What's your biggest gripe with the prelude?

[Passfeller51]

I am not all that happy that we only have the adaptive cruise control here in the EU. It seems that in different markets you can deactivate the adaptive part (by pressing the lane distance button for two seconds) and use standard cruise control. Sadly, this feature ist not enabled over here (I talked to the dealer about it). Being accustomed to "normal" cruise control, I would have liked to use that from time to time, too.

 

[pillred37]

After owning it for a while, I love my prelude, I even bought a second one after someone crashed into me and it was a total loss. But I was wondering what are your gripes with the prelude. For me:
1. Non electric seats or the lever in the back of the seat not sliding the seat forward (I have a Mini and the mini does slide forward)
2. When I wash the car, the door sills keep a lot of water and soap.
3. The wipers are mid
4. It's so easy to stain the door with my shoe >_<

That's a very short list, lol, and as for electric seats, it takes 3 seconds to adjust if someone else has driven it; they are overrated. The seat not sliding in one movement is a pain, though; again, I doubt I will ever use them apart from extra luggage space. I am coming from the Civic and found I never used the back seats in 3 years, hence the reason I am getting the Prelude.

 

[pillred37]

I don't mind the manually adjusted seats but I agree with you that it would be good if the front seats slid forwards when you tip them - and if they then went back to their original position.

My only other gripe so far is the 'overspeed warning' system. On UK Preludes, it uses traffic sign recognition to read the speed limit and then beeps annoyingly if you go one mph faster. In theory, that's ok but the speed limit signs are sometimes misread or missed completely - leaving you driving at 50mph in a 60mph limit, but with a constant beeping noise and a flashing '30 mph' sign on the dashboard.

You can switch the traffic sign recognition off, but it turns itself back on every time you start the car...

That's handy; you can at least temporarily disable the overspeed warning. I pick mine up soon, and that was the thing I was not looking forward to (not that I'm a speeder). On my current 2023 Civic, you can turn it off permanently.

 

[pillred37]

That sounds a lot more sensible! No, on the UK cars the only option is to switch off the traffic sign recognition system completely - which means no beeping, but also no speed limit icon on the dashboard. And it switches itself back on again next time you start the car...

Would it be possible to put a bit of black tape where the TSR camera is located on the windscreen?

 

[pillred37]

I agree with the manual seats not returning to their position after going in the back and not sliding forward. Annoyingly but I can live with it.
My other gripe may sound petty, but I don't stream music, I have it on a USB. I also have an android phone. In the UK there is only one data transfer port (the other being charge), and its impossible to listen to my music and run Google maps through android auto at the same time. My previous Mazda and Peugeot had similar ports, but I never had this problem with them! Since I listen to my music mostly on longer journeys when needing googlemaps, this is incredibly frustrating. Looks like I might need to buy a new phone with more storage and put all my music on there! An expensive solution!

Doesn't the car come with its own Sat nav? And does that mean that if you're not using maps, you could use the USB-C port to listen to music? I use my USB port in my Civic to listen to music

 

[Alfettaman76]

Would it be possible to put a bit of black tape where the TSR camera is located on the windscreen?

Yes, but that camera is used by other systems too. It detects painted lines and textures on the road and uses this for lane-keeping assist and road departure mitigation. Also for object recognition (car, pedestrian, truck, etc).

I think if you covered the camera with black tape in order to defeat the TSR, a lot of other things would stop working too!

 

[CiceroGirl7]

I got distracted by my major gripe about how the backseat looks, and forgot my very petty gripe about the fact that the script "Prelude" on the back of the car doesn't show up at all when you have a black car. This is my second Prelude – – I bought a 1999 that I drove and loved for 12 years way back when – – and I love the fact that the car that truly *feels* like me is something that almost no one else has (especially right now!) and I want people to know what this car is when they admire it on the road... but you can barely read it when the car is stopped, let alone when it's moving! (If the only other option is the individual metallic *looking* letters that they had on my Gen 5, though, I guess I'll live with the invisible black one!)

 

[pillred37]

I got distracted by my major gripe about how the backseat looks, and forgot my very petty gripe about the fact that the script "Prelude" on the back of the car doesn't show up at all when you have a black car. This is my second Prelude – – I bought a 1999 that I drove and loved for 12 years way back when – – and I love the fact that the car that truly *feels* like me is something that almost no one else has (especially right now!) and I want people to know what this car is when they admire it on the road... but you can barely read it when the car is stopped, let alone when it's moving! (If the only other option is the individual metallic *looking* letters that they had on my Gen 5, though, I guess I'll live with the invisible black one!)

How easy would it be to maybe remove the Prelude script as a whole and spray it or dip it the colour of your choice to really individualise yours?

 

[Liverfluke25]

Doesn't the car come with its own Sat nav? And does that mean that if you're not using maps, you could use the USB-C port to listen to music? I use my USB port in my Civic to listen to music

Yes, you can connect a smart phone wirelessly or via USBC and use it for music. Then also have a choice of the internal satnav or something like Apple Maps or Waze on the phone.
I have an old large-capacity iPhone connected to the USBC port for my music library.
Sadly, the Prelude is not compatible with my 500gb iPod.

