[nik0502]

Hi all,

I have seen few civics in last one week. All facelifted one. However all the cars which I have seen have run more than 60k kms. And asking price have been in range of 4.5 - 5 lacs. Do you guys suggest that I should buy a car with such odo reading. I had initially decided on a pre facelifted one with a budget of 3 lacs in delhi. After going through Honda Civic maintenance thread I changed my mind. Streached my budget to 4-4.5 lacs just so that j get a good car with no niggles as Civic is plagued with quite few issues like steering rack leakage, suspension issues. Now my dillema is should I buy a pre facelifted one with approx 60k kms on the odo and save rest of the money for future maintenance or should I just buy the facelifted one with similar odo reading.

nIk

[sumeethaldankar]

Originally Posted by nik0502

Hi all,

I have seen few civics in last one week. All facelifted one. ... similar odo reading.

nIk

Hi,

How will the car be utilized ? will it be a daily drive or a weekend fun thing to do? Will you be retaining for 1-2 years or 3+ years. If it will be a daily drive and or will be retained for 3 + years you are better off with a 2-3 years old car rather than a 5-8 year old car.

Also the steering rack & power steering issue is not common but if you have a good reputed garage in the vicinity it won’t cost more than 10-15k max for both issues , mind you at a independent garage. At Honda expect 30k min. Again the suspension need not be looked into at 60k but can last fairly till 90k kms unless it was abused by the previous owner. All in all whichever car you buy try to get a single owner car as it will be more likely to be well maintained.

[Dave Nick]

Hi Guys

I have a '09 V MT model in Bronze. its run 88k kms so far. Just got it Back from service and the HASS Guys have told me that there is a leak in the Steering rack. It'll cost around 15k..to work on it. If it isnt solved, it'll cost me around 80k for a new rack and pump. Presently using it by just topping up the Steering fluid on a regular basis.

Family wants me to get rid of it and buy a more sensible & low maintenance ride.

Any suggestions would be much appreciated!

[sumeethaldankar]

Originally Posted by Dave Nick

Hi Guys



Any suggestions would be much appreciated!

Get it fixed from a good independant garage. It will cost half of what HASS has quoted. A civic can easily last min 150k kms and more with proper care. Selling off a petrol sedan will come at a huge depreciation value.

[nik0502]

Originally Posted by sumeethaldankar

Hi,

How will the car be utilized ? will it be a daily drive or a weekend fun thing to do? Will you be retaining for 1-2 years or 3+ years. If it will be a daily drive and or will be retained for 3 + years you are better off with a 2-3 years old car rather than a 5-8 year old car.

Also the steering rack & power steering issue is not common but if you have a good reputed garage in the vicinity it won’t cost more than 10-15k max for both issues , mind you at a independent garage. At Honda expect 30k min. Again the suspension need not be looked into at 60k but can last fairly till 90k kms unless it was abused by the previous owner. All in all whichever car you buy try to get a single owner car as it will be more likely to be well maintained.

Hi
the car will replace my daily drive a Maruti Esteem and the weekend car a ford fiesta. It will be driven 80 kms on weekdays and 400 kms on weekends. Thats the reason I am worried about the maintenance.

nIk

[sumeethaldankar]

Originally Posted by nik0502

Hi
the car will replace my daily drive a Maruti Esteem and the weekend car a ford fiesta. It will be driven 80 kms on weekdays and 400 kms on weekends. Thats the reason I am worried about the maintenance.

nIk

I would suggest going in for a relatively newer car. As for maintenance most cars have their own demons and tantrums. If you worried about the steering rack and Power steering leakage as i mentioned this would cost max 10-15k in repairs. Many people's Civic's have never had the racks opened or repaired and these cars have crossed a cool 1 lac kms (Laluks, Manim etc). You could also consider a used Honda City if you must have I-VTEC engine as the City is 70% of the Civic atleast. Anyways whichever car you buy be it Honda or any other brand do get it to a good dealership and get it thoroughly checked by them.

