Purchased new in April 2003, just clocked 166,000 miles!
I am one of a dwindling number of Stream owners I guess, used to see a few running around but very rare now. The most reliable car I have ever owned, although I guess my previous vehicles were not at all comparable! Started off learning to drive in a Ford Escort Mk3. Briefly took lessons in a Mini (original style) but soon back to the Escort. First car I owned was an Austin Allegro 1500HL. I know these have a bad reputation but the transverse OHC engine was a doddle to maintain and apart from squeaky hydro-gas suspension and a thirst for oil, it ran rather well actually. A big boot on it but a letterbox opening to it! All I could manage on a meagre salary. Built in 1979, it was six years old when I bought it, and it lasted three years until it got written off in an accident.
Next car was not a stunner either. Morris Ital (a restyled Marina) from 1981, it was seven years old when I bought it as the third owner. A bit of a dinosaur of a car with niggling issues although it ran ok. Was not comfortable at speed though and a bit of a bus! Had that car for four years before I sold it to a Marina enthusiast and I believe it was scrapped a year or two later.
I then bought a one year old Rover 214SLi which has 20,000 miles on it and owner by Rover Fleet Management. A nice car, ran well but the K series engine had its usual head gasket problems. It did open my eyes to Honda though, as I saw the Concerto version as a superior version of the same car. Head gasket replaced at 65,000 miles and I had the car until I bought the Stream in 2003, and then my wife had it for three more years until the head gasket went again at 125,000 miles and we scrapped it and my wife bought a three-year old Honda Jazz with just 14,000 miles on it and one previous owner in 2006.
Now, the Jazz is still running, but has gone through a couple of exhausts but nothing else wrong with it. A nice little runner and ULEZ compliant so living just outside Greater London it has survived the Sadiq Khan Cull. But the Stream has soldiered on and has been driven all over the country, up to Scotland a few times, down to Devon and Cornwall many more times, all over East Anglia, the Midlands and South West. Its been in Wales too! It still has the original stainless steel exhaust I asked for as an optional extra when I bought the car.
Faults are few but the Stream has served me well. The are only two times I needed to call out the AA was once when I was running the air-conditioning whilst working on my laptop in the car at a car park and was not running the engine (it was a very hot day) and I drained the battery, and the other time was when I foolishly rushed through a flood of water and filled a cylinder with water! When the AA came to my aid he towed me out and helpfully removed the drenched air filter and the spark plugs. I was then told to turn the engine and it was rather odd seeing water being ejected from the plugs like fountains! Once he got it running again he joked that I had a Honda Steam as the exhaust was chugging out the condensate. A rough ride home with the check engine light on, but a new air filter and a short run to check all was ok and it was.
I have the K20A1 1998cc engine which is a really good performer, but i was having a spot of bother with the check engine light coming on now and again. Using my Autolec D519 ODM I was able to find out that I had a misfire on one cylinder, so I changed the plugs and caps and that cleared that up, but then I was getting a knock sensor fault with an occasional additional catalytic convertor performance warning. I had been using 95 RON petrol as regular fuel in this car, with 97 RON sometimes when doing the hills on holiday trips. However, this fault emerged after a year of using the newer E10 95 RON blended fuel and I suspected that there was some rough running due to the lower grade of fuel. After using a few doses of Redex to clean the fuel system and the injectors, and using E5 fuel instead, good performance was restored and no further warnings came up. Went through the MOT no worries and, like the Jazz, although both are considerably older than many of the cars that are now banned from London unless the ULEZ charge is paid, these cars remain compliant because Honda had the wisdom to achieve better performance well in advance of the new regulations. I knew this when I bought the car but back in 2003, when ULEZ was not on the horizon.
I am convinced that, so long as the bodywork holds up, the engine will pass 200,000 comfortably and if I still have the car in April 2028 it will be a veteran of 25 years with one careful, very satisfied, owner. I have seen comments on YouTube that if you have a car with a K20 engine you should never sell it because it will just go on, and on, and on. It's true!
I certainly will consider Honda for my next car, and quite like the CR-V and the Civic models, but I am impressed with the Jazz and its Crossstar variant too, which my wife and I took out on a test drive a few months back. I know combustion engines are under threat, but if I do change I think I am likely to choose a plug-in hybrid as that will mean I can drive electric for most short journeys and not be range restricted for the longer drives across the UK and parts of Europe.
