Howdy,

I took delivery of my HAH on Saturday at Holmes Honda in Shreveport, LA. I live in the D-FW metroplex of North Texas, so I made the two hour drive to save $. Big $. Holmes was advertising a non-Nav car on eBay for $27,130 (do a search on completed auctions on eBay if you want to verify this. The item number is 4552196196). Compare this to what KBB and Edmunds report to be the invoice price.

I was torn between a Nav and non-Nav car, but at least I knew that this dealer would negociate on the HAH. The dealers in D-FW told me that their cars are sold before they arrive. Given this environment, one can hardly blame them for not being willing to entertain offers south of MSRP. The market in Shreveport, however, is quite different. I purchased a Nav car, Desert Mist w/Ivory, w/the protection package and all tinted windows for darn near invoice (just a shade over $30,000).

Driving home with the cruise set at near 80 the whole way I got 34.5 MPG based on the Nav and 34.2 on the trip computer. I LOVE THIS CAR! Power, luxury, economy, and style! It is the perfect blend. It will almost certainly get better as the engine loosens and I learn all of the techniques that are posted here.

My one malfunction at this time may be the HomeLink. My previous ride was a Nissan Maxima and its HomeLink worked immediately with my garage door opener. No amount of training has convinced my HAH to do the same. Any thoughts?

Thanks, Sean

 

Welcome to Greenhybrid!

I can't help you with the HomeLink (I don't even have a garage), but you have asked the correct crowd, and you should get an answer to solve the mystery!

If you think that 34.2/.5 MPG is great, wait until you get "used" to the car, you should be able to push that to 35-36 easily!

Again, welcome!

 

Congrats on your new HAH, and a great first tank mpg right out of the box! Be sure to post your mileage in the Compare section and welcome to a very informative site.
Lewis

 

Welcome, Sean! I also "used" Holmes. I bought mine in... March? ...around then. When I asked "Why?", Holmes told me they were trying to build their allocations - made sense. Frank Kent in Weatherford was incredulous! That's where I bought my '05 Odyssey (which they gave me a whale of a deal on). It's funny, because the salesman there, when I told him I would be looking at a HAH later, told me: "Good. I can make some money on THAT one, at least."

Well, Frank Kent had sent my local dealer in Abilene a "Ha Ha" letter for selling one of their people a new Odyssey (local wouldn't meet FK's price). But Abilene didn't believe the price from Holmes, so the GM called pretending to be a customer. After much grumbling - and to avoid another Ha Ha letter - they met their deal.

Navi & same color as yours. Again, Congrats!

 

Sean,
Sounds like you got a good deal on the car. Way to go! nice options. Definitely check out the Honda Accord section of GreenHybrid. You can read about some record mpg that was set by xcel in a borrowed Accord.

Oh, and welcome to GreenHybrid!

 

Sean,

For a brand new car you should not drive it at 80MPH for the first 1000 miles.

 

Well, I looked in the Service manual for a potential diagnostic to run - and there's not even a mention of the Homelink system in the entire 2200 page book (ok, so I looked in the index...

Assuming that you're following the procedure in the manual, a call / note to Johnson Controls (who makes the system) may be in order - there might be an incompatibility with your particular make / model of opener ? (doubtful, since it was working with the Maxima).

If you try it again, before starting, press the outer two buttons down at the same time until you see the indicator start blinking / flashing - this indicates that you've cleared whatever code was in it.

Also, check your manual for the garage door opener - it may have instructions for training the homelink. Mine did (Chamberlain made mine; they also make the Craftsman line for Sears).

 

Thanks for the reply. Yes, I tried the clearing procedure (holding the outer two buttons).

I don't have a manual for my door opener since I'm not the original owner of the house, but I've managed to make it work with the HomeLink on my Maxima and with several hand held controls including two that I trained only a few weeks ago. All available evidence points to the HAH's transmitter not working. I'll bet the Honda service folks can help.