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I've looked at both the Thule and Yakima sites, and they both seem to indicate that you'd have to go with some kind of roof rack. Thanks. (No, I don't own a Civic yet but I'm just wondering in case I do -- I really dig the car otherwise).
Thanks- Rainey
6. Posts about dealers
When posting about your experience with a dealership, you may post ONLY the dealership name, city, and state. You may not post a salesperson's name, phone numbers, email addresses, links to dealer web sites, etc.
Thanks for remembering this!!
They will treat you well and give you a very good price.
Email me if you want more info about whom to see, etc etc.
horror stories about dealer tactics I'll wait.The best
buying experience I have had was at Budget Car Sales,
no pressure at all.When I go near a car lot and see all
those vultures in white shirts I feel like a chicken
among a bunch of wolves.
First highway trip I noticed a fluttering noise at 70 mph or higher. Didn't do it all the time, didn't do it every time I hit that speed, but I knew something was loose. So, got out the clear packing tape ( Easy Start Brand, so it comes off easy) and taped all the trim on the front of the car down. Front grill to headlights, w/s side molding to the windshield, etc. Then took off for the highway for speed testing.
I would get up to speed and listen for the noise, if no noise I pulled off the highway at an exit and removed a piece of tape. The last piece to be removed was under the hood, the black plastic radiator top cover that goes all the way across the front under the hood. It was loose and would flutter at speed. Seems "dude" who assembled my car failed to tuck this piece of plastic under the front chrome grill as he should have. Went to the dealer, we checked another Civic, and the front edge of the cover was under the chrome grill as it should be.
So, If you have any wind flutter at speed, open the hood and check that the black plastic radiator cover is properly secured by the grill. It's the black piece that goes across the front, under the hood, and covers the top of the radiator. It is attached in four places by trim thingies and easy to fix if it's not right.
Also, write Honda of America with your vin number and let them know. I'd like to catch "dude"! My car was assembled ( partially, anyway) in Ohio. 2006 EX A/T.
11k miles on the odo.
Its great!!!
Took it on a trip out to PHX. Az. from Okmulgee, Ok. Logged 3400 miles on the trip and got 39 mpg ave. The trip out was a solid battle with head winds at 20 to 30 mph with 50 mph gust. While in PHX. we made a Grand Canyon run and a run to Mexico.
We took the Civic over the 05 Accord EX Sedan we own and didnt regret it one bit. The Civic road manors where fantastic. We stayed very comphy. This was important and the Civic shined through. We drove straight out and back. We didnt spend a night on the road once. 17 hrs of driving and riding takes it toll on you. I did all the driving and did quite well on the marathon.
The Navi freaked out once at Flagstaff, Az. Had to reset it. Also when we went to leave PHX. it didnt want to calc. the miles and time right.
No squeaks or rattles at all.
I cant think of anything truley negitive about the car.
I was at a dealer in Tulsa yesterday looking at the FIT. My daughter may buy one. Salesman noticed the Civic. He had not seen a Navi, 5MT Sedan. Nor did he belive I paided 19,128.00 for it the thursday before christmas untill I showed him the sales contract. He was very upfront with the fact the car would be sold at his dealer for well above MSRP.
So if your looking at buying a new Civic. They are good cars and can be bought right. They can be very fun cars to own.
psy
1. The hard fact is that Consumer Report tests hundreds of car over the years. The pattern is similar. Good mileage on HW, just a bit worse on a 150 mile triple (with 60% stop and go), and MUCH MUCH worse in metro condition (18 traffic stops, slow traffic). For example, the Civic all-gas is 43/36/19 MPG for those routes.
