[civic-sense]

Background:

I always wanted to own a paddle shift equipped Civic ever since it was launched in 2006. I remember how I used to drool over the pics and the ones that were parked on the roads, peeping through the tints to catch a glimpse of the paddles. Never could afford a new one then, so was waiting for years for it to become affordable in the used car market.

A bit of history:

My first car was a Palio S10. I was never a car enthusiast till then, and loved the RX than anything else. It was a search for an Indica (to keep me off the Bangalore pollution), that finally landed up on an S10 (got a whopping discount). Then the transformation from 2 wheels to 4, was pretty quick. After 4 years virtually living inside it, I had to let it go when I had to travel abroad for a long term.

The present:

Fast forward to 2009, and I was keeping keen eye on the used car market for a AT Civic. The Optra was getting boring and both the FIAT launches did not enthuse me. And I had a tight budget of 8L. Used prices for Civic were too high in Banglore, and curiously the ones that came along were not single owned. When the City was launched with the paddles, I was one of the first to go and checkout. I was not happy. The skinny tyres skidded around corners, the EPS was lifeless, no ACC, no Alloys and looked a size smaller than the Optra.

Buying:

One day I chanced upon an ad in Carwale, a Civic run 38K and asking for 8.3L. Took the phone number and then totally forgot about it. That evening, the owner called up (Carwale informs the owner of the ad). After a brief talk, I promised him to look at the car the next day. The guy sounded eager to sell. Next day, I got my friend (cum collegue cum relative) to go along with me (we have together shopped a number of cars for ourselves and our friends). The car did have some scratches and dings, but otherwise, it was in good condition. Took it for a short spin and came back satisfied. Could not take it on a highway as there was none nearby.
After a bit of haggling, made the deal at 7.6L. My negotiation skills are not very much honed, but the fact that I am going to pay up right away (without waiting for a loan or any such), the deal was quickly made. Next day, paid up and drove the car away, while the owner literally bid it a tearful farewell.

Vital statistics:

> Sep 2006
> S AT
> 38000 kms on the odo
> Bluish Silver (Royal Silver according to Honda)
> Single owner, KA registration
> No extra accessories than what comes as standard.

Post buying experience:

After a couple of weeks' driving, I decided to do the 40K service as the odo already showed 38.5K. Since I did not get a mechanic to checkup the car before buying it, I thought, doing the service early made sense. Dakshin Honda was the closest to my home. They gave me back the car on the same day and the bill came to 8K. Not bad. Asked the service personnel to check up the history, and he reported a "all clean".


My impressions:
+ Looks great. I badly wanted to get a white color, but in Bangalore, white is a rarity. And you cannot be fussy about colors when you are buying used.
+ Great seating position and steering posotion. I adjusted the seat to the lowest position, steering to the lowest + farthest position. I had really loved the Optra for its low driving position.
+ Stable at high speeds (I tested only upto 125kmph). The Optra used to feel nervous at anything above 100. The Palio S10 was rock steady at 150kmph. Hope the Civic matches that.
+ Great top range grunt of the engine. I revved to 6000 rpm easily and little noise seeped into the cabin.

- Springy rear suspension. The underbelly scrapes a lot of bumps in Bangalore with two people in the rear.
- Engine lacks low and mid range performance.
- Seats were not very comfortable compared to my previous car (Optra)
- Steering wheel has a reluctance to come back to the neutral position when the car is at low speeds. You have to do the last bit yourselves.
- Lack of foglamps in a C+ segment car is unpardonable.
- Very short service intervals. You have to visit them every three months or 5000km, whichever comes earlier. Ridiculous, I should say. My Optra didn't visit the ASC for one whole year.

Issues to be fixed:
> Still not able to decide whether the steering issue is normal behaviour. Yet to drive another one and check.
> Road noise is there and is audible inside the cabin. Need a tyre change, but the current ones have almost 1/3rd tread still left in it. Yes, even after 40K kms.
> Interiors are a bit soiled. The seats and the plastics too. Need a good interior treatment. Things remained the same even after the 40K service. Searching for good interior detailing services in Bangalore.
> Since the seat fabric is soiled, I am thinking of getting leather seats done. I am not in a hurry, anyway.

