Raise your hand if you've registered your Honda through Honda's owner link.

https://estore.honda.com/honda/parts...CD5636TA043712

Well, let me tell you why you should. Not only does it post details of all recalls, it lets you manually record your own service records and connects you to their e-store and tells you the price that the dealership charges for parts compared to the "factory cost".(Dealerships prices vary by hundreds of dollars!)

How can this come in handy? Well say you put down some cardboard on your driveway and the next day you notice a big dark splotch. It's motor oil and about in the place of your distributor. Sure enough you open up the hood and there's oil all beneath the distributor. So you go to your local a mechanic about your distributor leaking(on your 96' Honda accord), you have them test it and they determine it's leaking internally and it's only a matter of time to before your car won't start and the oil fries the module. The shop, well-meaning most of the time, tells you they can get one for $385. Say you shop around at your local parts mega-store and they have a great aftermarket one(recommended by the shop) at $300.

Good deal, eh?

Almost! If you would have checked with Honda, they sell one straight from the factory for $295 and the local dealership is usually always $30 or so dollars under that. In my case the local Honda dealer actually beat out the cost of this aftermarket part by $70...I could have got a whole OEM distributor for $230. A valuable lesson to learn. Just because the dealer is selling it doesn't mean it's always going to expensive. 90% of the time it is and it's awkward coming up with creative lies to exit the conservation after you find out they want $52 for a license plate bracket(Awkward!)...checking their e-store online saves one from this fate.