[S_U_N]

Very well written.

CNG does make sense if you are running 60 KM every day. Hope you have good network of pumps out there in Mumbai. In Pune, the pumps are few and far, and with long queues it does not make much sense for most people to buy a CNG vehicle.

[sumeethaldankar]

A update to this thread.

Car has now done 53900 Kms. It's now at Joe's garage for the infamous mount issue. I am getting a non oe mount for 4100 + 850 Labor for same. Also the dual horn stopped working and is now 'single' and is working on it's single tone only.So have asked him to change or fix same.

Joe also mentioned that the car had a rattle problem from the front left suspension side.It might need changing but he suggested first he will tighten the same first and let me know if there is still issue. So might be looking at a front suspension overhaul maybe in the future but hopefully not now.

The car was also facing the other infamous issue where the steering vibrates at speeds greater than 80 Kmph on braking. Joe asked not to touch the same till it becomes significant enough to warrant a change.

Also the car as sputtering jerking a bit in second gear and Joe mentioned maybe that the coil is weak. This might be expensive but as of now he has not suggested to do anything about it so i am going to let this one pass for now. All in all i might be getting a 20-30K bill over a period of time to fix these issues but as now i am keeping my fingers crossed and hoping for the best.

[sumeethaldankar]

Got the car back home. The mount was changed and the horn was repaired instead of replaced.Also some part of the CNG fitment was banging at the lower body side of the car. Joe detected this while driving though i never noticed the sound that much. It was fixed and took while and 3 guys to go under the car and get it done.

Unfortunately the car is need of a front suspension overhaul and Joe has asked me to go ahead with same. Since i drive 1400 kms a month it's imperative that i get it done soon so as not to wear out the tires. So i guess i will be going in for a front suspension overhaul in a week or two whenever i find time off from work.I guess Mumbai's roads are harsher on the Civic suspension with the components wearing out in just 54K kms.

[sumeethaldankar]

I was just thinking about the way i drive and i have to confess i may have thrown the car around a bit especially at night time.My office shifts would get over by 11 Pm at time and i would find myself in a bit hurry to reach home that's when i feel i may have messed up the suspension the most.

I drive through JVLR (Jogeshwari Vikhroli Link Road) which at certain places is under poor condition.I have started avoiding this route and using the new SCLR (Santacruz Chembur Link Road) which is around 2-3 kms longer and takes around 5-10 mins more to reach my destination.

I had a 800 which i remember had the same issue. My left shock had gone out just as in my Civic now. I had to overhaul my 800's suspension in 10 years and in just ~32k kms. I have recognised this as my driving pattern and habit which has taken toll on both my cars.I am making drastic changes to my driving style and now am taking my drives with more precaution and care.

My overall speeds has reduced from 80-90 to 60-70. I find at this speed i am more relaxed and find that i enjoy the drive better.I have now started letting other people zoom by and not be bothered by it.I also have noticed i reach my destination just 5-7 mins late if keep speeds around max 70.Just few mins of time saving is not worth the extra $$$ i will be having to spend on my car.

The car suspension overhaul is scheduled next week. I have been promised delivery in max 2 days time but let's see what happens.

[sumeethaldankar]

Car is at Joe's workshop for the front suspension overhaul.Joe has promised delivery max by tomorrow morning or as early as later 8 or 9 PM today itself.No other garage would have done such a major work in a day's time for me.

Some pics of work in progress.



The old shock. It was going kat kat on going over potholes.



The new ones are original Honda Munjal.



The front axle assembly.





Notice the cracked rubber bushes.The same will be replaced instead of the entire lower arm.Joe mentioned it will have to be taken to a shop to get the bushes removed and inserted by a hydraulic press.



The tie rod brand used.

[sumeethaldankar]

Got the car back.There is no thud thud anymore and the car is absolutely smooth to drive. The only noise i hear now is the humm of the engine & blowers. Joe delivered the car within one day that is just amazing.

Parts changed were.

Front 2 shocks with springs.
Tie Rods
Ball Joints
Lower Arm bushes

Will be going for a alignment job tomorrow.

[sumeethaldankar]

The car has covered 55K kms. The new front suspension now makes the ride smooth.When i had gone for the alignment at my regular alignment shop i was told by them that ball joints are a size bigger and they are having trouble getting the alignment right.I was not clear what they really meant as it was all technical but in the end they said that the car won't eat the tires but the steering would be a little tilted towards the left or right.

