Buying Honda Civic 2nd hand - advice needed!!

Dagon

Here are a few pics of my new Civic:

Con9903

nice car dude

30-6shooter

Thats a tidy little car ya got yourself, Dagon. I wouldnt worry about the skanger image, thats more to do with the old 92, 94 models that are all done up like ****e. And besides you buy a car you like, not what someone else likes/dislikes. Its a nice little respectable car of yours,,, how does it only have 15000miles though, thats amazing.!Did you buy it off a nun?

I wanted a civic like that when i was gettin my 1st car but the insurance put an end to that.Im only 21. I got a pug 306 hatchbk instead, and hopefully my next yoke will be a 306Dturbo. I`d consider the civic again when the times comes but im hooked on the pug`s for the moment.

A decent set of alloys and your stereo is all i`d do to it. I wouldnt waste much money sticking tack onto it.

Dagon

"Did you buy it off a nun? "

Lol! Not quite, but it was a lady driver alright, and for health reasons she was unable to use it much. Finding a civic like that is pretty hard, they are virtually gold dust. A lot of Civics have been abused a fair bit, esp. by guys my age and younger.. but after finding this car, I had to grab it - despite the fact that it has virtually no extras like electrics or sound system. As Samo alrerady said - the basic 1.4i is quite stripped down. But I'm going to spice it up with a few bits and bobs. Am hoping to add a few small touches to the interior, and some small adjustments to the exterior also. Nah, not a big ****-off sports kit, but some more subtle adjustments like alloys, possibly side skirts and slight lip at front and back perhaps. So if anyone knows of anywhere that does more "subtle" adjustments at a low price let me know. Especially anywhere in near Sligo/Galway.

Dagon

"I would avoid like the plague, as said earlier most are thrashed by baseball cap wearing gents."

Which means if I take care of this car, in a couple of years time it will still have a very low mileage and will be in good nick = will fetch a high price as a private sale, as they are v.popular and keep their value pretty well

Well treated Civics with low mileage are like gold dust

samo

very nice, I had exactly the same model in (clover!) green but it wasnt as clean looking as that when I sold it on!! (1st car was an 89 polo fox - then went to a civic and steering being so light was a shock!)

Definitly get the alloys though, was driving beside an 03 civic with Honda alloys yesterday and they were the business!

Mine only came with tape if I remember correctly - did they upgrade this to a CD player??

Dub_Ster

528i
Last beamer who came along side me with his 95 325i beamer and theres me sittin in my 91 dohc vtec CIVIC , and he had a good laugh till the lite went green then i gave him a doose of vtec and the poor moron couldnt catch me and he inisheated it buy laughin at me . and he tock farley lively two so dont tar us all with the same brush .

as for civics have the crap drove out of them well thats not quite true , You have to drive the crap out of them to get the damm things to acelerate any way decently .so they can take it cause there designed to .

bazz26

I had an 1994 2.0i Accord a couple of years ago. Great car and it put a few red faces on a couple of smug 3/5 series drivers from the traffic lights also.

Best of luck with your new motor Dagon, my father bought a 03 Civic 1.4s 3 door a couple of months ago in silver too and it also is a great car. It has remote central locking, air conditioning, cd player and side air bags. They retain their value very well and as you say clean untarted-up ones are hard to find.

Delta_ie

For the outside I would suggest

Nice set of 16' alloys, 15' look too small on the EK and 17' are too big and will give you a bad ride.

Then lower the car with springs/shocks or get a set of sleeve coilover springs made by Ground Control or Skunk.

Then I would colour code the rub stripes, license plate holder, and the stock side skirts and go with a rear type r lip, type r grille and a front type r lip or a lip say from Mugen or Spoon, there are copies on the internet that will work out much cheaper.

Also for side mirrors get a copy of the Spoon mirrors. I think they look good on civics, much better than stock.

I think this would give you a very clean car.

RicardoSmith

Dub_Ster wrote:

528i
Last beamer who came along side me with his 95 325i beamer and theres me sittin in my 91 dohc vtec CIVIC , and he had a good laugh till the lite went green then i gave him a doose of vtec and the poor moron couldnt catch me and he inisheated it buy laughin at me . and he tock farley lively two so dont tar us all with the same brush .

as for civics have the crap drove out of them well thats not quite true , You have to drive the crap out of them to get the damm things to acelerate any way decently .so they can take it cause there designed to .

