[deft]

I've been working as a freelance courier, using a bike 90% of the time and using an hourly car rental service when I needed one. This year I've gotten enough business to justify keeping my own car handy - but I wasn't going to settle for anything except the most fuel efficient car I could get.

I learned about the most fuel efficient Honda Civic, the VX, from this forum and a couple other places and set out to find one. It took me about three months to find a good deal - plenty of owners out there know exactly what they have, remember the recent $5/gal gas prices, and want double the blue book excellent value for their less-than-excellent VX. One guy wouldn't take a dime less than $4000 for his 95 with 110k miles on it. The blue book said $2500 max, if it's 'excellent'.. so I kept searching, and ended up (through a 'wanted' ad I placed) finding a great deal one one that had 1 owner, all records, new tires, and had gotten regular service at the Honda dealership it's whole life.

I've been reading the posts here for a long time but this is my first time writing, since I've finally got something to talk about. Since I know there's at least a couple 5th gen. Civic owners on here, and probably a few VX owners, I figured it might be a good place to start.

Here's what I've experienced so far - the fuel economy right from the start, despite needing a tune-up, has been incredible. The last car I owned was a Geo Metro but it never came close to this. I gave it an oil change, new plugs/cables/dizzy cap and air filter, and it runs much better. The only problem I had was when I let the guys at Shucks talk me into fancy Platinum spark plugs. It doesn't like the performance plugs, misfired until I put the low-end plugs in, then it ran great.

I do hear a little.. tin-can sounding rattle.. from somewhere when accelerating through the lower gears. I haven't checked the transmission fluid yet, but it shifts just fine. My next stop is to get it's valves adjusted, I figure that could be the cause of the rattle sound and should help things. Maybe the timing adjusted too, I guess.

The one issue it has is that the speedometer cuts out at random times, and the odometer, trip meter stop with it. I'm not worried about it's actual miles because the records the owners kept are consistant (new tires bought years ago). It's basically been sitting for a long time. Has anybody else seen this? I would jack up the car and test the sensor with a DMM but it's so random, it might take a half hour to quit working suddenly.

I've seen the elaborate DIY body kits people have posted on here, pretty cool but I can't really do that with all the hills and chunky roads in Seattle. I'm thinking a belly pan, rear wheel covers, smooth wheel covers in front, and maybe a partial cambak would help improve aerodynamics. Besides that, engine mods like 5th gear replacement? fuel/oil additives? I want to put in the MPG display but it sounds like a lot of work when I can just use the tripmeter.. at least I could if it worked all the time.