I had them call up my mechanic Joe who later asked me to get a second opinion from another shop as he had not put in spurious parts etc and i trust him so i went to another shop from where i had previously had purchased the Bridgestone Tires.I explained to them i had got the suspension overhauled and needed the alignment done.I did not tell them what the 1st shop had said about the ball joints.They came out with a clean report which as confirmed by bhpian Nikhilb2008 is fine.(Below is linky to same)

http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/tyre-a...ml#post3591730

I still do have a back of the mind worry that the car might mess up the tires but only time would tell. As of now touchwood i am enjoying the car.Another issue noted by the second alignment shop was that the rear right shock is a bit sagging but as per Joe it's not a issue as most of the time i drive alone.

Meanwhile some pics of the joints and the BS front left tire. The tires have done more than 18K kms and probably would last atleast 40K.Keeping fingers crossed.

[sumeethaldankar]

I wanted to keep these pics of tire shots for record so i can compare them later after 1-2K of running and see if there is any wear due to alignment issues.

The tires are Bridgestone Turanza ER60 205 65 R15 and have done 18K + kms

The odo read at the time of taking the shots was around 55.5K kms.

[sumeethaldankar]

Hi

i had reported this what i though was a issue on the civic's bible thread.

http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/long-t...ml#post3595505

I went to my regular mechanic who said that the crookedness is not a problem and it's fine however , now i don't know whether to thank my stars or curse my luck, he noticed the lower side of the lower arms was smeared with oil.

At first he though it was engine oil and we checked the oil level to see if it had dropped but it was fine. On closer inspection he found that the oil was coming from the steering pump. He has his team, open up the wheel and lower engine protection and clean up the space around the leaked to diagnose the source.



The guys used petrol and cleaned up the area surrounding the steering pump and the residue oil and left the engine running for close to a hour to diagnose the root of the leakage.The steering was also intermittently turned but they were unable to find any leakage again.

My mechanic asked me to come back again next week and inspect again. I am keeping fingers crossed and hope it's minor issue.I sometimes wonder why it's being so difficult to maintain my car in spite of me taking care of it

[sumeethaldankar]

I had bought this car after getting it inspected from my trusted garage guy Joe. He's a ex-maruti employee and in some ways biased towards same.I used to have a 800 which was serviced by him.When i got the Honda i would ,after burning my fingers at HASS , send the car to Joe for repairs.

My car went to him in nov and dec 3 times for all kinds of work.First for the mount issue, second for a suspension overhaul and third for a Power steering overhaul.I guess the guy just got fed up with all the issues of the car.Civic has a tight engine bay making it difficult to work on the stuff like power steering etc. At the end of the day when i was ready to take delivery of the car after the power steering overhaul the guy went a little berserk and started more or less insulting me indirectly by talking how crappy my car is etc etc.I really don't want to go into details and can't understand his un-justifiable frustration but this was not the way to treat a customer. I mean i don't get the work done for free from him.That was the last i hope i saw him.

Whatever happens ,happens for the best but the car did not stop troubling me even after the PS overhaul.The clutch gave way and i had to get it changed at a different garage closer to home.I know this guy was expensive but went ahead anyway since i know he was competent.It cost 13.7K to get the clutch overhauled.At Hass i was getting it done at 18K min so i still ended up saving 4k.

I might goto Hass for the next general service and follow the practice of some bhpians who service the car at Hass and get the issues reported by Hass sorted from outside local garages.I may not stick to this new guy and may try out other options next time.What issues i may face now you may be thinking.I "predict" the coils might give up sooner or later and i may be facing another 20K drain on the wallet.No wonder the car ticked off my old garage guy but just think how i must be feeling having to get all these issues fixed.

Do you think it makes to sense to let go of the car ? Well i probably will get only max 3-3.5 lacs at most and would have to settle for a 4 lac hatchback devoid of all safety features like air bags and ABS,EBD etc.No more used cars for me also.So i have decided to hold on to it."You should hold on to their dreams tightly" it says somewhere.

Some pics of stuff related to the car are below.

The tranny mount touch wood is in good conditon. Have heard that the tranny mounts go kaput on Civic's too.





The busted clutch plate.




The transmission oil was changed.The old was all black.Only 2.5 litres went in.

