Civic X Life Expectancy

Empyrean

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Hello everyone,

So assuming the maintenance minder is followed, what do you expect to cause the end of life with our cars? Do we expect our engines to last far longer than the rest of the car and other items to break or do we expect the engine to be the thing to go?

Thanks guys, I was just wondering since I know many people baby their cars and I wonder if it is even worth it if the engine is going to last longer than the rest of the car.
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DeVo

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i'd say electronics go first. hopefully the first thing to go lasts a minimum of 10 years. that's my pure speculation though
 

cypress

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Yeah I would say the electronics as well. If you are doing the proper maintenance then it will definitely last a while. Granted some things are just outta your control.
 

syncro87

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You can theoretically keep any car on the road indefinitely if you're willing to throw enough money at it. The reason most cars end up in salvage yards is that they get old, they don't have much resale value, and something breaks which is expensive enough to fix that it is deemed not worth the investment. At some point, you're throwing good money after bad, and it makes more sense to dump a car than continue to pour money into it. Also, at some point, it isn't about money so much as it is the inconvenience of driving an old car that needs frequent repairs.

I don't think the Civic will be any different than other cars in this regard. It won't necessarily be one weak link that will kill 150-200k mile, 15 year old Civics. It will probably be the same things that kill any old, high mileage car. An expensive electronic control unit dies. Head gasket. Transmission failure. Turbo bearing. Rust. Timing chain tensioner or guides fail. Electronic gauge cluster fries. Eventually a failure will occur somewhere on the spectrum that will cost $800 or $1200 to fix, and the owner says screw it.

As a car gets older and older, (unless it is a classic collectible) the bar gets lower and lower over time for a repair to be the straw that breaks the camel's back. You'd spend $2k to fix a 5 year old car, probably. Most people wouldn't spend $2k to fix a 15 year old car.
 

IDriveACivic

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EX-T and above & hatchbacks have turbo + CVT. According to Scotty Kilmer, these are unreliable $$$$ pits. :catfight:

I do have to admit the electrical components could be a potentially costly PITA. On the flip side, if said head unit goes out, I hope I could swap it with the newer unit in the refreshed CivicX :D
 


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The 'end of life' scenario I imagine is when an aging civic's turbo starts to get out of tolerance, and all the emission system components are starting to get towards the end, and the cvt is starting to get out of tolerance, then all the sensors that watch and manage all of this start to go intermittent or fail, then all the separate 'brains' of the car start to not play well together .... . then you get expensive trouble shooting , shotgunning of parts, .. --oh, that didn't fix it., ... oh that didn't fix it, .....

Which is why I bought a manual, ... a good chunk of the POF's have been taken out of the equation and troubleshooting will be easier. It's also why I keep mine in a garage, .. less exposure to moisture and heat/cool cycles/sun (and rodents) will hopefully let it last a couple decades and 300,000 miles, like the 'Hondas of yore' -- wouldn't that be nice?
 

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Got the 8 year 120k mile HondaCare for $1000. I wouldn't normally buy an extended warranty but that deal seemed too good for me. I have every intention to abuse the fuck out of it. Already had them replace a door seal that was whistling ever so slightly. Anything that goes even slightly out of spec is going to end up in their lap. The warranty is extra worth it for me since my average annual millage is under 7000.
 

CivicXI

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I suspect rust will get to it before you run out of parts to replace. I mean, damn near anything is replaceable on these things.
 

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i feel it will fall apart at about year 7, you know everything held together by a clip. and all rubber pieces used around the window trim seem to be aging already.
 

syncro87

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Which is why I bought a manual
I've owned a lot of old cars over the years, the kind you fix yourself. One thing I've found is that owning a manual can put you at a distinct disadvantage when trying to track down certain parts on a 20 year old car. Parts availability for a 20 or 30 year old car can often come down to how many of that car were sold originally. There will be 20 or 25 automatic Civics in the salvage yards of 2038 for every stick shift car. A discontinued ECU for an automatic Civic will be a lot easier to track down than one for a manual.

Example: Did you know they made a manual transmission Dodge Caravan at one point? Also a manual Chevy Astro van. Have fun finding replacement parts for the clutch or transmission on those these days. If you have an old automatic Astro, you can keep them on the road forever. Stick shift, certain parts are quite difficult to find, and were not duplicated in the aftermarket. OEM only.

I'm just being the devil's advocate here for the sake of discussion. The point I am making is that in the long haul, having a common trim level or configuration is usually highly beneficial as far as parts sourcing goes. The first parts to get discontinued from the warehouse are the ones in low demand, for trim levels or models that were rare to begin with. The first things the OEM will make obsolete is stuff with low demand. Aftermarket usually doesn't step in for the same reason. Not enough volume of sales to justify tooling for reproductions of discontinued OE parts, etc. If an aftermarket solution becomes available, it is most often for the common variation of the car, where they think they can sell enough widgets to make money.

