[.anshuman]

Originally Posted by Vishesh

hearing all your views, i think the only DIY solution would be to use bigger 16'' alloys on slightly higher profile rubber, so that there is atleast 15mm-20mm increment to the GC. But then, are the wheel wells capable of fitting in 16 inchers ?

The car comes equipped with ABS so increasing the tyre diameter wont be a good idea.

[chandan]

Originally Posted by diabloo

Beat Civic & do what? Do you get a medal if you beat Civic? Most likely your fellow passengers are cursing you for driving fast over a hump (in your zeal to beat Civic) and causing them discomfort.

No,I certainly will not get a medal but,a smile on my face for buying a more practical car for our roads,at less than half the price.BTW,I donot drive fast over humps,I only drive faster than Civics & other low GC cars.

[johy]

Bumping this thread. A friend here wants to sell me his year-old Civic. I, like a lot of people here, am wary of GC issues with the Civic.

Do you think it can, for example, take on a nontarred road? Like one made of stones? One a Maruti van/Wagon R traverses on an everyday basis? Many of the roads up in Sikkim and the like are like that - uneven, badly maintained, and/or swept away by the rains.

[ImmortalZ]

I can tell you on the 30th.

I'll be taking delivery of a Civic and the roads over here are next to non-existent due to irresponsible digging in the name of the Japan Drinking Water project. The problem with the Civic is more with humongous bumps than bad roads. The suspension is soft, so the ride over potholes or cracked roads is great. It is the huge Bangalore-esque bumps that beach the Civic.

[solly]

Originally Posted by johy

Bumping this thread. A friend here wants to sell me his year-old Civic. I, like a lot of people here, am wary of GC issues with the Civic.

Hey dude don't worry too much the Civic has sufficient ground clerance to take on Indian roads. Infact when it comes to ground clerance my uncle civic is much better than his baleno especially when fully loaded..

[johy]

Originally Posted by ImmortalZ

I can tell you on the 30th.

I'll be taking delivery of a Civic and the roads over here are next to non-existent due to irresponsible digging in the name of the Japan Drinking Water project. The problem with the Civic is more with humongous bumps than bad roads. The suspension is soft, so the ride over potholes or cracked roads is great. It is the huge Bangalore-esque bumps that beach the Civic.

Thanks! That sure was an eye opener. I did test drive the Civic in question and it flew over the few potholes that were there in the strip I took, but then there will be places where the roads are kuccha roads - that is where I am wary.

Originally Posted by solly

Hey dude don't worry too much the Civic has sufficient ground clerance to take on Indian roads. Infact when it comes to ground clerance my uncle civic is much better than his baleno especially when fully loaded..

Better than Baleno - well, this is sounding good.

Keep the inputs coming guys.

[reppy]

FYI - My dad's civic has done around 20,000 kms now. The only issue with GC is bottoming of suspension with heavy load. In routine cases, the GC is just about acceptable, although to be honest we've hit the bottom a lot of times here in Gurgaon (roads are pathetic) even with 2 people on board.

As a solution, we plan to change the tires from the current 195/65/R15 to 205/65/R15, if this is possible with the existing rims, in the next tire change.

This will give us an additional ~ 6.5 mm of GC.

[indivic]

Originally Posted by johy

Bumping this thread. A friend here wants to sell me his year-old Civic. I, like a lot of people here, am wary of GC issues with the Civic.

Do you think it can, for example, take on a nontarred road? Like one made of stones? One a Maruti van/Wagon R traverses on an everyday basis? Many of the roads up in Sikkim and the like are like that - uneven, badly maintained, and/or swept away by the rains.

Don't know about Siliguri, but it is not untarred roads in TN that are the problem,but if we have a bump with an bad angle of approach and you are pregnant (fully loaded),then you will ground her, from my experience the sound is sickening but so far the damage is almost nil,

It is always a bar below the door sill that "seems" to get scratched. But I have never found the scratch, it is mostly metal against "blue metal",

More importantly what you would have to watch out is those potholes at speed because the suspension travel is very little

Hope this helps

[johy]

It sure does help indivic! Thanks!

