About My Civic

(Not phat, tight, Cool, or modded but...but...its got something)

(Yet another useless page on the Internet wasting your bandwidth)

In December of 1986, I was in 7^th grade. My mom was driving a 1980 Plymouth Champ (comment: bucket) that was in need of retirement as it approached the 100,000 mile marker. She was now in the market for a new car. Before proceeding you should know that my mom would use cars for their functional purposes and could care less about bells & whistles. She likes cars as plain as they come because she knows that the interior and body will get kind of messed up by loading “whatever will fit” inside.

While car shopping, I would tell her that she needs to get a Honda. We checked out a couple of dealerships but didn't see anything she liked until we stopped at Mel Rapton Honda We looked around for a bit until one car stood out to me. It was a gold 1987 Standard Civic which had a salesman leaning on the open drivers door talking to a blond haired woman sitting in the driver's seat looking over the inside. I told my mom, “That's your car right there.” We stood around waiting for the woman to get out so we could have a closer look. The lady didn't seem to impressed and got out and walked towards some other cars to look at. My mom and I approached the gold civic and looked inside. BARE BONES, no stereo, no clock, no A/C, no cigarette lighter, no power windows....man it was perfect for her. But not for me..if she got it, A/C and a stereo were needed. The window sticker on it was $7400. That was it, we grabbed a salesman and told him we wanted to buy it. He started with the “Let me show it to you...” at which my mom told him “no... I'm ready to buy it.”

While filling out the paperwork I convinced her to have A/C and a stereo installed. We found out that it was the last year that Honda was making the carbureted Civic and that this was the only model with a carburetor, and it had a smaller engine than the other model civics he had in stock. Determined, we stuck with the baseline Civic and she closed the deal. We would pick up the car in two days after the dealer installed the stereo and Air Conditioning without so much as a test drive.

Two days later we picked up the new Civic from the dealer. Upon exiting the parking lot and getting onto the main road, we learned of how much power this car possessed rather quickly. To be frank, it had none. The acceleration of this thing was rivaled only by a stock VW Bus. But it lacked the coolness of a bus by a long shot. Oh well...it's mom's car, like she needs power anyways. But she still wasn't liking the car very much

Years passed and the little Civic grew on her. Besides being able to go long distances on little gas, it became the most reliable thing in the family. The Volvo was in the shop more than the Civic. The car continued to drive me to school and my mom to work daily without so much as a hiccup. Later, I got my driver's license and a VW Bus of my own. The bus was way more fun to drive, but when I broke it, I had to drive the Civic around, which I hated. Totally no fun. I continued driving Volkswagens and breaking parts and motors by pushing them past their limits. And for bragging rights, I got a speeding ticket in a VW Bus. Not too many can say that. Anyways, the Civic came in really handy because I could haul my broken Volkswagen engines and transmissions to the shop to get fixed. The car, over time, became known for its reliability by bailing everyone in the family out of jams when their cars would crap out or be in the shop.

Fast forward to 1995. The transmission began making bearing noises after I put Mobil One in it. The bearing noise got worse and worse and then stopped getting worse. She continued driving it until 2003 when it was ready for its third clutch with 157,000 miles on the clock. Remember it lived through two teen drivers. Teen drivers and clutches usually don't mix too well.

In 2003 when the clutch needed replacement, and the transmission was still making bearing noises, she decided that now was a good time, and about time, to get a new car so I adopted the Civic. The clutch was replaced and also a used transmission was put in. When I picked it up, it was as quiet as a mouse. No bearing noises...sweet. It was mine now. Since it had been in the family for so long, and had been so reliable, it had earned my respect. I was going to take care of it now. No more hauling engines, lumber, bags of concrete, bags of sand, and “whatever would fit inside.”

Since having it as my own, I have spent countless hours waxing, polishing, removing and cleaning the interior, and going though minor aspects of the engine. I replaced the gear oil in the transmission with Mobil 1 again, and shortly thereafter that dreaded bearing noise started up again. That's when I put the Mobil 1/bearing noise together. I still use Mobil 1 5-30 year round in the engine though. It now has 168,320 miles on it and I'm going to roll it as far as it will go.

There's a lot more...but I'll spare you