these MOD's are annoying. Now I must remount the license plate after just fixing the grill fiasco(I hope). Waited for warmer weather but still froze my touche off. Also somethings up with the cargo courtesy light and the rear wiper needs attention. Minor stuff-that is with the exception of the grill exposure. How did that one get past them? As for ............., I never use the W word in reference to the Element.

We get a bang out of driving the thing and we often race to see who gets to take it. And I'm practical and not emotionally attached to the E.
It is gender neutral. It's a thing. As for keyless entry, better interior lighting, missing arm rest, etc., I noted these ommisions at the outset and have no complaints. At 21K, Honda had to economize somewhere.
But I was suprised when I opened the GC and no light.

But I'm becoming a little wary and can't help wondering what's next. Honda's rep is a little sullied, but their lack of attention to customer complaints is/isn't suprising. But no big deal. Trade, sell or run the wheels off of it. Pity the one car family, though. I mentioned some of this stuff to a friend and his response was, "this is Honda we are talking about, Right.?"

I keep reading about all the idea-to-execution miracles going on in the car biz these days - where it takes less than two years to get something from concept to dealer showrooms. It makes a certain amount of sense since a lot of what the manufacturers do is pretty much by rote, or at least by formula. Change the tooling, and go!

But maybe there is some loss of attention to detail because of this. There certainly isn't the opportunty for extended road testing - it used to be that new designs got as much as two years of on-the-road exercise. Things like the (lack of) grill insert would have become apparent and been ironed-out. And the windshield issue may have emerged... or maybe not, given some assignment of blame to assembly-line adjustments, something that wouldn't affect a hand-assembled vehicle.

Honda's poor customer support is expected. Their reputation is quality if not near-perfection, and they will not respond publicly to anything that differs with that view. This survived in pre-Internet days because Honda owners didn't have much occasion to "bond" into user groups and compare notes. Will online user groups change Honda's m.o.? Probably not, but they can't ignore them for long.

"Things like the (lack of) grill insert would have become apparent and been ironed-out. And the windshield issue may have emerged... or maybe not, given some assignment of blame to assembly-line adjustments, something that wouldn't affect a hand-assembled vehicle."[quote]

It seems to be an epidemic. Nova's program about the loss of the Thresher and Scorpion subs pointed out the absurdities of reckless cost cutting by shortening the production and maintenance cycles. Things can quickly go wrong, e.g.,a Navy court of inquiry found that 14% of the piping joints failed inspection and hundreds more never were inspected before sea trials. The Thresher was SOTArt and the Navy rushed its debut resulting in the deaths of 129 saiilors.

The Scorpion's last maintence overhaul only took eight mos vs 24 mos and cost a mere $3M, a fraction of the usual cost. A veteran submariner, became so alarmed that he left the ship just before it went down. The Navy scrapped this nonsense and they haven't lost a sub since. So what about Honda? They probably are the best car mfgr in the world but as you said, "Their reputation is quality if not near-perfection, and they will not respond publicly to anything that differs with that view."