I ran into this issue back when I was driving old cars 15 years ago. In 2003, a 15 year old car was 1988 model year. There were a lot more manual transmission cars sold in 1988 than there were in 2017. 15, 20, 25 years from now, finding parts for a manual version of a car built today will likely be considerably more difficult than '88 parts were to find in 2003.

Again, we're really getting into the theoretical weeds here discussing what might theoretically kill a Civic a couple of decades from now, obviously. Most people probably aren't going to keep their car long enough to worry about parts availability., but the point is that if parts availability ever did become an issue, the first to be affected would be those with low production volume models.


EDIT -> I just thought of what will probably kill the Civic. 5 years from now, they'll switch to some new A/C refrigerant. The old stuff will be NLA, and there will not be a retrofit kit to the new stuff for the old cars. People will ditch the cars as the A/C systems die and / or become too expensive to repair. Nobody wants to drive a car without A/C these days.

EDIT #2

Thinking back on my old beaters, here is what some of the cars were and what killed the them:

1981 Peugeot 504 diesel wagon. The transmission died. I managed to source a used one from a salvage yard in Oklahoma. Eventually, though, getting parts at all proved too much of a PITA since Peugeot had pulled out of the USA. Salvage yard.

1974 VW 412. Sold it still running, but parts were becoming a nightmare. Rubber trim was unobtainium. The windshield gasket, glass, etc, forget it. Even stuff like ball joints was getting tough.

1981 VW Scirocco. Rust. Manual sunroof did not close properly, no replacement parts easily available.

1987 VW Quantum syncro AWD wagon, manual. Fuel sending unit / pump holder assembly cracked. Car leaked gas. No parts left at any warehouse on the planet. Part obsolete. No easy way to ghetto rig a fix, it was a complex plastic part with metal inclusions, etc. Car sold for parts. They sold so few syncro wagons, and the fuel sender was unique to the wagon only. Having the rare model ended up killing it. Had it been a front wheel drive, more common variation of Quantum, no problem.

1982 Audi 4000 2 door, stick. Electrical system gremlins became too much to deal with, old wiring, etc. Fuel pump relay would overheat, melt the relay and / or fuse panel. Junk yard.

1974 Audi 100 LS sedan. Various parts no longer available, i.e. carb parts, electrical parts. Sold.

1974 Toyota Celica GT, 5spd. Rust finally consumed it to when it was jacked up, the unibody had the strength of burnt toast and basically fell apart. Car was half bondo by the time I was done with it. Towed, junk yard.

1996 Volvo 850 Turbo station wagon. Various expensive things kept breaking. A/C condenser, electrical faults, turbo getting sketchy. Sold it before it bankrupted me. The prior owner, when I totaled receipts, had spent nearly $18,000 on the car on dealer repairs since new. Car ran, looked great, economically stupid to continue. Auto trans was starting to shift hard once in a while. One of the few automatics on this list.

1976 Toyota Corolla. My first car. Rust. Eventually it got so bad, when you turned the steering wheel the steering gear box would shift as the rusted subframe bent...you could feel the driver's side floor oil can up and down. Dangerous. Junk yard.

1996 Suzuki Sidekick 4 door, manual hardtop. Rust. Looked great from the outside, drove great. One day when doing maintenance, I noticed the rear frame crossmember was virtually completely rusted through. Had the strength of a wet Q tip. Sold to a guy for parts. Car had been garaged its whole life, by the way. Road salt.

1998 Escort station wagon, manual trans. One day it dropped a valve seat. Very common on that car. Not worth fixing, financially. Sold for parts.

1969 VW Squareback. Also dropped a valve, #3 I believe. Sold. Saw the car two years later in a town 500 miles away, at a gas station. Stopped to talk to the guy, indeed, he had bought the car from the guy I sold it to. Small world. What are the chances?

1985 Audi 5000. Stolen from a repair shop. I had it in the shop to have the blown head gasket repaired. Some high school deadbeats stole it, took it on a joyride, and crashed it through the front wall of their high school on purpose. Was on the local news. Coworker came to my desk, said hey, I think your Audi is on TV. Shortly thereafter, the phone rang, local police.

1982 Honda Civic 1300 hatchback. One cold morning, car was running rough. Seemed to smooth out, drove girl friend to work. Gets worse on the way home, engine locks up. Head gasket blew, water got in cylinder, etc. DOA. Circa early 1990s. Thing was rusty and had 150k miles by that point.