[nik0502]

Originally Posted by sumeethaldankar

I would suggest going in for a relatively newer car. As for maintenance most cars have their own demons and tantrums. If you worried about the steering rack and Power steering leakage as i mentioned this would cost max 10-15k in repairs. Many people's Civic's have never had the racks opened or repaired and these cars have crossed a cool 1 lac kms (Laluks, Manim etc). You could also consider a used Honda City if you must have I-VTEC engine as the City is 70% of the Civic atleast. Anyways whichever car you buy be it Honda or any other brand do get it to a good dealership and get it thoroughly checked by them.

Even I want a newer model. But the problem all the cars which I have seen so far have been driven 60 k plus kms. And some in the range of 77 - 78 k kms. I want to buy a car with less than 50k kms. I am not buying a Civic because of Ivtec. I am not looking for a City. I would love to buy a Laura but the high maintenance is keeping me away from it. That leaves me with an altis and a Civic. Coming to Altis it's a 4 speed AT which comes in my budget and I don't want to drive a 4 speed AT in 2015. Hence looking for a Civic.

nIk

[Ace F355]

Originally Posted by nik0502

looking for a Civic.

I think you are being paranoid. Please keep in mind that any pre-owned car with some mileage on it will come with some sort of issues and you'd have to keep some extra change in your pocket to take care of that. And maintenance will always be relative to what the car used to cost in its heydays. Civic is an ultra-reliable car for the kind of money you can buy it today in used car market. Bottoming out is a real issue though, you have to drive carefully to avoid belly scraping! My car has clocked 134,000+ kms so far without giving me any headaches and I take my car all over those places with potholes matching levels of moon craters.

BTW for rest of us, I got my car's regular service done recently at 132k. Nothing new, same old story for most part. Synthetic engine oil change + Filters + New Brake Pads + Clutch Bleeding. Cost was INR 6500 for all this. However, I was tired of getting after market hydraulic engine mount for 2500-3500 in the past and it always busted with 20-25k run. So this time, I got myself a genuine Honda engine mount for INR 8400 (the quality of this one speaks for itself, when compared to previous aftermarket ones). So most of it is swell with the car!


Two new issues though. It turned out that because of my car bottoming out in the past, the RHS hand-brake wire in car's underbody was damaged and it snapped a few months back. I was travelling abroad at that moment, so decided to get it replaced after my return to India. Problem is, you just can't find hand-brake wire in after market shops. I tried as much as I could. HASS has it but they are asking for INR 5500+labour+taxes to replace it. No way I said, for a simple wire! Also, my steering pump was also started acting up (issue cropped up recently) and it was diagnosed with a leaked seal of the pipe that feeds the pump oil from reservoir. Couldn't get the seal in market, so have asked my mechanic to search both things for me (currently using the same method from Dave Nick, topup when reservoir goes empty, hehe!). I am hopeful to get both issues resolved within next 10 days. Will keep you all posted.

[Jeroen]

Originally Posted by nik0502

Even I want a newer model. But the problem all the cars which I have seen so far have been driven 60 k plus kms. And some in the range of 77 - 78 k kms. I want to buy a car with less than 50k

Really, especially with a civic, mechanically there will be no difference between a car with 50k or 78k on it. These car as boring as hell, but they are utterly reliable. You want a no hassle car that will get you from A to B, get a civic, any civic. New, with 50k, 100k, or even more. They just keep going.
Enjoy
Jeroen

[nik0502]

I went for a car hunt today as I drove my esteem on a really huge stone and damaged the gear road, gear linkage, silencer and busted the petrol tank.

So checked two cars today.

