66,000 km with my Honda Civic: Overall reliability & service experience

Spare Parts are on the expensive side, and the cons of keeping a discontinued car are very apparent when going to the service centre for repairs.

BHPian muditseh recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

Thanks for reading my comment. My car has completed over 66K KMs as we speak. I can share some insights, if not much from my ownership experience so far:

• The ride is stiff (being an owner of City 5th Gen as well), compared to the City which is so plush, Civic makes you feel even the mildest of bumps on the road. Not as much stiff to make you uncomfortable, but in comparison to my City, it is. But that greatly rewards in terms of handling and stability. While City feels like a Boat, this is a tank.

• Talking about stability, the more you push it, the more it rewards. Oh boy, the way it handles and the more speed you gain, the more it sticks to the ground. There is no nervousness of any sort in high speed driving with some serious 3-digit speeds.

• All 4 discs certainly reward. My stock brake pads lasted 60K+KMs while rear pads are still stock even at 66K. Though the pads are quite expensive, they give a long long life. It might vary for you as mine has been driven 60-70% on Highways. And the brakes are very very surefooted. They stop the car on tap and are very confidence inspiring.

• The build quality (touchwood), its a tank and is built like one. Compared to the City which feels like a toy in terms of plastic quality, this one is very solidly built. The doors are so heavy, one mistakes it for being jammed due to poor lubrication.  And you feel really safe inside one even when pushing hard. You can compare the quality of parts to an over 40L car for sure.

• The 1.8 i-VTEC paired with the CVT is a hit or miss. Sometimes it feels enthusiastic, other times, it is lazy. It has a mind of its own it seems, when delivering power through the step CVT tranny. On 50% throttle, it performs its best. Floor it any further, the CVT will start shedding tears really soon. The CVT whine is very noticeable when driving hard especially in manual mode.

• Mileage is decent, I manage between 9-11KMPL in city while around 16KMPL on highways (no complaints on this front).

• Ground clearance is surprisingly good for such a long wheelbase. I have scraped the bottom of my City several times, but this car rarely scrapes (provided you also are a bit careful on breakers).

• I feel the design of headlights could have been better. The throw is just above average. I have tried several brands of LED Headlight kits, but it isnt satisfactory. I have the VX variant, not sure about the top end trim with stock LED array.

• The ingress is difficult especially for middle aged people. Some might feel claustrophobia while sitting at the rear (the legroom is massive though) because the window glass is positioned slightly above your eye level when sitting in resting position.

• The seat height adjustment could be better, even at highest setting, you have to drive it with an estimation as the bonnet area isnt visible (I'm 5'9" for reference).

• The stock Hankook tires were trash, so I upgraded to Michelin Pilot Sport 3s a few years ago.

• No major issues apart from the ones I highlighted in the previous comment. I just get it serviced once an year and it does it's duty well. (I hope it stays this way for another 10 years).

• Just make sure to change the Transmission fluid every 20K KMs or every second service to avoid being involved in the typical CVT failure horror stories.

• Spare Parts are on the expensive side, and the cons of keeping a discontinued car are very apparent when going to the service centre for repairs. The service centre do not keep much spares of the Civic in stock and they almost always need to place order as these cars are very rare in service centres, so they do not stock spares. Also even when they are sharing parts with the City or are of similar spec, the prices are almost 1.5-2X. For reference, front pads will cost you close to 7K while for the new City, they cost about 4.5K. The rear pads are even more expensive at about 9K.

• The praise that you get from the car's design is just something else. This car is a head turner, even in 2024. Im sometimes glad it is rare and wasn't sold as exhaustively like the Cretas of the world. You see them very often and it loses its appeal even when it costs 20 big ones. The pride of seeing a rare car on road is something else.

That's mostly about it. I will comment again if I think of anything else. Happy Motoring!!

Read BHPian comments for more insights and information.