2. Based on that, trying to compare the "City Mileage" of two different cars is the same as comparing apples and oranges, unless they drive exactly the same route. Think about it - Jack drives in NYC or SF, he averages 20 mph between stop lights, he stops 10 times every mile for traffic, his car idles forever at stops. Whereas Jill drives in another "city" in NH, VT, or AL, where she stops at 1 traffic light per mile and drives 45 mph between stops. Of course Jill is going get way better MPG than Jack. On the flip side, if one thinks that his particular Civic is far superior because he gets 38 MPG "driving around town", well, spend one Friday afternoon driving in NYC and see if can get any better than 19 MPG. You won't. It is just the sad fact that slow traffic and frequent stops really destroy mileage for any car. Civic is no exception. You get good MPG because you are lucky enough to be spared from horrid metro traffic.
3. With benchmark HW/CTY at the ratio of 43/19, if your record keeping is off by just a bit, your expected MPG figure would be off by a lot. If HW/CTY is 50/50, you should get 31 MPG, but if the ratio is 61/39, then you would get 34 MPG. So when you think you are supposed to get better mileage because you are "driving mostly HW", is that really true? Go to Yahoo map and figure out exactly how many miles of HW you actually did drive and do the math. You'll surprise yourself. I know I did! I thought I was doing 60/40, when I was just driving 50/50. On feuleconomy.gov, you can see people reporting their HW/CTY ratio roughly, like "60/40". I don't have much confidence in those figures. More exact figures like 63/37, 24/76 is more credible and shows that someone at least has tried to keep a real record.
4. I use only Chervon's. I filled up at the same Chevron station 3 times, and then tried another Chevron station just a mile down the road, also 3 times. Guess what. Mileage from the first station was always the same, yet the second station resulted in a mileage gain of 5 MPG! Which is an almost 20% improvement. I can only speculate that each station tank has its own level of dirt which really affects MPG.
5. So to get good mpg, one really needs to keep very good records, try different gas stations, or simply avoid driving in places like NYC, Chicago or SF, and move to non-metro cities in NH, VT, AL and the like. Yes, you need proper tire PSI and conservative driving helps, but probably not to the extend that bad traffic and bad gas are keeping your MPG down.
Its not a mystery.
Air the tires up a bit. Ive been running my tires at or near max side wall psi for 25 years. I always get 50k miles or so out of a set of tires.
My cars donr care what gas they drink. Chevron, Shell, Conoco/Phillips or the mom and pop store on the corner. I trade with the mom and pop store on the corner for the most part.
Slowing down makes for the best MPG. No jack rabbit starts. All the stuff thats been preached for 50 years. It all helps with much better MPG.
I also top off my tanks. This hasnt hurt the emission systems at all and gives me exact amounts of fuel to work with when calc'ing my mpg.
I have a lmpg of 39 mpg with the Civic and a lmpg on the Accord of 32 mpg. Thats with a 25%c/75%h ave. on both cars.
The wife drives the Accord alot and the mpg suffers do to her standard ingrained American driving style. Gas go, stop, idle, go hard, brake hard, so forth and so on.
I on the other hand drive the Civic. Wife has never driven the car.
On the new Civic's they have a semi atkins style head design. If one keeps the rpm at 3K rpm or below the engine basicly runs as a 1.5L. This can help alot with FE. Keep the rpms LOW! Between 3k rpm and 6500 rpm its in its standard 1.8L mode. FE suffers here. But if you keep it in this area of the tach you should see EPA or close to it. Above 6500 rpm your flirting with the proformance of Vtec. Its fun! But MPG goes to the celler in the upper reachs of the tach.
Slow down, plan ahead a bit, time lights if you can. Coast to stop signs. The new Civic will reward you with steller MPG if you let it.
psy
but thanks for the tidbit about rpm on this engine. i knew it had an "effective variable" displacement - so to speak - but i was not aware of the 3000 rpm actuation. This is really useful to know.
how would lighter alloy wheels affect mpg?
Owning a 05 Accord Sedan i can share with you I run 44 psi front and rear on it. With the same results. The Accord is more boat like than the Civic. But the Civics close to mini boat status.
As for the lighter wheels. This debate has raged on for years. It seems to come down to lighter wheels equal better for city and track work in the areas of mpg and over all handeling.
Heavy wheels for sustainded hwy runs. Some think they have a fly wheel effect.
