13th Oct 2008, 16:46

Hey, I own a 97 Honda Civic DX; it has been a great car. I have 208,000 on it. Bought it brand new. I will keep it forever.

Stuff starts to go on a 11 year old car. Replaced the front CV boots 2 times and a power steering boot went recently; just cost like $50 for it.

I'm told as long as you replace timing belt and do regular oil changes, spark plugs and wires and fuel filter, they will last a long time. And they are easy to work on. But you never want to forget about the timing belt - very important on Hondas, once they go, start looking for a new motor.

The K series motors work well for Civics if you want to swap and want more power. They cost a little more than B 16 or B 18.

Have a lot of people at work who have Hondas with over 300,000 on them, so please don't dis Honda.

23rd Mar 2009, 22:17

Okay Honda haters, here you go. The first step to becoming a Honda owner is that you must obay these 2 laws to owning a Honda.

1st law of Honda's, you must drive it like you stole it.

2nd law of Honda's, you must be a smart mechanically minded individual.

Here's a tid bit about your local Honda dealership; they are "not Honda" they are reseller's buying a product from a manufacturer, which is Honda, and selling it to you with a markup price. Honda requires logo's and certain standards to be followed at dealer lots and repair facilities. The thing you must understand is that they only replace parts, not fix them on the car itself, that would explain why you go for required maintenance and see your car falling apart. The dealer's are only replacing required parts.

Honda's are very reliable if you're smart and do the work yourself, meaning leaving tires and timing belts to the dealership. You must fix everything else yourself or leave it to a trusted personally known mechanic. But I would recommend that when you buy a Honda product, buy a stick shift because Honda's got a gazillion automatic transmission failures because of cheap parts.

I own a 1998 Accord DX, which has been though hell and still looks new after 11 years of hot and cold weather, and runs strong.

I just bought a dead 1997 LX Civic, and I am going to breath life back in to it, so I hate Honda for it's automatic, but hey no car is without its flaws.

I still hate Chevy's, because most Chevy drivers hate Honda's, so we have so much in common.

17th Jan 2010, 15:01

I have a 97 Honda Civic DX. It has 236,000 miles on it. Have just spent 1200 dollars on replacing the transmission, clutch and both CV axles. Until recently, I have not spent much on repairs. Always had the oil changed every 3,000 miles. Plan on driving this car until the wheels fall off. Seems like more problems with model 2001 and up.

2nd Feb 2010, 18:57

I have a 1998 Honda Civic DX with 293,000 on it. I have gone through probably at least 3 exhaust manifolds. When I purchased the last one, I bought it used because I was tired of paying $500-600 for them. When I spoke to the guy I purchased it from, he said that the reason why these manifolds crack is because of the heat shield. The heat shield holds in all the heat against the manifold, which then causes it to crack. He said the way to fix that problem is just don't install the heat shield. That was 90K ago, and it still looks fine - no cracks. Hope that helps a few of you out there.