When you’re walking the rows of your local car graveyard, in which vehicles are you most likely to find odometers showing intergalactically high final odometer readings? I’ve got a lot of experience on the subject, and I can say that the best bets tend to be diesel-powered Mercedes-Benzes and Honda Accords of the late 1980s through early 1990s. For today’s Junkyard Gem, we’ve got another one of those high-mile Accords, now residing in a Denver-area self-service boneyard.
409,780.7 miles over 32 years means that this unassuming base-grade Accord coupe averaged just over 12,805 for every year of its driving career.
It also means that Honda now dominates the Murilee Martin Junkyard Odometer standings, with seven cars in the Top 20 (of which five are Accords). Let’s take a look:
- 1990 Volvo 244: 631,999 miles
- 1988 Honda Accord: 626,476 miles
- 1987 Mercedes-Benz W201: 601,173 miles
- 1996 Toyota Camry wagon: 583,624 miles
- 1981 Mercedes-Benz W126: 572,139 miles
- 1985 Mercedes-Benz W126: 525,971 miles
- 1988 Honda Accord: 513,519 miles
- 1990 Volvo 740 Turbo wagon: 493,549 miles
- 1990 Nissan Sentra: 440,299 miles
- 1991 Honda Accord: 435,471 miles
- 1996 Honda Civic: 435,028 miles
- 1982 Mercedes-Benz W123: 417,046 miles
- 1995 Toyota Previa: 413,530 miles
- 1998 Toyota Tercel 4WD wagon: 413,344 miles
- 2002 Ford Crown Victoria Police Interceptor: 412,013 miles
- 1983 Honda Accord: 411,794 miles
- 1985 Mercedes-Benz W123: 411,448 miles
- 1992 Honda Accord: 409,780 miles
- 2001 Honda CR-V: 403,757 miles
- 1991 Nissan Stanza: 402,505 miles
Today’s Accord shoves another Accord into 21st place and means that a discarded vehicle now needs at least 400,000 miles to attain Top 20 status.
This car is a respectable 18th overall, but it should feel pride as the fifth-best-traveled junkyard car I’ve found that was built in the United States. It is surpassed in the Murilee Martin American Pride Junkyard Odometer Standings by a 435k-mile Civic, a 435k-mile Accord, a 440k-mile Sentra and a 583k-mile Camry (the highest-mile American-built vehicle sold by a manufacturer based in the United States that I’ve documented was a 1986 Oldsmobile Calais with 363k miles, followed by a 355k-mile Jeep Cherokee).
It was born at Honda’s factory in Marysville, Ohio, which began motorcycle production in 1979 and Accord production in 1982.
The DX was the cheapest Accord trim level for 1992, and the coupe was the cheapest Accord body style that year. This car has the 2.2-liter F22 SOHC straight-four engine, rated at 125 horsepower and 137 pound-feet.
With the base five-speed manual transmission, its MSRP was $13,300 (about $29,571 in 2023 dollars).
This car has air conditioning and a driver’s-side airbag, both extra-cost options in the 1992 Accord, but is a no-frills machine in most other respects.
These cars were more vulnerable than most to damage from the Rust Monster, and this one shows holes in the usual spots.
The floors and door pockets are full of construction hardware and the interior is coated with sheetrock dust, so I think this Accord was used to haul crews to work sites for a decade or two. There’s a half-million-mile Civic hatchback of the same era that a Denver painting contractor still uses for that purpose; perhaps this Accord was owned by the same outfit.
It served its owners well over the decades, and its metal will live on in other applications soon enough.
Improved airflow, improved cashflow.
The ’90s Accord.
