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Was it done at the A.S.S or outside?
More details will be helpful to us Civic owners.

I will be going for my routine service this week. Car has done 1,67,000+ kms at 11.5 years.
No problems worth mentioning so far:thumbs up.

But the car is not used much nowadays. It has done only about 1,500 kms in the last six months. I keep the battery charged using the Bosch C7 charger.

These are bearings I have from NTN, IIRC it cost me 4k including shipping.





Actually these bearings reached me late. I was in Kolkata, driving down to Bangalore the next day. Honda did not have stock, so went to a well known FNG in Kolkata. Didn't want to drive down 2000+ kms with bad bearings. I still vouch for their work, but because of essence of time he fixed whatever he could have access to. First it was some Kinetic brand which increased the noise even more. Then we opened up again and fixed NGK or NRB I dont remember correctly. They latter 2 are good brands but it may just have been a fake since that is rampant in the market.

Thanks a lot, please quote the bearing number if possible. The flare on the photograph is making it illegible. :)
And where did you buy it from?

Yes, SKF & NRB are good brands, given you have gotten original stuff. But since there are fakes in the market, I prefer to buy brands such as FAG if not sure of SKF products. There are a lot less fakes of FAG than SKF; product equally good.

Regards,
Saket

Hello swami69,

How's your Civic doing? I actually came into this thread to see what are the costs and related things I should know before buying a used Civic and you are here again. I had bought a used Corolla 3 years back only after seeing your thread and you lead me here also clap:

So, here I am looking at buying a used Civic and has come across a 2008, 34k run 1.8S MT variant. I was initially thinking it must be a dealer with a tampered ODO, but it is not the case. The gentleman selling is a single owner and had used sparingly this as a city car with other cars in the garage for long runs.

Asking price also looks quite nice and I may end up buying this. Again coincidence for me, while buying Corolla, it was owned by a Doc & had run only 45k in 9 years.

Can you give me any more pointers of what I should be checking. Also can you explain how to check the power steering leak.

Also since it has run 34k, I want to change tires too as soon as I get it and upgrade to 205/65/R15, either Yoko Earth 1s or Conti MC5, any inputs on the size or model.

Sorry for asking too many things at once.

KK

Hello Saket,

The NTN Part number is AU 0933-7 LX2L/L588 and the number on the bearing was 1312182359.

I bought them from Vikas of SparesnCare.

Regards

Hi KK, nice to hear from you.

First of all, Civic is a great choice at fantastic prices used. You are lucky to get a single owner, low mileage run Civic and you should grab it.

Check the Driver Side Engine mount - it should have a gap of atleast 1/2 cm. Google it on "how to check"
Check for Door bottom corrosion
Check for any oil leakage under the Engine bay - Power steering oil, ATF or Engine oil - all will leak from their only - But Powersteering fluid, i guess will be red in Colour and would not have contaminated much like Engine oil and it should be more towards the driver side. While saying that, only a Service Station can clearly give an answer to this. (Before, I bought mine, i also looked at a Single owner, 45 K kms done Civic, but when i checked the Service History, remarks were made for a replacement of the entire Power Steering unit, but the owner did not change it. So I dropped that car - So, be careful and check it out.
Any vibrations in cold start ? Could be poor ignition coils, Engine mounts etc., Check for the suspension
Check for A/C cooling - If bad, you may have to change the Condensor coil and i changed mine recently for approx 11K Denso. Now, it is Freezing !!

Then, all others are general stuff like any other car - underbody check, Hoses & Belts, Coolant leaks, Head Gasket area, Battery, Alternator function, All other items like Check Engine, any alerts etc., etc.,

Tires - I changed my tires to Yokohama Earth 1 in OE size 195/65/R15 and they are perfect for this car. No need to upsize as this itself looks pretty nice and the sterring feel is good and descent mileage - So, please think twice before upgrading.

All the best.

Swami

Thanks Swami for the revert, I will jot down these points and will be deciding on the car by this week.

Also on the tyres since my post on the Civic tyre upgrade thread, I liked Saket's idea of putting a buffer and would be doing that soon after buying. So may not upgrade the tire for now. Will use the car with suspension buffer for a while and then think of either sticking to stock or upgrading.

KK

Quick a/c question: Is it necessary to get the refrigerant topped up periodically even if the a/c is blowing cold?

