Applejack
Explorer
My wife and I have been the owners of a 2011 Honda Element EX AWD for about a year now. I posted about it when we got it but now, nearly a year later and 15,000 miles of use, I feel that I can give some feedback to those who may be considering an Element for their Exped/Adventure car.
Long story short, we have a gas hog 4runner that we didn't want to have to take every time asphalt gave way to dirt or on trips over to the coast with the family+dog+stuff. But we had to because we had a WRX Limited that wast up to that task.
We have always been Suby loyalists, and have owned 7 of them and against my urging to stay in the Subaru fold, we strayed. I let my wife pick the car because it was her car we were relplacing based on these parameters.
Must be 4WD or AWD, be able haul us and or stuff to the coast/camping etc., and get at least 25-ish mpg.
She wasn't digging the looks of the Foresters or Outbacks and had recently become smitten with the Elements. So we found one and got it.
I was only a week before breaking it in on it's first adventure, and my what a disappointment it was. We took the Mr. E Machine to the high desert of Oregon to our favorite camping spot. The 160 mile drive revealed how clumsy and noisy this car is. The steering is quite vague and is not meant for spirited driving. The 166 hp 2.4 litre engine is noisy with adequate power at best, but having a 5 speed auto is helpful to make good use of what power it does have for highway driving. Another nit to pick is the fuel economy or lack thereof. We have yet to see 25,24 or even 23 mpg. Big bummer. We were watching the needle drop lower and lower hoping that perhaps the last half of the tank would redeem the first, but nay! Things got worse when we hit the gravel road, the poor car's suspension began clunking over moderate corrugations. I was hoping to get some relief when we turned off the gravel onto the dirt two track, but sadly the suspension clunk faded into a constant scraping sound and we drug the Elements belly the final mile and a half to our camp. The car sits just a wee too low for all but the most tame of two track side roads.
Over the course we have really tried to like it. It has utilitarian appeal but is limited by a payload capacity of a mere 640 pounds, which we do exceed regularly.
If you have no passengers you can really cram a lot of stuff in there.
After battling a winter with the stock tires we fitted larger General Grabber AT2's which have helped a lot in the traction dept., and gave it nearly an inch better ground clearance. Remarkably even with larger tires and a Yakima rocket box we haven't lost and mpg's. Perhaps having the drag coefficient of a wall lends to this result.
Again, we really wish we liked this car but it just feels way too taxed to live the life that we do, and they really were not built to tackle the rougher terrain that Subaru's can handle. So we will be selling Mr. E and moving on.
Long story short, we have a gas hog 4runner that we didn't want to have to take every time asphalt gave way to dirt or on trips over to the coast with the family+dog+stuff. But we had to because we had a WRX Limited that wast up to that task.
We have always been Suby loyalists, and have owned 7 of them and against my urging to stay in the Subaru fold, we strayed. I let my wife pick the car because it was her car we were relplacing based on these parameters.
Must be 4WD or AWD, be able haul us and or stuff to the coast/camping etc., and get at least 25-ish mpg.
She wasn't digging the looks of the Foresters or Outbacks and had recently become smitten with the Elements. So we found one and got it.
I was only a week before breaking it in on it's first adventure, and my what a disappointment it was. We took the Mr. E Machine to the high desert of Oregon to our favorite camping spot. The 160 mile drive revealed how clumsy and noisy this car is. The steering is quite vague and is not meant for spirited driving. The 166 hp 2.4 litre engine is noisy with adequate power at best, but having a 5 speed auto is helpful to make good use of what power it does have for highway driving. Another nit to pick is the fuel economy or lack thereof. We have yet to see 25,24 or even 23 mpg. Big bummer. We were watching the needle drop lower and lower hoping that perhaps the last half of the tank would redeem the first, but nay! Things got worse when we hit the gravel road, the poor car's suspension began clunking over moderate corrugations. I was hoping to get some relief when we turned off the gravel onto the dirt two track, but sadly the suspension clunk faded into a constant scraping sound and we drug the Elements belly the final mile and a half to our camp. The car sits just a wee too low for all but the most tame of two track side roads.
Over the course we have really tried to like it. It has utilitarian appeal but is limited by a payload capacity of a mere 640 pounds, which we do exceed regularly.
If you have no passengers you can really cram a lot of stuff in there.
After battling a winter with the stock tires we fitted larger General Grabber AT2's which have helped a lot in the traction dept., and gave it nearly an inch better ground clearance. Remarkably even with larger tires and a Yakima rocket box we haven't lost and mpg's. Perhaps having the drag coefficient of a wall lends to this result.
Again, we really wish we liked this car but it just feels way too taxed to live the life that we do, and they really were not built to tackle the rougher terrain that Subaru's can handle. So we will be selling Mr. E and moving on.
