The 01 civic is running against a Camaro and the race ends up with some real unexpected results. It was real fun watching this race and shows how a good racing car should perform.
The 01 civic is able to beat the Camaro with a good lead over it. One of the most unexpected results to show for the muscle car. Just enjoy the race.
I got my 01 civic around 8 months back when I wanted a good, reliable and fuel efficient second car as my daily driver was giving a bit of a problem. I did not care about the looks and just wanted a hassle free car. Finally I was able to get a used 01 civic online with 110,000 miles on it. Even with those many miles my 01 civic ran great and good maintenance was taken. For the past 8 months it has become my daily driver and it is by far a very reliable car. I have taken it to long trips without any issues and the fuel mileage is just beyond my expectation. The overall cost of ownership is also much lesser than almost all the cars I have driven till now.
There are a few experiences I want to share with current or future civic buyers:
1. Searching: I ended up searching more than I had expected for my 01 civic. While purchasing a used car it is better to keep at least 2-3 weeks of time. I had informed most of my friends of my requirement and than I waited if any of the sellers might show up. However I did not get much of a positive response and now I believe directly going over the net is a much better option. You should search the following sites to look for a used car:- Ebay Motors, Autotrader, Cars.com, Autos.aol and Carmax. Besides this you should also try Craigslist of your local area. You can get good options within half an hour of surfing through them. Once done select at least 5-6 you would be interested to pursue.
2. Contacting: Fix an appointment by contacting through phone or email. Generally fixing on a weekend is better as you might be much more free and the seller is also free. If possible call the person at least once before visiting. You can come to know if the car is his own and if there might be any major problems with the car. If the answers are evasive it might be a good indication that there might be something wrong.
3. Inspection: I did not know much about cars and hence took one of my more informed friends with me. Out of the 5 chosen 1 canceled the appointment and hence we inspected 4 cars on the weekend. The basic inspection you need to make is to check the car body for any major accident sign or rust sign, interiors for the cleanliness and flood damage, under the hood for transmission and engine and checking the overall car for any major damage signs. Before going to test drive it is also good to check the history records of the car through CarFax. It will show if the car is salvage title, flood damaged or involved in any major accident.
4. Test Drive: This is the most important part of a purchase of the car. While doing a test drive you can find out easily if there are any major internal problems with the car. This is one of the reasons why many people do not like to go for car auctions as you cannot test drive the car. While doing test drive it is good to follow a set procedure or even take a checklist and do the test drive accordingly. This will make sure that none of the major components go unchecked. You can print out a version by checking sites like Consumer Reports. Just search for test drive checklist. I was able to shortlist 2 cars from the 4. One was the 01 civic and another was 97 accord.
5. Negotiation: It is very important not to do the negotiation before you have done all the test drive. Even if you like a car very much it is better to know of all the possible options before beginning the negotiation. Another important factor is to check out KBB, Edmunds to find out the approx value of the vehicle in the market. This besides being a very good negotiating tool is also good to know in what range should you be negotiating. The person selling the 97 accord was asking around 40% higher that what KBB showed and so I went with the 01 civic which was better maintained and had lower miles on it. I had a final deal at $5,200.
6. Paperwork: This again is very important. If you buy a new car or a used car in a dealership they take care of this themselves however if you buy with a private party you need to take care of it yourself. Get the smog test done by the seller. Get the Bill of Sale form filled. Pay the sales tax and get the insurance reactivated.
7. Maintenance: It is important to realize that no car, even these reliable civics, will give you good miles unless the basic maintenance schedule is followed. Change the engine oil, transmission fluids as required. Also get regular service of the vehicle done. This will give better miles and will also give better return value on selling the car.
8. Tuning/Modding: In the past 8 months I have learn't a lot about cars especially the civics. Went with few of my friends to the drag races and were really interested in the stuff they do. Since then I have been visiting their tuning shops regularly. If you want to go for tuning it is better to get a basic background on it. A very good source for getting knowledge about tuning/modding are the following forums:HondaSwap, Honda-tech and Torquecars. The members are very supportive and can guide a lot.
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