Let me begin my exciting day of my husband telling me that we’re going to trade our car in for a new SUV. I was stunned. He knew that I had been wanting one and we just couldn’t afford it. Well, we got up the idea to go looking at used ones. That would be a better option and our payments would be lower. Well, we went to the Honda dealership and ran into some really nice salesman. They showed us the demo that a manager was driving. From the instant I saw it I fell in love. It was a 2000 Honda Passport EXL. EXL is the luxury package that it comes with which I will tell you more about. We ended up getting this vehicle as you can tell. I am in love with it. I’ve had a Honda Civic before and it was always very reliable. So we needed something like this because we’re always traveling with the military.

Why we chose the Honda Passport

We chose the Passport over the other SUV’s simply because of Honda’s reputation and the looks of it weren’t that important. We just wanted a SUV that would be safe for our family. As we know they tend to flip on certain impulse moves. We decided that since we were confident with Honda and hadn’t heard to many bad things that we would go with this one. Plus we got the must for our money. Most of the other SUV’s that we were looking at were about $5000 or more over the Passport. We liked the space that the Passport had oppose to other SUV’s.

Luxury Features of the Honda Passport

This very stylish two toned Honda Passport EXL is loaded with luxury. Let me list some of the extras that you might enjoy if you purchased a Passport.

· Leather interior
· Moon and sun roof
· 6 disk front load compact disc changer (front load meaning you load it all from the dash.)
· rear wiper
· 2 tone body color
· Alloy wheels
· full size spare tire under the back cargo area
· My specific Passport was upgraded at the dealership they put the front bumper guard on the hood and the running bars along the sides of the body.)
· Winter drive - a special button for traveling in slick, wet, snowy, road conditions.
· Power drive - if you need a little get up to pass someone or extra take off speed (don’t understand why you would with the power it has without it on)


Miscellanous Information

The Honda Passports all come with a V6 engine with 205 Horsepower. The car will get up and go. I haven’t ever owned a V6 but I can barely touch the gas and I am off in a flash. I couldn’t believe the get up and go it has.
It has 4 wheel disc brakes and 214 foot pounds of torque. This is great for pulling boats, etc.
We usually get about 18 mpg just in the city. We have driven the Passport in all kinds of conditions. Just today I got to experience driving it in the snow and sleet. It handled unbelievably well. I never felt as if I was sliding like you do in a car. I felt very safe and in charge of the vehicle. Where as I am wimp when it comes to driving in the snow and sleet. We also have taken the SUV off road just down a very bumpy dirt road. It handled better than my husbands 4x4 truck. It never slid or bounced around too much. Of course it was bumpy because the road was. Other than that I have no complaints.

When driving down the road the ride is very quiet and smooth. You can’t even tell when the engine is running. There is not a lot of wind noise like you hear some complaints with SUV’s. The only complaint we had was when we first got it there was a cracking sound almost like the back window was sliding and popping. The only way to describe the noise when you go over a bump. We took it to our local dealership and they put some gaskets in because they said that Honda was going to recall it. It will not damage your vehicle the noise is just annoying. That only took about 5 minutes to install. They are just like rubber stoppers. Now its just like new!!! Better than ever.

How I feel in Passport is it safe?

I think that SUV’s are safe if you treat them like any other car. You can’t dog them out and turn them sharp. Of course they are going to flip over. Any car that you drive recklessly like that is not going to stay on the road properly.

I feel 100% confident in the Passport SUV and wouldn’t trade it for a car. My husband has nicknamed it the "grocer getter" since we haven’t ever had anything but cars and trucks. This is a bigger and better step up in the world for us and we love it.

I am not sure I will ever go back to a smaller car. This one is higher off the ground and is wonderful for driving. It’s very comfortable. We took a 10 hour trip in it and didn’t even have to stop and stretch like normal. Of course we did just so our backs wouldn’t get stiff, but normally we were dying in our car to get to a rest area.


Passports are a little steep in price but work with your dealership and let them know that you can’t go over x amount in payments and they will work with you. They did us. We got into the passport for the same payments we were paying on a car.
If they want the car gone bad enough they will fudge some. Either way they are going to make good money off of you!



PS- Mine is the one in the picture but it has side running bars and the front bumper guard :)
Amount Paid (US$): 24000
Condition: New
Model Year: 2000
Model and Options: EXL, Automatic