In fairness. Wouldn't be much between those cars 0-60 so he mustn't have been trying. Driving the crap out of car and using the powerband are two different things. You sound exactly like those hes trying to tar too. :rolleyes:

RicardoSmith

Delta_ie wrote:

For the outside I would suggest

Nice set of 16' alloys, 15' look too small on the EK and 17' are too big and will give you a bad ride.

Then lower the car with springs/shocks or get a set of sleeve coilover springs made by Ground Control or Skunk.

Then I would colour code the rub stripes, license plate holder, and the stock side skirts and go with a rear type r lip, type r grille and a front type r lip or a lip say from Mugen or Spoon, there are copies on the internet that will work out much cheaper.

Also for side mirrors get a copy of the Spoon mirrors. I think they look good on civics, much better than stock.

I think this would give you a very clean car.

How much would that effect the insurance though?

Delta_ie

Some insurance companies have no problem with modifications but there this the thing when some of them hear honda civic and mods they start uping the price.
With most cars the insurance companies have no problem unless you change the displacement of the car or add forced induction and if you want the mods to be covered you just have to add the price of them to the total value of the car.

Our man in Havana

Delta ie wrote:

Some insurance companies have no problem with modifications but there this the thing when some of them hear honda civic and mods they start uping the price.

Some insurance companies just won't quote when they hear honda civic as it conjures up images of boyracers and baseball cap wearing persons.

RicardoSmith

"Some insurance companies" could you a bit more specific?

Dagon

Nah Samo, no cd player just tape (I'm investing in a cd player soon though, looking at sony m880). As you said, it's a pretty basic Civic but I don't mind too much. No electrics really, or sunroof. But that suits me ok cause I want a low budget motor that won't have lots of little bits and pieces that need fixing every now and then (I have a mate who had a bit of a nightmare with electrics going in his car). When I have more money I'll probably invest in a motor with more features, but for now a basic civic does the job. And I'll spice up the interior with a few little touches here and there. The car is pretty much a blank canvas, and I'm going to "personalise" it a bit and add bits that I want.

Delta_ie - some nice ideas there. Would definitely like to colour code the rub stripes and license plate holder and the side skirts (perhaps buy cooler side skirts). If you know of anywhere that I can get this done at a good price, let me know!

Not sure about the front and back lips though - I want something subtle as I'm pretty happy with the overall look of it as is... but would definitely think of adding on some sort of a lip if it's at the right price. And if I get it cheap on the net, how much then is it to fit???

Delta_ie

just to give some pics to show what I ment.
I would keep the stock side skirts as in the pics below they tie
in with the type r lips.
I will also post a pic to show you the spoon side mirrors and lip.

Dagon

Woah, thanks Delta. Yeah, those pics are really cool.. yeah, I would love to get my Civic looking something like that Type R in the first 3 pics. The styling is tasteful and not OTT like some of the kits around. Do you know how much it would cost to get all of that stuff done (sides, front, back, respray rub stripes) including parts and labour (minus the mirrors)?

Zascar

Dub_Ster wrote:

Last beamer who came along side me with his 95 325i beamer and theres me sittin in my 91 dohc vtec CIVIC , and he had a good laugh till the lite went green then i gave him a doose of vtec and the poor moron couldnt catch me and he inisheated it buy laughin at me . and he tock farley lively two so dont tar us all with the same brush .

Its true. Beemers are heavy and underpowered. I have a 1.5 VTI VTEC and I have beaten 325's a few times. The 328's+ are faster that me, but so they should be being nearly double the engine size.

Dub_Ster wrote:

As for civics have the crap drove out of them well thats not quite true , You have to drive the crap out of them to get the damm things to acelerate any way decently .so they can take it cause there designed to .

Again correct. Civics have very high reving engines. The 1.4 revs to 6,800rpm. My 1.5 revs to 7,200rpm, and the 1.6 VTi revs to 8,000rpm. You can take them a little higher than that before the govner kicks in. Honda engines are very 'rev happy' and are very capable of a thrashing. You are more likely to find them with nackered gearboxes as the idiots can't drive them properly, and are not doing heal and toe as they should be when driving like that.

A good mate of mine has a 1.6 CRX which has had 3 owners who gave it a serious thrashing, but the engine is still in great condition - s long as they are well maintained and not 'abused' they can really take a beating.