I myself dont care either way. Theres so much other stuff that can be done to help with mpg thats not done most of the time its not funny.
I enjoy driving my Civic and seeing what it gets in MPG. Some of the numbers Ive been hearing from folks are very low. I have no idea how they get them as low as they do. My lowist was 29 mpg and that was all a rat raceing tank. A/C on and off, all windows down and sunroof open.
Thanks,
Leavenfish
Today when I pulled up in the drive way my scan guage was reporting a soild 52 mpg for the 40 mile trip home from work. Tank is at 47 mpg total average. Im sure when i do the hand calc's it will be 45 mpg or so. Keep the tach at 3k rpm or under and the r18 engine will reward you with near steller mpg.
If ones always in a hurry driving 70 to 90 mph you will never get great mpg. There comes a point when speed kills mpg. Be it in my Civic Sedan or a hybrid.
No Civic complaints after 2,800 miles.
My Civic EX Sedan, 5MT w/Navi didnt cost anywhere as much as in there break down. $19,128.00. TT&L was $800 and I pay no where near there fig's for ins. on the car. I do all my own maint. and repairs, so one can basicly take 2/3's the amount off the repair stuff. As for deprecation Ive been offered way more than I paided for the car.
I got the EX cause I wanted the rear disc brakes. No car over 15k should have drum brakes IMO. Utter bull butter... lololol. Nicer alloy wheels, sunroof, remote trunk opener, steering wheel audio controls and the Navi.
Its been more than worth it to me.
I'm guessing it's because more is being paid for the car initially, but that's just a guess.
---Leavenfish
An annoying little problem that I had read about on the 'net on a couple of message boards before buying, but it wasn't a deal-breaker for me.
Thanks
It also causes the suspension to work much harder as normal inflated tires acutally work as part of the suspension where as an overinflated tire make the suspension do all the work which is not the way cars are designed.
In bad weather overinflated tires can be a super hazard as well.
They also make braking less effective as well as a harder tire has much less rolling resistance and makes the brakes have to work harder to stop the car.
With regards to people who have bad shocks:
Did you ever notice your car hop to one side over broken pavement and or bumps. My car does this and I wonder if I should have the dealership check the back shocks as if one is not working like the other, the rear won't react right on bumps, etc.
I wonder how long honda will take to create a recall on the rear shocks as I have read on other forums the same thing happening quite early on with peoples car.
Is there anyway to check by removing the wheel and looking and or wiping with a rag to see if there is any film on the shock?
I have 700 miles and rather not wait till something goes wrong and or fails.
I have to compensate by not stepping on the gas so hard.
Frankly I'm surprised it ISN't federally mandated...it will be if it can be determined enough accidents were caused by playing with the nav, the video game, the internet or whatever other toy the driver thought was more important than actually driving.
Had my civic back to the dealer earlier this week. There is an update to correct the ticking fuzzy noise regarding the radio. My radio sounds fine now. Your honda dealer should be aware of the fix for this issue. Do you by chance have a resting idle vibration when your car is at normal operating temperature? I am still dealing with this issue.
skeeter11
Please, anyone out there having this problem, please share any insight as to how to deal with this. Any success in discovering what this the exact cause and fix? At time point in time, if this is not fix, lemon law remedy would have to come into the picture. :mad:
thanks!
epiphany
I once read how to "retrain" an engine computer after flushing out the memory. It involved several runs up to 60 at moderate to heavy acceleration. Since your car is broken in, such initial runs won't hurt it, anyway.
Has a dealer hooked it up to a computer to see what is going on while it is running? The check engine light is only a crude measure of what is going on. Most manufacturers have more sophisticated setups in their shops.
Finally, try another dealer. Honda is good about giving dealers discretionary money to delve into problems like yours. Another dealer might be more willing to spend some of that discretionary problem on your issue. Not all dealers are created equal, or all service techs.
Marc
Can you explain more about the purpose of "re-training" the engine? How is the core idea behind "training" an engine? Would that affect mileage?
Thanks.