In Jan 2008, I bought my third Honda .  It was a no-brainer to decide which brand of car to buy, as the other two I've had have been utterly reliable, with low maintenance costs. 

In 1986 I bought a new Civic Hatchback.  I was still driving it in 1999; it had 187,000 miles and was going strong.  I wanted to upgrade to a CRV, but it was hard to think of spending money on another car, when the one I had ran so well. In the spring of 1999, I was in an accident, and the car was totaled.  I was fine (so was my dog, thank God), which was remarkable, considering we were hit head-on!

At that time,...