!

I am quite a miata nut, this one is my 4th (two '97s, an '01, and this 1.6L). I have lots of great stories of the miata, but not of autocrossing. I haven't done that. Most of my stories are road related, including the red '97 I crashed into an electric pole at 90km/h when I was going sideways through a corner full opposite lock and lost it. Other stories include an 800km over night drive (4pm to 5am) in my black '97 in a snow storm in blizzard conditions through mountainous terrain. (A miata fitted with snow tyres and preferably a torsen limited slip is a veritable rally car on the snow. ) Or the dozens of 1600km weekends I drove. I also drove 1200km in one day, driving through the appalachians, the great smokey mountains, and the alleghenies, staying off the highway all the way, including a run over a road nicked named "The dragon" which is like a roller coaster and has 300+ curves in it in a distance of about 17km. It NEVER goes straight for more than 10 meters. I was driving this in the rain, near icing conditions, on 14 year old tires that had dry rotted and turned slippery. It was one hairy ride!

I am going to start tracking the Elise soon. Heading to the Virginia International Raceway in a couple of weeks and will do that probably 6-7 times this year. Spend a weekend running on the track between races. I am very excited about it.

The Elise combines speed and handling. In fact the one I have is a track special and its handling is beyond anything I have driven. So I am pretty nicely covered for fun and practicality now!

[aah78]

Excellent!
I recently blasted a cousin of mine for buying an automatic 4-cylinder Accord (2007) - it's Horrible! Wonder what made him buy this after his nice little manual Jetta (1995 - and also 4-cylinder).
...and another one for buying an automatic 4-cylinder Camry (2005, I think) - it's even Worse, but it's probably better than the Toyota minvan he was lusting after.

Anyways, your Miata stories make me insanely jealous (except the crashes, ofcourse) - I LOVE the new model!

Enjoy the new car -

[Harbir]

Found a picture of the car with the correct wheels and no fog lights. imagine this white car in the bronze car's interior/exterior color scheme and you'll know what mine looks like. I really want to take pictures and post them but I am in Richmond right now and my camera is in New York

Originally Posted by Harbir

This is not mine but it looks the same (except the wheels and foglights). I'll get some pictures of mine soon.

[normally_crazy]

Originally Posted by low_bass_makker

We in India don't get V6 with manual transmission.

Yes but you do where Harbir is based

@Harbir - congratulations mate. you got yourself a dependable car.

[Harbir]

If the image of the white car doesn't show for you, please click this: http://www.canadiandriver.com/galler...w_003-4148.jpg

I tried to edit my post but the time expired.

[Harbir]

aah and normally_crazy,

Thank you!

Availability of manual transmission/V6 combination was limited to the US I think, but I could be wrong on this.

[prabhuav]

Harbir,

Congrats on the buy , that is one sweet car ..

your quandrary was what I was hit with in 2005.Biwi conned me and bought a beetle, so I was stuck with having to buy the big car to ferry my kiddo and two inlaws in the back . This is after I almost closed on a miata..

I wanted a full size sedan with a V6, atleast 250 horses and a manual tranny. i had never owned an automatic in my 15 stints to the US and didnot intend to . Hell my wife drove a manual beetle..
Honda didnt sell the V6 with manual tranny yet, and the options I had were:
Maxima 2003 SE. (hated what they did to the Altima based 2004+)
BMW 540i.

Cars evaluated and rejected:
2004+ Acura TL wont fit 3 in the back without a shoehorn
V6 Passat- Too soft
2.7T A6 - only one i found was on the west coast

Chapter closed when I got pristine 2003 maxima with 26k mikes on it, for a steal. Bought it from New York , on eBay nonetheless and drove 1200 miles with 1 stop to Atlanta.

Had so much fun with it , had to change front tires from too many wheelspins

Memories .......

Now stuck driving a Scorpio. Hopefully the Premier Padmini will be fun once I TC it ..


Vijay

[Harbir]

the last generation maxima was the last good maxima. I really liked the '89-94 generation maxima SE after it got the 190hp engine. The '95 to '99 was even better, really superb. the facelift version of that, from 2000 on that you had, I wasn't so hot about the looks, but it was still really excellent. I think Nissan lost the plot with the 2004 model. Rather I should say, the other left Nissan behind on that one. the '95 to '99 was at the top of its class without really any rivals to threaten it, and the '00 to '03 benefited from that excellence but after '04, the Maxima fell off the charts.

I am not thrilled about the fwd aspect of the accord. I dislike front wheel drive, and if this was my only car, I'd be pretty upset about it, but really you cannot get a truly roomy rear wheel drive manual transmission car these days anymore. So comforted myself with the two rwd sports cars I have and decided that I was looking for a transportation appliance, the equivalent of a toaster or a microwave oven, and i could tolerate wrong wheel drive for that.

hence the accord.

[prabhuav]

harbir,

you are sooooooo right about the maxima steadily becoming pansy from 2000. 2003 was the only saving grace with the 255 bhp VQ35. From 2004 they started killing it and finally buried it in 07 when they discontinued the manual tranny on it.

Can you believe it , this year the desi favorite Camry brings out a V6 with a stick and no maxima..

Amen on the complete lack of something driving the rear wheels, having room and having a manual tranny. Simply does not exist ..

My rwd fix was my bike

[Mpower]

Originally Posted by prabhuav

Amen on the complete lack of something driving the rear wheels, having room and having a manual tranny. Simply does not exist ..

X5 manual comes close and the damn thing can handle too.

[Harbir]

Originally Posted by prabhuav

Can you believe it , this year the desi favorite Camry brings out a V6 with a stick and no maxima..

The Camry has not been available with the a manual transmission on the V6 model for years now. certainly the present version is not available with the manual....

[Harbir]

Originally Posted by Mpower

X5 manual comes close and the damn thing can handle too.

I believe the X5 is no longer offered with a manual transmission in the US. its also ~1300lbs heavier than the Accord.