[saurabhkum]

Originally Posted by sumeethaldankar

I "predict" the coils might give up sooner or later and i may be facing another 20K drain on the wallet.

What is the reason for this kind of prediction? If I know correctly your car is also on CNG. Are you facing problem in petrol also which made you understand this replacement. Let me know the exact problem and mostly it may not need coil replacement.

[sumeethaldankar]

Originally Posted by saurabhkum

What is the reason for this kind of prediction? If I know correctly your car is also on CNG. Are you facing problem in petrol also which made you understand this replacement. Let me know the exact problem and mostly it may not need coil replacement.

Hi,

What happens is sometimes the cars jerks while driving.Doesn't happen all the time but once a while it does.The tacho needle twitches especially when idling in traffic.Also sometimes at slow speeds the car would come close to stalling and needs a quick clutch action to prevent the engine from shutting off.I had mentioned these issue to my old garage guy once and he said that the coils might be on it's way out.He did say immediately it's not needed. I have not really noticed these issues in petrol mode because i am on CNG most of the time except when starting off my journey or on reaching my destination where i switch off the CNG and drive the car for a few mins on petrol.

[gomzi]

Originally Posted by sumeethaldankar

Hi,

What happens is sometimes the cars jerks while driving.Doesn't happen all the time but once a while it does.The tacho needle twitches especially when idling in traffic.Also sometimes at slow speeds the car would come close to stalling and needs a quick clutch action to prevent the engine from shutting off.I had mentioned these issue to my old garage guy once and he said that the coils might be on it's way out.He did say immediately it's not needed. I have not really noticed these issues in petrol mode because i am on CNG most of the time except when starting off my journey or on reaching my destination where i switch off the CNG and drive the car for a few mins on petrol.

I'd suggest you run a couple of days on petrol and see if you get the same issues on that too. My civic AT is also fitted with cng kit and I too had the stalling issue only when running on cng and especially when the engine wasn't upto normal temp.
Throttle body cleaning resolved it. Don't trust H.A.S.S. with it. They billed the job to me but later when my car was at my fng, saw that it hadn't been done.
Nowadays, I usually run on petrol until the engine is half way warmed up and then switch. Greenglobe had recommended me to run it that way. I don't know the science behind it, but it doesn't hurt.

[skdking]

Originally Posted by sumeethaldankar

I........

My car went to him in nov and dec 3 times for all kinds of work.First for the mount issue, second for a suspension overhaul and third for a Power steering overhaul.I guess the guy just got fed up with all the issues of the car.Civic has a tight engine bay making it difficult to work on the stuff like power steering etc. At the end of the day when i was ready to take delivery of the car after the power steering overhaul the guy went a little berserk and started more or less insulting me indirectly by talking how crappy my car is etc etc.....
.....
Do you think it makes to sense to let go of the car ? Well i probably will get only max 3-3.5 lacs at most and would have to settle for a 4 lac hatchback devoid of all safety features like air bags and ABS,EBD etc.No more used cars for me also.So i have decided to hold on to it."You should hold on to their dreams tightly" it says somewhere.

Hi Sumeet,

Our friend Joe may have a point here.

I can compare your mount only to my Civic, a Sep 2007 VMT model.

I bought it in Feb 2012 with 52000 km on the odo.

I have run the car 10K kms. The car is super smooth presently.

I have had no trouble with the car. May be I am super lucky. Touch wood.

You may sell the Civic and go for a hatch.

However, going back to a hatch will impact you.

Why not another used Civic, after a round of extensive research?

[sumeethaldankar]

As i had mentioned in the bible thread i had to change the master & slave cylinder as Pai motors "wrongly" diagnosed the limp pedal as a clutch change, i went to Hass (Linkway Andheri) and got the same done.I was surprised to find a decent work done by Hass this time and touchwood everything is in order.

I also had the misfortune of having a oil leakage from the engine and a leak from the transmission case(i will upload the bill later).The tranny leaked because of improper fitment courtesy Pai motors.The seals were not expensive but took 3 day to procure and i to use public transport for travel to office daily.The master & slave cylinder were changed and now the car is feeling great.There is still some minor judder while at parking speeds and at reversing again courtesy Pai motors but i will be living with it for now.

All in all the car is feeling great to drive with the clutch repair and after a long time i have started to enjoy driving.I was even looking forward to drive it to office today.