HONDA S800 COMMENTS

HONDA S800 COMMENTS

Sir, Having owned one of these excellent little cars 5 coupe) since last April, I was most interested to read your official write-up in the August edition of MoTog SPORT. Whilst I will agree with the majority of your comments (in fact I feel that I had written the article myself) I must take you to task about petrol consumption

—I don’t know how you managed to return such low figures. At no time has my m.p.g. dropped below 30, and I would point out that the majority of my driving is of the stop-start variety. Having the article still fresh in my mind, and a longish journey coming up I decided to carry out a full check. The journey was to Leeds, a day into the Pennines, another into Lincolnshire and

the return to London. I cruised wherever possible at that magic figure of 70, and on the return journey my friend drove part of the way, and at limes was carried away, allowing the engine to cruise at 6,500 r.p.m. or more, we managed to .average 55 m.p.h., so you will gather that we were not sightseeing en route!

The total distance was 600 miles, and fuel used was 16.9 gallons, which according to my slide rule comes out at 35.5 m.p.g. I will add that the fuel used was 91/92 octane with only the addition of U.C.L.

Dare I suggest that you could have been driving around with the parking brake on!

I have only two additional comments that I would like to make. A design fault shows up at the rear end of the car as the exhaust flows up the vertical part and covers it and the bumpers with exhaust gases. That banging noise at the rear end is due to the pipe aft of the silencer thumping on the cross chassis member. It seems to be a weak point, and is caused by lack of support for the silencer in the amidships position. It seems rather strange that the exhaust system is supported only forward of the silencer, and at the rear expansion boxes, although there are holes, drilled and tapped on the silencer and on the adjacent chassis member. In fact it looks as if a bracket is missing! But my local Honda agents have checked with Head Office and assure me that no bracket is intended at this point. I hasten to add that these agents (Haymill Motors of Slough) are dedicated to assist Honda owners at any time, and to the utmost of their ability.

SNAGS: The engine thermostat stuck open at 1,000 miles and was replaced.

I complained of the lack of synchromesh on 2nd gear (perhaps another inherent fault?), and had the gearbox changed without a murmur.

So I’m sold on this “mini ” sports car, but hasten to add the usual disclaimers.

Fel tharn. A. J. MINTON. [Very often optimistic m.p.g. figures result from not checking optimism in odometer readings. We usually release handbrakes before doing our road-tests. A contemporary gave fuel consumption figures of 26.8 m.p.g. overall for the S800. Honda certainly appear to he doing their best to please those who buy their cars.—En.] a