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any civic vti owners?
franky - 11/8/09 at 08:54 PM

My long haired boss has got herself 'knocked up' So i've sold my tdi passat that I use for my commute to work(40miles) and i'm replacing it with a 1998 civic 1.6 vti(83k/2 previous owners). I've chosen one of these as they've got bloody great motors and are reliable etc, also it was a good price.

Is there anything I should look for in particular? what sort of mpg could I get while taking it easy, Ie under 4000rpm the way to work!

MikeRJ - 11/8/09 at 09:36 PM

A friend managed to get 42mpg out of his P reg VTi saloon on our recent euro-trip, which includes going up the Stelvio pass. We were in full economy mode though as it has a miniscule tank (egg cup sized) and we were trying to make it through Switzerland without buying any of their expensive fuel! Very impressive though considering how much camping stuff we had in the car.

As long as you change oil and filter regularly the only weak point on these engines is the distributor (which also houses the coil) which commonly fail at higher mileages (typicaly well over 100k).

franky - 12/8/09 at 07:52 AM

Cool

I'll save 8500rpm for the weekends!

I think the distributor problems were sorted for this newer model though?

TPG - 12/8/09 at 09:03 AM

Cam belt idler is worth doing,Its easy to do on these,loads of room. Might as well do the 'belt while your there.Put a half decent quality oil in it as well. I have sold one of these with a duff engine due to the perivous owner skimping,It still ran but knocked like a bag of spanners .It does make the difference on them.Watch the rear of the rear arches for rust.

MikeRJ - 12/8/09 at 09:37 AM

quote:
Originally posted by franky
I think the distributor problems were sorted for this newer model though?


I don't think so. The distributor failed on my T plate (1999 I think?) 1.8 VTi. Actualy it had partly failed before I bought the car with just over 100k miles on it, though I didn't realise it at the time. There was always slight misfire just as the VTEC engaged. The distributor failed completely at ~130k miles and the new replacement completely fixed the misfire.

quote:
Originally posted by TPG
Watch the rear of the rear arches for rust.


Amazingly one area in which the Swindon built Rover 400 clone was actually significantly better than the Japanese cars!


[Edited on 12/8/09 by MikeRJ]

franky - 12/8/09 at 11:37 AM

quote:
Originally posted by MikeRJ
quote:
Originally posted by franky
I think the distributor problems were sorted for this newer model though?


I don't think so. The distributor failed on my T plate (1999 I think?) 1.8 VTi. Actualy it had partly failed before I bought the car with just over 100k miles on it, though I didn't realise it at the time. There was always slight misfire just as the VTEC engaged. The distributor failed completely at ~130k miles and the new replacement completely fixed the misfire.

quote:
Originally posted by TPG
Watch the rear of the rear arches for rust.


Amazingly one area in which the Swindon built Rover 400 clone was actually significantly better than the Japanese cars!


[Edited on 12/8/09 by MikeRJ]



I'm going to give it the works... I need 3 years out of it so cambelt is on the list along with everything else. Got a 2k budget including the cost of the car and 2 decent tyres.

Can't think of anything else that will fit the bill for the money?