Thanks everyone. It's odd but when I told people I was looking into an Element, I got mixed feelings about it. A lot of people hated the idea of it, but as soon as I got it, I've had a lot of people admit they like it. I only really have 1 friend who seriously hates it, but hes also the type of guy who is building a 52 chevy and thinks that his 98 chevy 1500 is the best vehicle on the road.
So I've had the car for just about 2 weeks now and figure its time to give my impressions now that I have close to 1000km of driving on it. The car drives really really well. It's nice and quiet for cruising around. One small complaint is that the air intake silencer box is massive and has a bunch of complicated piping that restricts the airflow. I took off the intermediate pipe between the airbox and the silencer, and it really helped out the throttle response, also allowed for the typical Honda "Vtec" crossover sound, which is really confusing to hear while driving a toaster. It's been pretty good on fuel as well. I've been driving around probably 90% city use and 1 run out to Cochrane with 3 people in the car and so far I'm at about 355km and have used about a little less than 3/4 of a tank. I'm expected around 500km to a tank, with a 50L tank.
Funcationality wise, the car is amazing. The 3rd day I had it, I managed to fit an old BBQ we had sitting waiting to be picked up for the garbage for a month into the back of the car. Fit with no issue and managed to get the damn thing out of my alley way. We have a friends wedding tomorrow, and I have the car loaded up with 3 big plastic bins, about 15 big linnen bags, and still have plenty of space left in it too. Next weekend I'm gonna head down to Fort Mcleod with LDS, Rathburn and Asstuna, and I'm gonna be loading the toaster up with stuff to be the "support" vehicle.
I haven't really done anything to the vehicle yet. I replaced a few lights in the car with some LED's. I replaced the reverse lights, licence plate, and interior bulbs so far. I have some old LED bulbs sitting around that I had from my old civic that should fit my tail lights that I will try sometime soon. I've also replaced the headlights with a set of Vision-X ones that I had kicking around work. They are okay, but I'm going to be replacing them with a set of Putco Nite-Lux LED headlights when we get our computer system sorted out at work. Also when the computer system gets sorted out, I'm gonna price out a set of Fast Hayaku's for the element too for a set of summer wheels.
Ever since I saw this picture, I've wanted to own an element that looks like it. I'm already 1 big step there, which is finding a rootbeer SC. Next step is the wheels, and spoiler. I'm not gonna dump it like this one, mainly because I don't want to pay for a set of custom coilovers from TEIN.
Only downside to it has been that everytime I went to go see it before I picked it up, it was around sunset or it was during the time when it was smoky outside, so I didn't get to see it in decent lighting conditions. With that being said, I noticed the first sunny day that there were some major scuffs on the rocker sills/sideskirts, the rear bumper had a small crack in it right at the corner, and my hood has what looks like fibers from a terry cloth in the paint. I found out that the marks are from a Honda paint defect where they put too much hardener in the base coat, which caused it to split. Luckily with a bit of, lets call it skillful discussion, I got the sideskirts wetsanded and buffed for free. The rear bumper is getting repaired on Tuesday and Wednesday, and they first refused to do anything about the hood, and now have managed to work a deal for them to cover half the cost of getting the hood repainted. Other than those small issues, only other little thing is that the climate control lights work somewhat intermittently. It's a common problem with the Elements, so I'm planning on swapping them out with LED's.
For future plans, only thing besides the wheels on the docket, is looking for an OEM spoiler, possibly putting in a bluetooth headunit, and maybe getting some shifter base bushings. The shifter plate on these things (exactly like the EP3 Civic SIR), have rubber bushings holding them in place that have a lot of slop, that can some what easily be swapped out with steel ones.