Pictures:

[vaisakhr]

Congrats civic-sense. The car look good. The tires looks fresh. Did the first owner had changed the tires?

[rki2007]

Congrats on your new buy. Happy motoring.
Beautiful combination - Bangalore palace v/s. Honda Civic. Fantastic Man.

[Musicmaker23]

Congratulations! The car looks to be in great condition & you made a steal. A Civic in such good condition would not be found at such decent price in Bombay. The pre-owned civic really makes sense at the price. I even read GTO's thread about his white civic. Makes me wonder whether i should've thought of the same thing before carrying out my purchase.
Are you planning any mods apart from the seat covers? Do try & upgrade the tyres. The alloys are painfully dull for a car this stunning.

Interiors are a bit soiled. The seats and the plastics too. Need a good interior treatment. Things remained the same even after the 40K service.

Its quite surprizing they didn't do anything about the interiors.

Wish you all the best & drive safe

[GTO]

Congratulations Civic-sense! It's practically raining "pre-worshipped" Civics on Team-BHP (3rd thread in a week!). Your car looks clean as a whistle.

This colour is just so popular in the market. Without exaggerating, about 40 - 45% of the used Civics that came my way wore this blue shade.

Originally Posted by civic-sense

I always wanted to own a paddle shift equipped Civic ever since it was launched in 1996.

You surely mean '06?

Used prices for Civic were too high in Banglore, and curiously the ones that came along were not single owned.

Rather strange for a car that's been launched only 3.5 years back. All the Civics I came across had the original owner on the book.

Great seating position and steering posotion. I adjusted the seat to the lowest position, steering to the lowest + farthest position.

I absolutely love the low-slung driving position of the Civic. Totally my type.

Great top range grunt of the engine. I revved to 6000 rpm easily and little noise seeped into the cabin.

You will have a 1,000 odd more revvs to explore

Very short service intervals. You have to visit them every three months or 5000km, whichever comes earlier. Ridiculous, I should say. My Optra didn't visit the ASC for one whole year.

Your car's out of warranty, then why get it serviced every 5K kms? Look up my thread for guidelines on upkeep.

Road noise is there and is audible inside the cabin. Need a tyre change, but the current ones have almost 1/3rd tread still left in it. Yes, even after 40K kms.

No road noise here, it's your tyres that have gotten hard. 40K is pretty much the max for any tyres. Irrespective of how much tread is left.

Drive safe, will you! And yes, your car needs a Team-BHP sticker.

[Utopian]

The car looks great. At 7.6l the deal is a steal. However, Silver looks a bit pedestrian on the Civic.

[theragingbull]

Congrats! Apart from some scratches on the bumper, the car looks neat and well maintained. Must say, you got a brilliant deal on this civic. An A/T for just 7.6L is total VFM! Such pre-owned Civic threads are now tempting me to browse more sites like Carwale

You might want to check the alignment of the wheels on your civic. Or is it just the angle at which pic 2 & 4 are taken, that the wheels look slightly out of place?

[civic-sense]

Thanks everybody.

Originally Posted by vaisakhr

The tires looks fresh. Did the first owner had changed the tires?

I don't remember exactly, but I think that was what the previous owner told me. And it is the Goodyear Eagle NCT, which I guess was the stock ones.

Originally Posted by rki2007

Beautiful combination - Bangalore palace v/s. Honda Civic. Fantastic Man.

Was there for the Harley Davidson rally on "Harley-Davidson Founder’s Day".
The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Harleys make Bangalore city stand up

Originally Posted by Musicmaker23

Congratulations! The car looks to be in great condition & you made a steal. A Civic in such good condition would not be found at such decent price in Bombay.

