Hello all,

This is my first time post. I have previously owned two Honda Fit's. Here's the thing, I'm 26 years old, I've been marriend, owned a house, divorced, owned cars, but currently I'm pretty much being forced into buying a 1992 Honda Civic hatchback with 188,000 and a BAD looking body, I've been referring to it as "carbortion"

Now I don't want to seem like I don't like Honda's, I do, I love them, but this thing looks like hell, and was in a front end accident. A close friend of mine, who is pretty much my dad, found me the car, and before looking at it I had to replace the hood on it, but I took his word (initially he said it was a 95 with 125,000 miles for $800 including the hood)

Now what I'm left with is a 92, for 600, plus the $200 for the hood, and I'm wondering, did I make a good decision. I am a musician and I tour, and I'm wondering very basically, is this a car I should feel comfortable with taking on the road for a tour or something like that.

The person we are buying it from is my friends mechanic, who swears that it is mechanically great, but at 188,000 miles, how much life can be left in it?


Thanks,
Joe

 

Id say you have another 150k miles left on it. My civic is at about 300k and my 1986 prelude had a lot more than that (odometer + speedometer quit working at about 350k+ and it ran for years and years after that)
I say get it! I wish mine was a hatch. Its a real bitch fitting a 5150 half stack into a coupe. btw what do you play?

 

Great, that's what I wanted to hear. I play folk/instrumental/ambient guitar stuff, kinda John Fahey, or Leo Kottke with loops and effects, something I need to travel to find my audience with.

Thanks!
Joe

 

Awesome. Good luck sir

 

for a 92 hatch i'd say you got a pretty good deal. I bought my 92 Sedan for 1200 bucks but it only had 89k miles, got it from a friend who needed cash bad ..lol. a few weeks later tho the radiator fan broke which blew a hose then overheated my car when my Wife was driving it, she didn't stop of course she just went home, came outside and lifted the hood white smoke everywhere! nice right? haha. blew my head gasket.. replaced it two weeks later was on the highway and put the tranny in nuetral revved the gas a little and put the tranny back in Drive.. bam the tranny blew.. haha. and just most recently my car completely shut off on me after tearing out my dash i found it was the Fuel pump.. lol. not to scare you just to show you that repairs are always going to be needed regardless of how the car was previously handle .. My car only had 89k remember?

 

wow you got a real lemon. Sounds like a few GMs ive had. Luckily ive never had any major problems like that with a Honda.

 

I got an '88 Civic that has around 327,000 or so on it. I got mine for free, the body is rough. But i'll be dipped if the poor lil car just dnt keep on going. I've replaced a main relay. Great little cars man. As long as you dnt like beat the day-lights outta it everyday you should be able to get 150k more outta it before you need to worry about major things. My dad has an 84 Subaru with 520k on it. Original motor ans tranny. Treat it right and it'll last a long time. But stuff does break. But you gotta good deal man. 800 for the car. if you keep it for a while, it'll more than pay you back.

 

I think it was my fault most of what happened to my car. Poor maintenance. lol.
but i'm glad i went through what i did because of it i know how to resurface a head and change a head gasket properly. The rest really is expected from a 18 year old car..

 

the first civic coupe i had was a 96' N-reg (EJ1), very very late registration in the uk (it missed out on a P-reg by a few days), i bought it from a dealer, car had one previous owner, full history, and 76K, withen a few i had to have the gearbox replaced fortunatly the dealer covered that (part of the warrenty), but it went through something like 8 clutches in the 5yrs i owned it, that is including the one that as soon as it was fitted the garage doing the work tried driving it outside for me to collect it, it got about 5 yrds and tore it to shreads, evern the peformance clutch that was fitted only lasted 6 months or so, mind you i was using it for pizza deliveries and stuck in traffic alot. im hoping this new one i have is gonna last longer, it currently has 133k on it, but i do plan on puting some sort of vtec in there (sticking to a 1.5 though as it gets cheaper road tax).

 

Yeah man you got a good deal..I brought a 92 LX with 182,000 for $2350 & so far put 5,000 miles on it..but not before I had to replace:

the timing belt
water pump
rad cap
Distributor Seal
Distributor Coil & ICM
Spark Plugs & Wires
Main Relay
Rear Bumper
all the fluids
reconnect the cooling fan(some dummy cut the wires short!)

But of course I brought it from a dealer & knew hardly anything about checking out cars.
So yeah..you got a great deal...It might have a bad body but if you don't care about the body right now & just need to get around..get it!