1982 VW Westfalia camper. The parking pawl failed in the automatic transmission, and I was too stupid to have used the hand brake because my apartment's parking lot was not on much of a slope. Bad move. The van was in mint condition, by the way, like new...this was around 1999 or so. Anyway, the van rolled across the parking lot. I was on the third floor landing, about ready to enter my apartment, when I heard BANG!!! I looked around, and saw the van do a hard right turn (front right tire had exploded when the rolling van hit a curb), drive across the grass, and launch itself into a large duck pond in the middle of our complex. The van floated for a bit, still moving away from shore, before sinking about 4 feet into water and canadian goose poop at the bottom of the pond. Totaled due to water damage. Craziest thing you ever saw.

Mercedes 190e 2.6 and E320 wagon. Both got old and super expensive to maintain. Goodbye.

1989 Dodge Raider. Rust. Parts getting a little dicey, depending on what you needed. Mitsu dealers didn't want to deal with it because it was badged Dodge. Dodge dealers didn't stock parts anymore, because it was a Mitsubishi. Sold quickly for top dollar to another sucker like myself.


Various other ones, but tired of typing.
 
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CivicXI

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.....

Which is why I bought a manual, ... a good chunk of the POF's have been taken out of the equation and troubleshooting will be easier. It's also why I keep mine in a garage, .. less exposure to moisture and heat/cool cycles/sun (and rodents) will hopefully let it last a couple decades and 300,000 miles, like the 'Hondas of yore' -- wouldn't that be nice?
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Swordfish

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x2 on the electronics. It's been buggy and seems to be the #1 issue. Also I'm not sure about the cloth seats as the material is not the best. Not concerned about the engine or transmission. I think other things will be an issue before those.
 

Manual

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I've owned a lot of old cars over the years, the kind you fix yourself. One thing I've found is that owning a manual can put you at a distinct disadvantage when trying to track down certain parts on a 20 year old car. Parts availability for a 20 or 30 year old car can often come down to how many of that car were sold originally. There will be 20 or 25 automatic Civics in the salvage yards of 2038 for every stick shift car. A discontinued ECU for an automatic Civic will be a lot easier to track down than one for a manual.

Example: Did you know they made a manual transmission Dodge Caravan at one point? Also a manual Chevy Astro van. Have fun finding replacement parts for the clutch or transmission on those these days. If you have an old automatic Astro, you can keep them on the road forever. Stick shift, certain parts are quite difficult to find, and were not duplicated in the aftermarket. OEM only.

I'm just being the devil's advocate here for the sake of discussion. The point I am making is that in the long haul, having a common trim level or configuration is usually highly beneficial as far as parts sourcing goes. The first parts to get discontinued from the warehouse are the ones in low demand, for trim levels or models that were rare to begin with. The first things the OEM will make obsolete is stuff with low demand. Aftermarket usually doesn't step in for the same reason. Not enough volume of sales to justify tooling for reproductions of discontinued OE parts, etc. If an aftermarket solution becomes available, it is most often for the common variation of the car, where they think they can sell enough widgets to make money.

I ran into this issue back when I was driving old cars 15 years ago. In 2003, a 15 year old car was 1988 model year. There were a lot more manual transmission cars sold in 1988 than there were in 2017. 15, 20, 25 years from now, finding parts for a manual version of a car built today will likely be considerably more difficult than '88 parts were to find in 2003.

Again, we're really getting into the theoretical weeds here discussing what might theoretically kill a Civic a couple of decades from now, obviously. Most people probably aren't going to keep their car long enough to worry about parts availability., but the point is that if parts availability ever did become an issue, the first to be affected would be those with low production volume models.
I get your point, but,..

Without abuse, the manual transmission really should go the life of the car. Probably will need one clutch. Even if there is a problem inside the case, the parts can be replaced, So with the "world-wide" junkyard and fedex, .. and manuals still retaining (although starting to lose) popularity throughout much of the rest of the world ... one way or another, the parts should be available. IOW, there's still safety in Civic MT numbers, even if you have to go across the pond.

Plus, if all those US boi-racers keep buying and wrecking Si's, there'll be plenty of low mileage transmission parts to pick from ,.. lol.

The way I understand CVT's -- a lot of times it's just not worth it (or even possible) to start replacing parts -- so if something goes wrong with it, it's likely to be an R&R for the entire unit.

