drivetofive

Odometer (Legend):  517,488

Odometer (ILX):  21,846

Holidays are in full swing!  I saw a blue Civic sedan in the parking lot at work this week with antlers and a red nose on its grille, and a coworker gave me a PEZ dispenser as an early Christmas gift.  It seemed fitting to let everyone know what it takes to motivate me to get things done at the office, so a colleague made me a sign for my cubicle:

My workplace is pretty excited about Acura.  Yesterday I parked next to one of my favorite Acuras of all time – a 2007-2009 TL Type-S in brilliant Kinetic Blue Pearl paint finish (rare color).  This car when equipped with a 6-speed manual transmission is a total dream.

A very appropriate song for me came on the radio while I was commuting home through Fountain Hills, Arizona this week.

Over the last few hundred thousand miles, one recurring issue I’ve had with the high mileage Legend is a check engine light for a fault in the EGR – exhaust gas recirculation – system (“code 12”).  Performance has always been unaffected but the light will illuminate on longer highway drives after an hour or or two on the road.  Legends are notorious for having clogged EGR systems so I went and and ordered a brand new EGR pipe, along with an EGR valve itself, and had them installed by Wes at Highline Import Auto.

My friend Marc in NJ who has two mint-condition Legend coupes performed the same maintenance on his recently.  Except, Marc’s cars have just a fraction of the miles that mine does.  This is the EGR pipe that was pulled from Marc’s 60,000 mile 1994 LS coupe.

Here are the factory parts that I provided to Wes for this maintenance:

Somehow mine wasn’t even bad at all!  This is a picture of the one that was removed.  Back at 434,740 miles I had it cleaned out so maybe that’s why it doesn’t look too bad.

Wes also noted that the clutch hydraulic hose had sprung a leak so he took care of that well.  He calls the Legend “Ol’ Besty.”  Well, Betsy is back to top notch now.

ILX News Bits

Word on the street is that there could potentially be some changes coming up with regard to the available drivetrain configurations of the ILX.  Here’s a news article that discusses the possibility of implementing the 2.4 liter 201-horsepower engine in the automatic transmission cars (instead of the current 2.0 liter, 150-horsepower variant).  This would be a big change since the automatics are the volume leader when compared to manuals and hybrids.

The reviews keep coming in.  Here’s a test-drive by Motoring TV.

Sometimes, the overseas cars get all the goodies.  In the Legend world, everyone loves importing special JDM (Japanese Domestic Market) one-piece headlight / corner lights and other things that weren’t offered in North America.   Revealed recently, the Chinese version of the ILX appears to have some neat features too that we won’t see here.  This car has clear colored turn signals in the headlight housings, turn signal indicators on the mirrors, and special taillamps with a clear/amber section in the lower half.  I want a set of those!

Here’s a video advertisement of the Chinese ILX as well:

Remember the “Endurance Racer” ILX that appeared at the SEMA show in Las Vegas last month?  The 25-hour race took place last weekend and the Team Honda Research-West ended up in 5th place, but also set the fastest race lap in the class.  Congratulations to the THR-W crew!

My little Silver Moon racecar got some fun wet-weather driving the last couple of days as we’re getting some rare rain here in Scottsdale.  We only get about 8 inches of rain per year (and thus the reason we’re known for over 300 days of sunshine per year) so when it does come, everyone gets excited about it.  Seattle, by comparison, gets 38 inches.  I may or may not have intentionally swerved into a puddle yesterday on the way into work.  The ILX is as sure-footed as can be thanks to its Michelin footwear.

In closing, if you’re a Honda fan you’ll enjoy stopping by Driven for Drives, a blog by my new friend Jason from New Mexico.  The site is dedicated to (as his header states) documenting Jason’s “Life with his 7th Gen Accord.”  You’ll see that since he picked up his 2004 Accord Coupe in August of this year, he’s already made some substantial upgrades and enhancements.  I’m subscribed for further updates!  Thanks to Jason for reaching out.

This entry was posted on December 15, 2012 at 9:04 am and is filed under Legend, Maintenance. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.