What year's of used Civic should you avoid?

[Curtis]

Kieth (in Brigham City, Ut) emailed me with a question about the used GX's and wanted to know if there were any real problem years to avoid... if any. I have heard all of your experiences over the years that I've run the various groups, but I only have personal experience with my 2004, so I think the answer's would be more valid if they came from the group. What would you advise Kieth?

We all know of the tranny issues on the 2001-2005, and Honda's 7yr/100k warranty extension that covers it, and multiple injector replacements on some of the early years due to oil or fuel problems. So what Kieth really needs to find out is a bit more general than your personal maintenance issues.

Is there year/s, that are absolutely notorious for a specific set of problems? Are there year/s that a buyer should avoid, or are the issues we complain about simply a maintenance issue that is not out of the norm for a car of that specific age, mileage and condition. Are we just venting about having to spend money to fix an old car that, had it been a Ford or GM, would probably have been much worse, or are there some real headache year/s to avoid?

By the way Kieth, I can't reply directly to you because you have email responses turned off in your personal control panel... so here you are.

[j03j03]

Re: What year's of used Civic should you avoid?

I know the trans thing has been beat to death with them but i'll never buy another Honda because of it. At 87,000 miles my trans went out in my 2001 Civic. The thing that really bugged me about it was that Honda wouldn't help at all. They said it wan't their problem and that I was out of luck. But since 2003 at least they've improved a little. But what I can say is that if you keep up on regular maintance (i.e. trans flush, spark plugs, oil changes) it decreases the changes of a major malfuction by up to 60%.
Something else you need to avoid is using Champion spark plugs in the Civic's. For whatever reason they tend to crack the head and cause a lot of damage.
Hope this helps!

[bakaroma]

Re: What year's of used Civic should you avoid?

Curtis thanks for making this a thread. Hopefully i will get that mail straightened out. I will also be in touch with you soon.