 

[nicki91]

I got distracted by my major gripe about how the backseat looks, and forgot my very petty gripe about the fact that the script "Prelude" on the back of the car doesn't show up at all when you have a black car. This is my second Prelude – – I bought a 1999 that I drove and loved for 12 years way back when – – and I love the fact that the car that truly *feels* like me is something that almost no one else has (especially right now!) and I want people to know what this car is when they admire it on the road... but you can barely read it when the car is stopped, let alone when it's moving! (If the only other option is the individual metallic *looking* letters that they had on my Gen 5, though, I guess I'll live with the invisible black one!)

Personally, I like that element of mystery.

 

[Alfettaman76]

That's handy; you can at least temporarily disable the overspeed warning. I pick mine up soon, and that was the thing I was not looking forward to (not that I'm a speeder). On my current 2023 Civic, you can turn it off permanently.

European legislation changed in July 2024, requiring all new cars to have an overspeed warning system that can't be permanently disabled. Honda interpreted this requirement rather strictly, so the beeping starts when you're just 1 mph over the speed limit and switching it off 'in flight' (even temporarily) isn't possible....

 

[SSV51]

The fuel gauge calibration is probably my biggest gripe.

Get down to 2 bars, the trip computer is telling me ~ 50 miles of range left with 330 miles covered since last refill, and when I re-fuel, I find there was 9 or 10 litres of fuel left in the tank. Could have easily covered another 100 miles before needing to re-fuel.

 

[pillred37]

The fuel gauge calibration is probably my biggest gripe.

Get down to 2 bars, the trip computer is telling me ~ 50 miles of range left with 330 miles covered since last refill, and when I re-fuel, I find there was 9 or 10 litres of fuel left in the tank. Could have easily covered another 100 miles before needing to re-fuel.

Go on, I dare you to put it to the test, lol.

 

[GoZoner36]

Go on, I dare you to put it to the test, lol.

In the US the reported tank capacity is 10.6 gallons. As the fuel gauge has 10 divisions that is about 1 gal per. (It is actually 0.9 gal per tick)

I always drive to the ‘0 miles remain’ mark and beyond. At 0 miles, the tank takes about 9.1 gallons, meaning still a healthy 1.5 gallons remain - like 60+ miles. I’ve gone as far as 40 miles past 0 and got 10 gallons in on the fill up.

“Why?” You ask. No idea, I guess I’m that guy.

 

[pillred37]

In the US the reported tank capacity is 10.6 gallons. As the fuel gauge has 10 divisions that is about 1 gal per. (It is actually 0.9 gal per tick)

I always drive to the ‘0 miles remain’ mark and beyond. At 0 miles, the tank takes about 9.1 gallons, meaning still a healthy 1.5 gallons remain - like 60+ miles. I’ve gone as far as 40 miles past 0 and got 10 gallons in on the fill up.

“Why?” You ask. No idea, I guess I’m that guy.

That must mean our tanks only hold around 8 gallons. Mind you, here it's quoted at around 55 mpg, so that's still a pretty good range. The number of miles I do that would last me a month. I have part-exchanged my Civic for the Prelude, which I now won't get until September, despite being promised the end of this month. From new, in 3 years I have done 6500 miles. Whoever buys it is getting a bargain and probably the lowest-mileage 3-year-old Civic in England.

 

[Alfettaman76]

That must mean our tanks only hold around 8 gallons. Mind you, here it's quoted at around 55 mpg, so that's still a pretty good range. The number of miles I do that would last me a month. I have part-exchanged my Civic for the Prelude, which I now won't get until September, despite being promised the end of this month. From new, in 3 years I have done 6500 miles. Whoever buys it is getting a bargain and probably the lowest-mileage 3-year-old Civic in England.

The Prelude's tank is officially 40 litres, which is 8.8 Imperial [UK] gallons. At 55 mpg that gives a theoretical range of 484 miles!

 

[Alfettaman76]

In the US the reported tank capacity is 10.6 gallons. As the fuel gauge has 10 divisions that is about 1 gal per. (It is actually 0.9 gal per tick)

I always drive to the ‘0 miles remain’ mark and beyond. At 0 miles, the tank takes about 9.1 gallons, meaning still a healthy 1.5 gallons remain - like 60+ miles. I’ve gone as far as 40 miles past 0 and got 10 gallons in on the fill up.

“Why?” You ask. No idea, I guess I’m that guy.

This poses a philosophical question: if the car is reporting that there is no fuel left but you're still driving it, does that mean that your official mpg (as far as the car's computer is concerned) is now infinite?

 

[Alex_Waverley58]

My biggest gripe with the Prelude is people who constantly look for reasons to gripe about the Prelude.

 

[Alfettaman76]

My biggest gripe with the Prelude is people who constantly look for reasons to gripe about the Prelude.

"Yeah, but it should have 500hp, a manual transmission, mid-engine, panoramic roof, full-sized back seats, heated fog lights, ventilated rear ashtrays, be 15k cheaper and run on rainwater..... Honda really screwed up."

 

[Passfeller51]

The Prelude's tank is officially 40 litres, which is 8.8 Imperial [UK] gallons. At 55 mpg that gives a theoretical range of 484 miles!

Which makes around 779km per tank where I live - which is pretty damn good.