I bought an 07, the oridgelinal, brand new and still have it. I wasn't going to consider them but my cousin was a Honda Technician. He bought one of the early 06's and convinced me to check it out. It pulls my Corvette on a trailer no problem with the electric trailer brakes. Of course Texas is pretty flat. Don't think I'd want to haul it over the Rockies with the Ridgeline. I loaded a full 1,100 lbs of floor tile and grout in back and thought the "trunk lid" was going to break as the forklift kept going down and down and down, but it handled it just fine. I'd previously bought new Ford and GMC half tons, but then I went to an SUV, a Toyota Landcruiser which I loved except the most frustrating thing about it was having to so carefully package and wrap every greasy car part I wanted to bring home from the swap meet to avoid soiling the luxury interior. That's where the Ridgeline shines. And I love the side swing tailgate which makes loading heavy items much easier by not having to lift them past the tailgate. I haven't driven the new Ridgeline, but I sat in one at the new car show and immediately realized they'd ruined it in at least one way. The back seat on the new one is straight vertical and absolutely miserable. The original has a slight bit of recline to the back seat and is reasonably comfortable. Styling is subjective, but the new one doesn't look bad. They just sacrificed the bulky, boxy, more masculine appearance for traditional side loading capability. But with only 75K miles on mine, I guess I won't be shopping the new ones anytime soon. My cousin's is now at 270K trouble free miles so I got almost 200K to go.
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