Warning: This is a "woe is me" story. I'm really pleased with how well Team Honda is doing, and with all the good stuff in this thread - which I started a year ago tomorrow.
Tough times for my '97 Civic. I know no car lasts forever, and I think I will need to take this one off the road pretty soon. It's had a very good run, including 3 "first in Class" wins at the Green Grand Prix at Watkins Glen. It's been getting about 50 mpg lately. But it looks like this car is on its way out. I have a plan "going forward", but I don't the think the plan will help Team Honda.
Back in Feb-March 2011, at about 219K miles, I had a shop refurbish the head. It had one badly burned valve plus others also needed replacement. A friend pulled the head and reinstalled it for me. Following that I did some nice mods - a belly pan, and I disabled the alternator, replacing it with enough batteries to run for hours. Plus some other stuff. Late last summer she was getting 54-55 mpg and I was pleased.
The car is now at about 285 K miles, and losing coolant, it looks like its going out via the head gasket and cylinders. And I'm getting a P0302 code, misfire on cyl. #2. That spark plug was oil covered when examined. So I suspect that again, a valve seal or guide has failed, and the dripping oil has again burned the valve.
Plus, the car is due for a timing belt + tensioner + water pump in about 15K miles, and it has rear quarter panel rust on both sides, and rust at driver's side top corner of windshield. The rust isn't truly fixable, in my humble opinion. I had a friend treat the rust on the windshield top right corner a few years ago, now it's appeared on the left side. Fixing requires windshield replacement, so it's not cheap. He also bondo'd the quarter panel rust near the gas tank (not a good spot for welding), and the rust is back again badly, and now also on the other side of car.
The plan:
What I REALLY want is an
Elio. It seats two, tandem style. Two driven front wheels, one rear wheel, which makes it a reverse trike. They're predicting 49 mpg City and 84 mpg Highway for it. But the Elio won't be on the market for a year, if they actually do make it to market.
In the meantime -
Former wifemobile '96 Accord DX with 5-speed is available to me, wife is now driving an '04 Accord auto with more doodad buttons than the DX had. '96 Accord only needs a timing belt and a pair of tires to be fully roadworthy for me. So I likely will be driving that for about a year. I got about 34 mpg when I filled it a couple days ago. Not bad for the bigger beast but not mpg competition material.