/btw, .. I'm not 'bashing' on the cvt, I liked the one I drove, and it's quite possible they will go 150,00 miles +, ...maybe (?) that jury is going to be out for a few more years
 
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a c i d.f l y

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Besides electronics - suspension and the AC. Struts always start to suck around 80k. Folks already experiencing issues with their AC, and mine is starting to sound wonky with eco mode on when I first fire up. Neither end of life issues, but man it's
You can theoretically keep any car on the road indefinitely if you're willing to throw enough money at it. The reason most cars end up in salvage yards is that they get old, they don't have much resale value, and something breaks which is expensive enough to fix that it is deemed not worth the investment. At some point, you're throwing good money after bad, and it makes more sense to dump a car than continue to pour money into it. Also, at some point, it isn't about money so much as it is the inconvenience of driving an old car that needs frequent repairs.

I don't think the Civic will be any different than other cars in this regard. It won't necessarily be one weak link that will kill 150-200k mile, 15 year old Civics. It will probably be the same things that kill any old, high mileage car. An expensive electronic control unit dies. Head gasket. Transmission failure. Turbo bearing. Rust. Timing chain tensioner or guides fail. Electronic gauge cluster fries. Eventually a failure will occur somewhere on the spectrum that will cost $800 or $1200 to fix, and the owner says screw it.

As a car gets older and older, (unless it is a classic collectible) the bar gets lower and lower over time for a repair to be the straw that breaks the camel's back. You'd spend $2k to fix a 5 year old car, probably. Most people wouldn't spend $2k to fix a 15 year old car.
I spent well more than $2k to keep my 96 Civic running, but then I didn't have a car payment or comprehensive insurance (and getting 34mpg amazingly), so cost analysis was well worth it. As long as I was spending less than $200/mo (super easy) to keep it going, I kept fixing it and driving it. The window rubber lining and passenger windows became unalligned messing up the rubber seals, accidentally cracked the windshield changing the wipers on a hot day (actuator without wiper slammed into the glass), total $170 fix; CV joint started grinding, bought a replacement kit for $200, injectors beyond repair, bought $100 replacements - never got around to replacing the latter parts when the gear teeth on the transmission started breaking off from an unknown transmission leak shortly after. All totally fixable myself, but my time, not money, became the issue.

Ended up selling it to a buddy who has the time, hard core car enthusiast, who is going to gut it and make it a drag car. Apparently you can motor swap with transmission for less than $2k.

Which alludes to the beauty of the Civic vs pretty much any other car. The number of excess parts, OEM offerings, far outweighs every other vehicle. Only the Mustang comes close. These cars are not in any way unique, or complicated, insanely durable and modular design means they'll last longer than anything else because of the availability of spare parts alone. I mean, my buddy can't even find parts for his modern G6...
 
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I'm going to go out on a limb and say by the time we hit the 2030s, cars will be so integrated in tech that gets obsolete quickly and with economies of scale for the electric car side of the house that the current Civic will be well far behind the pack of what will likely be a mix of all electrics/hybrids/ICEs with a bunch if tech to squeeze the most range/performance per gallon. I think in the salt belt the thin skinned cars coupled with Honda's poor paint jobs will will rust to nothing. Self driving will likely be widespread, if not mainstream. A fast charging infastructure will likely be well developed too... though I'm not 100% Tesla will make it much into the next decade.

I see a slew of 10-15 year old Honda's going strong... but more and more I see cars as being pretty disposable. I'm not a big advocate for electric cars persay... but honestly I think high torque electric motors will make performance of middling ICEs seem lame.

Back here on Earth and not in the clouds, I recall a requirement existing that a auto manufacture has to provide parts for cars at least 10 years after production is ceased. I don't recall where I read that as it's been years... I think with regard to GM after Olds/Pontiac folded and that is was a regulation that existed beyond that circumstance. The Accord, Civic and CRV all share the same powertrain essentially... so parts will be easy to come by in salvage yards a *long* time. When I last had a Z31, an '86 in '08 when production had ceased in '89... I was doing fine. I'm doing fine with my Z32, still finding mostly NOS, though at a premium for a '94 now in '18. The Civic and, even more its powertrain, is a very, very common car/powertrain. If I can keep a 24 year old rarish Z-car going... a Civic will be no sweat. I think it'll be wildly obsolete though. A 1995 car to a 2005 car is not going to be the same as a 2018 car to a 2028 car with regard to it's tech and power train. Honda just dipped their toe in the water with a small displacement lean burning direct injected turbo engine. They're late to the game on all those technologies... they just wrapped it in one package. Nissan is going variable compression. Mazda going HCCI. BMW (I think... maybe someone else) was doing factory water injection as a possibility. Theres a push for raising octane rating in the US beyond 93 at the pump... though the Civic could actually stand to gain from it. That to say nothing about the electric/hybrids. It's an exciting time for cars.
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