Hi, new guy here to the forum and hondas. I'm looking at buying a used civic in the 95-98 year models and was wondering if there were any problems that I should look for other than the normal car stuff. I know quite a bit about cars, just not hondas. Thanks!

 

look out for rear quarter panel rust, make sure the timing belt has been changed, check for oil leaks and other fluid leaks
that's about it

 

Yeah, I knew to watch out for the timing belts. How often should they be changed? Every 80k or so?

 

105k miles

 

actually it recommended you change timing belt every 65 000 miles but i never have and with 92-95 i common that the coil and icm go out after about 150 000 miles not every civic but its happened to me before.

 

65000 is recommended under severe conditions
105k normal

 

you mentioned '95-'98......... i'd personally recommend '96+... they switched to OBDII for 96 and while it complicates some of the emissions and such, the OBDII diagnostics are pretty good and more user friendly...
I don't know how much you know about this so forgive me if this is being to basic... OBD stands for on-board-diagnostics.... all cars built after 96 have an obdII port somewhere near the bottom of the dash on the driver's side.. you can plug in relatively affordable code scanners and see why check engine lights are on, clear code, etc... before 96 most car manufacturers had some sort of on board diagnostics already, but each brand had their own flavor of it... after 96 the govt required that every car sold in the same plug where any tech could pull the codes and such...
having said that, a generic code reader (like the loaners at autozone) will pull the emissions codes and major stuff like that, but a lot of manufacturers still have some proprietary info that only the dealer scanners can pull...

anyway, sorry this is now a long post... i say go with 96 and on....

 

Watch for this problem on 96-98 Civics:

http://www.tegger.com/hondafaq/tsb/civic/x99-029e.pdf

Also, some 96-98 Civics are covered by a 150k mile/15 year emissions warranty.