1st one was a gray color car with 52 k kms on the odo. The price quoted was very reasonable. Also the ad on olx claimed the car have a one month old CNG kit. And owner has not driven much on CNG. As I intend to convert it to CNG after buying it was a stright saving for me as the car was not driven much on CNG and I was getting the kit along. Called up the seller and figured out it was a company named hop cars who were between this deal and were giving one year warranty along with road side assistance and ownership transfer and they will charge 2.5% of the final price. More on hop cars later. It sounded like a great deal. They promised that they have done a thorough check up on the car. Found it worth giving a try. Went to check the car. The car was in quite decent shape and apart from few minor nicks on bumper I couldn't find any thing wrong with the car. Test drove the car. The engine was super smooth there was no noise inside the cabin. All the leather fittings were intact without any sign of abuse. There was a slight whinning noise which was proportional to the rpm though. As I am not very good with auto boxes I test drove it for only 2-3 kms. I came back thoroughly impressed. Owner claimed the car has entire service history. Owner had a fortuner with him and said he never liked low slung cars and wants to replace it with XUV and he said its a company owned car and was being used by one of the executives of his company. I wanted to close the deal today itself so I informed the owner that I would want to get it inspected by Honda and the owner said he can't accompany me today for it and will come on Friday for the same. And he asked me to check with honda by car's registration number and said the car has never visited any mechanic other than Honda. He also claimed that he has got the suspension work done and tyres replaced and have spent 74 K on the car. I was really impressed by now and wanted to close the deal as I was afraid that the car would be sold if I wait till Friday. But controlled myself and left from there informing the car hop guy that I am a serious buyer and if he can get the inspection done at Honda today I will close the deal today only. He said they have done a very stringent test themselves and there is nothing wrong with the car. But I would really appreciate this guy. He knew I liked the car. He knew I was carrying cash to offer as a token amount but he never forced me to hurry up and was very patiently understanding my request of getting it checked by Honda. I left the place and called up Honda and asked them when was the car serviced last and got a shock of my life. The car was serviced in May and had 1 lac 9 k kms on odo. Also it had overheating issue and the radiator was replaced at that time. I called up hop car guy and informed him about it and he didn't believe it. He said he has himself checked with Honda and the last service was done at 45 K kms. I checked with another Honda dealer and he confirmed that the odo was one lac 9 thousand at the time of last service. The hop car guy has told me that tomorrow he himself will take the car to Honda and I can verify things at that time. I am throughly disappointed now.

Post that I went to check another car. It was a black colour VAT with 66000 on the odo. The very 1st thing I noticed in the car was torn leather on driver side door. Started the car and it sounded little rough and more noisier inside as compared to the previous car. Asked for the price and the owner was quoting at least 80k above market value of the car. Thanked him and came home disappointed.

About hop cars. It's a start up launched 5 months back. The founders are ex engineers and were working with MNC s before. The 2 guys whom I interacted with were patient in answering the queries. Were verumy good in communication but what I could gather is do not have much knowledge of auto sector. They have tied up with Bosch service for their warranty which in itself doesn't hold a very good reputation on our forum and are lacking basics like checking the service history of the car. When I informed him about team-bhp and me being a bhpian here he was very impressed. He mentioned that they had contacted Rushabh Parekh (GTO) in the beggining for a tie up with them but than the deal could be materialised because of some unknown reasons. I liked the way they are operating but lacking basics like not checking the service history could prove to be very dangerous to their start up as they are covering everything under warranty.

nIk

[Ace F355]

Originally Posted by nik0502

I went for a car hunt today

Don't get disheartened. This is part of the game called used car buying. I am glad you managed to keep yourself patient and not go along with flow while neglecting the facts about the car. Keep trying and keep TBHP's user car buying guide handy. A tip for you, try with individual sellers, they will usually be more transparent about the car compared to dealers. Good luck and keep us posted.

[coolkurt]

@nik0502

A face-lifted civic will have a higher asking rate. And I'm not really sure how much of an advantage it has over the pre face-lift civic. The older one has the following issues:

Engine mount
PS pump/rack issues
Suspension

I've got the engine mount replaced at 80k kms. It costed me 2k, still going strong. PS Pump was repaired for 2.5k, pipe replaced last week for 4.5k. No issues post that. Suspension problems are usually just the bushes. Honda will change the entire control arms. Got the bushes replaced and suspension issues sorted.

Total amount spent on sorting these niggles: around 14k. Considering I've driven it for 1.2 lakh kms, it's not huge.

My take: Don't worry too much about these issues. They can crop up any time and they're not too hard to rectify. Just ensure that the car hasn't been in an accident and the engine is still top notch. Good luck.


@All

Got my Civic serviced last week. 120k on the odo. Standard service.

Honda guys said I had a PS fluid leak. Took it to my trusty mechanic. Had got the pump seals replaced last year. This time it was the pipe. Got a replacement. job done. Total cost: 4k for the pipe. 400 labour. Back to a hassle free drive.