So, my a/c stopped blowing cold, but it turned out that one of the relays to the compressor had blown; when a new relay was put in the a/c blows cold again. The a/c mechanic said something to the effect that only half the refrigerant remains and I should get it topped up or drain all of it and fill it anew. If not, the claim was that it would lead to the compressor going bad in time. Does this sound right? Fwiw, my refrigerant hasn't been topped up in over 3 years and the a/c has been working ok. Thanks!

The "Ac mechanic" is bluffing. He's apparently trying to pull a fast one especially about the comp going bad. The comp has fail-safe systems that automatically cuts it off and doesn't allow it to run if there are irregularities in refrigerant pressures regardless if it's too high or too low. The compressor goes bad mostly due to contamination during the charging process and/or wrong procedures used by con "Ac mechanics" like these. Don't let him touch it.

That said, if your Ac is working satisfactorily for you and you have done regular servicing to it, like once a year, normally, depending on your usage of course, you don't need this so-called gas replacement. I suggest you get your Ac a regular checkup by a more credible guy just to be double sure. All you may need, AFAIK is a refrigerant top up. Cheers and drive safe.

Thanks Pixantz ! This exactly had been my suspicion -- why fix something that seems to run great. Another thing I should have mentioned is that I have a Bosch HEPA cabin filter, that I got from the US, which I clean every couple of months, but this guy seemed to say that it was clogging up the airflow. Will swap it out for a new one I have at home.

While on the topic, what sort of Ac servicing do you get done at HASS? They usually recommend a cleaning, which I get done, costing 600 last time, if memory serves me right. But, it didn't enhance or worsen the a/c and seemed like a placebo to me. Whatever's recommended by the manual, I largely get done, although I don't remember a/c stuff being listed the last few times. Maybe they just do a visual inspection of sorts.

Any FNG at Bangalore South who can work on the Civic. I would get the annual service done at Honda ASS, but for few parts I want to get the parts aftermarket and get them fixed at a good FNG.

Also any recommendation on Honda ASS around JP Nagar to Kanakapura road, don't mind travelling a bit more but need a responsive and decent manager and technicians.

Which are the good aftermarket brands to consider for -

- Ball Joints
- Lower arms
- Wheel hub and Wheel bearings
- Brake pads and disc

I also did a decent search and landed with brand names Brembo/Bosch for brake pads and disc and TRW in many others. But couldn't get anything for wheel hub and wheel bearings.

KK

PS - I have finalized a deal on pre-owned Civic and would be taking delivery in couple of days.

I changed my car's (Altis) brake pads & discs in June with KBX for front and Bosch for rear. All 4 wheels have Bosch brake pads which I sourced from Amazon India. I find the entire setup just as good as OEM, which was also supplied by Bosch, including when driving at highways speeds.

I got my brake discs from URL="https://www.genuineparts.in/"]Genuine Parts[/url]. The latter is run by 2 really cooperative and polite gentlemen.

You could opt pads from Delphi, Bosch, Brembo, Textar or Nissin (OEM Honda) subject to availability and in no order of preference.

One question, how good are TRW stuff? I see them priced very reasonably compared to what Honda charges.

Thanks.

UPDATE.

I got my 2008 Civic serviced at Magnum Honda, Kanakapura road yesterday.

1. For service they don't mention anything as which milestone service. They only mention Medium Paid Service, really not sure what this means. At Toyota they were mentioning as 70k service or something similar.

2. They have filled in 3.7 ltr of Synthetic oil, or have mentioned so. Isn't the oil refilling should be 4.2 ltr. Also 3.7 ltr it charged at Rs. 1,573/- which comes to Rs. 425 per ltr. Isn't it quite low for a synthetic oil.

3. What is the recommended grade of oil for Civic.

4. Replaced Engine side Rubber assembly mount (engine bedding) with OEM part. This was the part replaced.

KK

I believe that is not 'fully' synthetic oil that Honda and many other manufacturers are using these days. As you suspect and rightly so, any fully synthetic oil will cost upward of Rs. 1K per ltr.


5w/30 Mineral oil or 0W/30 or 0W/20 Synthetic. Honda recommended 0W-30 a few years ago but since last year, they have switched to 0W-20. The OE supplier of oil is Idemitsu, made by Savita oil aka Savsol in India.

This is the engine mount. A known issue with older part. The new part supposedly has no such complains of premature failure. Did you complain about vibrations of engine filtering into the cabin?

A cost break up of the above service would have been helpful.

Regards,
Saket