Actually, there are quite a few scratches and dings that are not visible in the pictures. Nothing major, though. I think the relatively low price is because of the high mileage.

Are you planning any mods apart from the seat covers? Do try & upgrade the tyres. The alloys are painfully dull for a car this stunning.

A few. And in phases. 16" alloys, a spoiler and foglamps are in the list. Want white alloys, but don't know how they would look on the car. Checked out alloys and fogs in JC road, but did not find anything good.

Its quite surprizing they didn't do anything about the interiors.

I am sure they tried cleaning the interiors, but the dirts seem to be stubborn.

Originally Posted by GTO

Congratulations Civic-sense! It's practically raining "pre-worshipped" Civics on Team-BHP (3rd thread in a week!). Your car looks clean as a whistle.

This colour is just so popular in the market. Without exaggerating, about 40 - 45% of the used Civics that came my way wore this blue shade.

I still wish I had got a white. White is very rare in Bangalore. Now that I got a Blue, it is good now, I'd have less heart breaks while on the road.

You surely mean '06?

My bad, I am still stuck in the previous decade. Too late for me. Can you fix that?

I absolutely love the low-slung driving position of the Civic. Totally my type.

All my cars had low seating positions. The S10, Optra and now the Civic.

You will have a 1,000 odd more revvs to explore

I will get there, eventually.

Your car's out of warranty, then why get it serviced every 5K kms? Look up my thread for guidelines on upkeep.

I saw that. Will go through it in detail, and decide.

No road noise here, it's your tyres that have gotten hard. 40K is pretty much the max for any tyres. Irrespective of how much tread is left.

Yes, I am off to get new alloys and tyres soon.

Drive safe, will you! And yes, your car needs a Team-BHP sticker.

Yes, hope there a type that can go on the number plate.

Originally Posted by theragingbull

Congrats! Apart from some scratches on the bumper, the car looks neat and well maintained. Must say, you got a brilliant deal on this civic. An A/T for just 7.6L is total VFM!

I kept looking for over an year before I ended up with this. Long and patient wait.

Such pre-owned Civic threads are now tempting me to browse more sites like Carwale

Try craigslist too.

You might want to check the alignment of the wheels on your civic. Or is it just the angle at which pic 2 & 4 are taken, that the wheels look slightly out of place?

I too noticed that, when I was resizing the photos. I will get it checked up.

[recshenoy]

Congrats civic-sense! 7.6L for a AT civic is a very good deal in Bangalore

check out the stickers @ The Team-BHP Shop

H or HONDA decal looks like missing. So please get one soon.

IMO, white alloy might not look good with this color of car. May be a Photo shop with white alloy should give better picture. Any PS experts here!

[vasoo]

Congrats. Your Civic makes sense! I shelled out 16 lacs for a new one . See my garage for some pics.

[sammyboy]

Congratulations on the purchase Civic-Sense. Boy, GTO surely seems to have started a revolution of sorts

To clean the interiors I will suggest you try getting in touch with the 3M guys.
I have got the interiors of my car cleaned twice by them and they did a splendid job.
They have 2 options, a cheaper one which takes about 4 hours to dry and a foam cleaning which takes an hour to dry and leaves the car smelling fresh too ( i got that done). They charged about 1500 or so for my Ikon.

Enjoy your Civic.

[srishiva]

While browsing through used Civics in Bengaluru, I am seeing that ATs are costing less than MTs! Is the demand for AT cars less in that case? Also indicates that people would want to drive a manual Civic more

[rr_zen]

@civicsense: Congrats on your buy. The choice of colour is good too. This was the colour my better half wanted but now that it is not being offered, I had to settle down on polished metal. Thats my choice though !

[sgiitk]

Two quick ones. heard that Honda give only four alloys and not five. Please confirm. Also are they now on the 6/12month cycle (oil change at 10k/12 months) for service or still on the 3/6 month cycle?

[coolbareilly]

Congrats civic-sense. You have literally robbed the previous owner.