[1lokesh]

Sent my car for 90k Periodic Maintenance Service on Saturday, got it back yesterday. Following issues were to be addressed:

1. Clanking noise when turning and in pothole/bump.
2. Occasional lag in acceleration
3. Knocking and shuddering in low RPMs (<1000)
4. Brakes Screeching occasionally
5. CD player issue
6. Other misc issues like cabin noise, fluids level check etc.

Issue no. 1 was zeroed in by HASS to Axle, CV joint failure. They only do replacement of the Axle, hence asked them not to go ahead. Will get it done outside.

Issue no.2 was resolved with servicing and throttle body cleaning.

Issue no.3 was diagnosed to a hard clutch which they want to overhaul. This was just done outside at a NSFNG . Postponed to a future date.

Issue no.4 attributed to FR LH caliper piston gone kaput. Have asked them to order the same, will get it replaced within this week. Total estimated cost INR 6k.

Issue no. 5 - I was asked to show it to any ICE outlet outside of HASS. A valid suggestion since they charge a bomb and get it done from outside anyway.

Issue no.6 - addressed with 90k PMS.

Other recommendations by HASS (also attached is the screenshot of the same) - Lower Arms diagnosed to be local - they have developed play already. Done about 6 months ago by NSFNG.
- Tie rod end bushes cut - again replaced 6 months back by NSFNG - local parts being blamed.
- AC condenser motor fan is reported to be jammed But I have not faced any issue with cooling so asked them not to attend to it. Will take it to an AC specialist garage.



Total service cost paid to HASS: Rs 5.4k

Prioritywise issues to be sorted out coming weekend:

1. CV joint/Axle
2. AC condenser motor check

Will try to check Deva bhai in chembur for no.1 above and Unicool, Ghatkopar for AC condenser motor.

Also, if anyone can suggest a good FNG for civic in Mumbai, it will be really helpful.

[nik0502]

[quote=Ace

A tip for you, try with individual sellers, they will usually be more transparent about the car compared to dealers. Good luck and keep us posted.[/QUOTE]

Thanks. That's what I am trying. Both these cars were with individuals.

[quote=coolkurt;3853480]@nik0502

A face-lifted civic will have a higher asking rate. And I'm not really sure how much of an advantage it has over the pre face-lift civic. The older one has the following issues:

Engine mount
PS pump/rack issues
Suspension

Yes. The difference is about 1.5 lacs between a 2007 to 2010 Civic. What I get by paying this money extra is

Newer model.
Stiff Suspension - I would need it because I will have CNG fitted in the car and the car will bottom out more frequently with softer suspension.
Cruise control - I drive around 3 k kms a month and 80% of those is in highways.
And of course by paying this extra money I am looking for a pieceful ownership.
I am selling two cars a 2007 fiesta and a 2005 Esteem. I don't want to buy a car which is older than my these cars.

nIk

[sumeethaldankar]

Originally Posted by 1lokesh

Issue no. 1 was zeroed in by HASS to Axle, CV joint failure. They only do replacement of the Axle, hence asked them not to go ahead. Will get it done outside.

- AC condenser motor fan is reported to be jammed But I have not faced any issue with cooling so asked them not to attend to it. Will take it to an AC specialist garage.

Hi,

Now i am worried about my car as well because even i have this metallic sound when the right side goes over a pothole. But this does not happen all the time and i have been to Honda for 2-3 occassions but they never came back saying the axle needs repair so i am hoping it's something else. Did the sound come all the time in your car or seldom while hitting a pothole ?

Also the condenser fan is not a big deal and cost max 3.2k with labour 100 bucks. Got it done from sanatcruz west Gomes Auto Khira Nagar. Make sure the fan make is Denso. My radiator fan went kaput in a month after changing the ac fan as well so i had that changed from Gomes as well. You can check my Civic thread for details.

http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/long-t...ml#post3645029


To all,

I have given the car to service at Honda and i requested the HASS advisor (my regular advisor was not there today) that the car seems to be sitting a bit to the rear right. He replied saying that it's a feature of the Civic and all Civic's have the rear right a little more at a level below than the rear left. I verified with another Civic a face-lifted model and found that it's rear right had less space than the rear left between the fender and the tyres. Though i am still not sure but is this true for you guys as well ? Can someone verify this and let me know?

Thanks