I did hit a few potholes at good speeds the other day, but nothing happened. But then that was a short test drive. Think I will take it out to some real bad strip today/tomorrow.

[johy]

Originally Posted by reppy

FYI - My dad's civic has done around 20,000 kms now. The only issue with GC is bottoming of suspension with heavy load. In routine cases, the GC is just about acceptable, although to be honest we've hit the bottom a lot of times here in Gurgaon (roads are pathetic) even with 2 people on board.

As a solution, we plan to change the tires from the current 195/65/R15 to 205/65/R15, if this is possible with the existing rims, in the next tire change.

This will give us an additional ~ 6.5 mm of GC.

Thanks reppy, with the bottoming out that your dad's civic has encountered, what is the visible damage? Or real damage? The tire change giving 6.5 mm is not bad at all I think. Not bad at all.

[lawdgawd]

I have been driving a Civic in Delhi for 8 months now. Never touched any speedbreaker. Even with a total of 5 people in the car.

However, this is because of my driving style. I do not drive like this is an SX4 or a Swift - I slow down to an acceptable level and get across after seeing how severe that speedbreaker is. I don't even try to crab across it.

Civic is a long-ish car than most of the smaller sedans. So we change our driving style to suit that.

But if we are used to flying over bumps, yes, there is a problem!

We don't try to take a Scorpio around a corner at full speed. The same way, we should not try to make the Civic do what it is designed to do, and everything will be fine.

[reppy]

Originally Posted by johy

Thanks reppy, with the bottoming out that your dad's civic has encountered, what is the visible damage? Or real damage? The tire change giving 6.5 mm is not bad at all I think. Not bad at all.

Well visible/real damage isn't anything major since we've not had a very hard bottoming out (except once where we scraped the area under the rear left door but still not that bad). Actually we're really gentle with the civic, leaving all the rough driving routes for our Swift. Infact that's one thing you'll immediately notice with the Civic - you WANT to drive it proper and take care of it (including taking the long way to work coz the shortcut is full of potholes!) versus lets say a Skoda Octavia - we really whip my uncle's Octi over all kinds of roads and it never complains I think the Civic's suspension could have been much better.

It seems my calculations are slightly off. A bit of googling shows that 205/65/R15 raises the GC by 12 mm and the width by 6 (versus a 195/65/R15) but reduces fuel efficiency, and increases odo/speedo error by 2.1%.

Now I need to look for low rolling resistance tires! cheers. cheers:

[johy]

Originally Posted by reppy

Actually we're really gentle with the civic, leaving all the rough driving routes for our Swift. Infact that's one thing you'll immediately notice with the Civic - you WANT to drive it proper and take care of it (including taking the long way to work coz the shortcut is full of potholes!) versus lets say a Skoda Octavia - we really whip my uncle's Octi over all kinds of roads and it never complains I think the Civic's suspension could have been much better.

So you can't really take the Civic out to towns and places where you are not quite sure of the roads, can you? I am thinking in terms of a new car (?Civic) primarily as weekend vehicle where I will go to smaller towns, resorts, where the roads would not be good. I would not be taking the WagonR or Swift on those trips. So what do you say?

[ImmortalZ]

Like I said, bad roads are fine. It's the bumps that cause the problem.

[RakishRam]

I don't know how many of the already replied posters own a Civic, anyway I do have one and I drive it in and around B'lore.
My experience is, the car is perfect when you are driving alone, but the moment you have two/three people on board or a bit of luggage, you will start cursing yourself on the civic purchase decision. It will bottom out on almost every humps when fully loaded and on every small gutters the suspension/whatever will give you a scary noise. I will try to upload some photos of my car's underbelly soon.
I personally regret the purchase, but on the plus side - the wow effect the car gives every time you look at it is still intact!