If anyone was watching Top Gear last night, Jeremy Clarkson as in the Honda S2000 - which redlines at 9,000rpm, and highly praised Honda engines.

RicardoSmith

How does doing heel and toe prevent wear and damage to the gear box? It simply a matter of changing gear at the time regardless of technique.

Yes well those M3 are underpowered I'll give you that... :rolleyes:

Ratchet

i can't see 1.5civic (small vtec) taking on 325i. they do accelerate nicely from 0-60 but also easy run out of steam

some BMW are slow but not all. M3,Z3, corrado(which lost the engine in some stage) was really flying on last track day in mondello and only old 1991 integra deserved Fast car title as rest of new Civics and 1.8 integras kind of sucked on acceleration, specially when coming out of the corners.. Yes, they do take some abuse but really you want to be driving 1.8 integra or 2.0 typer r civic to have some more steam

i had great fun with my crx going through the corners and racing anything up to 70 mph after that speed Hondas with 1.5&1.6 engine can't really accelerate fast enough simply due to lack of pulling power.

If I would have to choose small engined Honda car again.. Well, it will have to be mk2 CRX again as CIVIC rolls too much on the corners .

kdevitt

Zascar wrote:

Its true. Beemers are heavy and underpowered. I have a 1.5 VTI VTEC and I have beaten 325's a few times. The 328's+ are faster that me, but so they should be being nearly double the engine size.

Hehe....I needed a laugh. You're not being serious are you?? I've had 4 Civics (2x 1.6 Si's -same HP and more torque than your VTi, 2x 1.5 VTi's) and 1 CRX (again 1.5 VTec) and none of them would take my last 320i if I was trying...seriously. And as for taking a 325i - you know a 328i only has 1BHP extra (although more torque, which I have the pleasure of now using daily) so I'd imagine anyone you seriously 'raced' was driving a 316i with a different badge, or the engine/clutch/gearbox was on the verge of giving up on life at any minute.

To the original poster - car looks nice and tidy, try sourcing your kit from eBay, a lot of people replace the nice and subtle kit you're after with something altogether more lairy...its the Honda sports kit. A few guys sell them on my site from time to time as well...(www.jSpeed.net) There are quite a few places selling copies of the Honda sports kit cheap, but its a false economy - they're quite poor quality and you'd say bye bye to the nicely painted kit after the first high kerb incident you encounter...

jayok

As a Civic owner I can say I have noticed this. I drive an 04 Civic Type R and it really amazes me at the lights when I get a Civic/Corolla/Golf Punto/Corsa "knacker" (you know who you are) revving at a set of traffic lights for a race. The lights go green and then they tear off. I do not drive like this on public roads and simply move off at a steady pace. I am sure they are bragging to their mates:

"Yeh, so therez I woz, beat a Type R I did! Bleedin' muppet can't beat me and my 1.4 with super charged chipped deep-fat-fried ECU" (you need to say this with a skanger accent )

Ah well, I simply enjoy the attention and I'm sure so do those 325 and 328 owners :cool:

RicardoSmith

The problem with Honda with smaller engines and fwd, is a lack of traction and torque. In a straight line a car with bigger capacity, more torque, a lot more HP and rwd is going to better off the line. Anyone thats knows how to drive knows that the 325-328 are very quick, and easier to get off the line. Thats said most people do not drag race from the lights, thats the domain of boy racers and impresses no one except other boy racers.

The Honda 1.4 is nice revy, economical unit. Plenty fast, and powerful unless you are hitting the track with it, and in this country very few do that.

The CRX I had 1.6 DOHC was fun, but to be honest I enjoyed driving my old 8v Mrk2 Golf GTI more. The CRX was a bit light and skitish, hard to get the power down when you needed it and was very torque steery (no power steering) Though maybe mine wasn't a good example and I was on stock wheels & tyres.

Ratchet

agree there, i have nothing against the 1.4 civic which is great car for the money and wise choice when comes to insurance but hate this stupid statements about 1.5 mini vtecs by guys drooling over something that happened only in dreams. honda's are pretty good in own class and feel sportier then any of this funny cars like ford puma or megane coupe but comparing 325 to 1.6 civic doesn’t make sense

RicardoSmith

Why pick on the Puma? Acclaimed for its excellent chassis, balance and handling... :cool:

Ratchet

you can't make everybody happy

RicardoSmith

Ratchet wrote:

you can't make everybody happy

.. What did the Romans ever do for us.....