Buying Civic Hybrid: any experiences to share?

Home4Life

friends,

I am looking to buy a Civic Hybrid, preferably 2 or 3 years old.

Does anyone have one and how do you find it?

I have heard that the Prius tyres are so tightly inflated that its very noisy particularly at speed; does the Civic Hybrid suffer frokm this also?

Thanks,
H4L

Seth Brundle

http://www.parkers.co.uk/cars/owners-reviews/search.aspx?model=1478#
http://www.honestjohn.co.uk/carbycar/index.htm?md=1050

ninty9er

JHMEG, one of the regulars here has 2 in fact. He was so impressed by his wife's that he bought one himself. That's the old model though.

kellysbayweir

Hi there.

I actually have one for sale, so will try be as honest as I can.

What I can say to you is that having had this one for 2 years, being a honda absolutely nothing has gone wrong with it. It has been serviced in only Honda main dealers, and if I am looking for faults, what I can say to you hit a pothole it can light the airbag and engine management light, needing a visit to a garage to reset it (or not as it does not affect the car at all) This has happened to this car twice, so we have lived with the light on for the last few months, needing a service soon so never got it done, they will reset at the service. (or if I sell it I will get it reset for te new owner first) Apart from that, perfect.

Very thrifty car, my wife just uses it around Skerries, and Skerries to Swords etc. She gets 45 MPG, however, a drive to Wexford wct will deliver 55MPG, better if she drive it....)

I am looking to sell hers as she needs a car with 7 seats, and I would prefer to not have to fork up much cash so I am trying to sell it rather than trade in (most dealers for some reason want you to add cash to do a deal.......pity I don't have any after Christmas)

http://cgi.ebay.ie/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=160307273176

They are well specc'd cars, with all the nice bits, leather, heated seats and an excellent stereo with cd in the front and changer in the rear. Climate control etc.

Best bit, they are manual, all the Toyota Prius cars are automatic so dont suit everybody and Honda cover the Hybrid under to 100 Miles or 8 years whichever comes first, so no worries on that front.

Feel free to ask any other questions

Jason

Hellrazer

Been driving one as a company car for 5 months now and Im sad to see it was sold and being collected next week.

Cant fault it one bit(not being biased as I work in a Honda Dealer)

One thing I will say is that if youre a bit heavy on the right foot(Like me) you wont see much benefit of the improved fuel consumption.The auto off engine feature is annoying if youre stop starting in traffic but it can be turned off by leaving the heated screen on all the time.

@ Jason--Any of the Hybrids Ive seen are all autos--The first versions had a manual option but that was discontinued way back.

kellysbayweir

Thanks Hellrazer.

Yes, all the new models I have seen are automatic which is a pity, especially in Ireland with most people driving manual. Our one is the older shape and is a 5 speed manual, so I suppose if looking for auto, go the new model, manual old model.

Alsow worth noting, the old model has nice alloy wheels, the new model ones are really an acquired taste being solid polished etc. thats my view anyway.

We have the nice blue Hybrid sticker on the back of ours, (that the new model has) Des Darcy Honda in Swords put it on at the last service, looks well.

Green Hornet

Local dealer in Wexford has one (2007) for sale:

http://www.slaneyviewhonda.ie/usedcars/index.cfm?fuseaction=car&carID=1266568

I've dealt exclusively with her (the dealer) for the last 15 years and have always found her excellent. You could always give her a ring. I doubt that the car will be on sale for very long.

Eoin

kellysbayweir wrote: »

Very thrifty car, my wife just uses it around Skerries, and Skerries to Swords etc. She gets 45 MPG, however, a drive to Wexford wct will deliver 55MPG, better if she drive it....)

Is that considered thrifty for a hybrid?

samsemtex

eoin wrote: »

Is that considered thrifty for a hybrid?

justy thinking the exact same thing. A diesel will easily match those numbers and will have considerably more performance too. Hybrid technology as it currently stands is nothing more than a joke as far as im concerned. Watched a review on edmunds.com of the LS600h and they compared it to a LS460 which was marginally slower under acceleration but actually achieved better MPG on the motorway and handled considerably better thanks to being much lighter.

Eoin

samsemtex wrote: »

justy thinking the exact same thing. A diesel will easily match those numbers and will have considerably more performance too.

But as soon as you mention diesel, you get accused of killing babies with their fumes and so on.

colm_mcm

JMHEG regularly gets 300mpg from his

Gael23

I agree, you'd be better off buying diesel than hybrid

E92

ryanf1 wrote: »

I agree, you'd be better off buying diesel than hybrid

+2.

The Sunday Times found that the BMW 520d is more frugal than the Prius, and that was when they made sure that 80% of the test was designed to favour the hybrid rather than the non hybrid car.

I'll dig up the link if anyone wants it.

Officially the BMW does 55.4 mpg and the Prius does 65.7 mpg.

The Civic fares even worse as that is rated at 61.4 mpg.

Home4Life

Thanks to all,
as usual very informative replies.
I'm hoping to pick up a 2 or 3 year old Civic Hybrid.
I take the point that if you were driving on motorways on long distances
every day, it wouldnt perform very well,
its main strength is in city driving where it can shut off the engine
and recover some energy on braking.

bazz26

Current Civic Hyprid has only been on sale in Ireland since 2007. The previous Civic IMA was never officially sold in Ireland so most are UK imports.

So importing one from the UK might work out cheaper for you.

Typhoon.

Current Hybrid is on sale in Ireland since 2006...

ltdslipdiff

I have a 2005 Civic Hybrid (manual,all the goodies!) that I brought in from UK last year (Jan 2008). Can not fault the car in any way, although with the arrival of number two baby, the boot is beginning to look a little small Brought it for its first NCT last night and it passed with flying colours. They couldn't issue a cert as it was the first hybrid they had done and the head office in dublin has to issue. This is due to insufficient data for emmissions on their system and the braking test is void as the car uses regenerative braking. The tester was very impressed by it. I've just serviced it myself with the water-like 0w-30 Honda oil and I located the 8 x iridium spark plugs in the states for far cheaper than I could find here (€18+ VAT each was cheapest I could find and I'm in the trade!!). I used original air and oil filters.
We like it so much that I got my folks one in the UK too. I was toying with selling my one, but I can't think of anything to replace it with. We regularly get 55+ mpg and I think driving consciously you could get mid-sixties. I've looked around the usual UK sites and there doesn't seem to be as many around for sale, maybe the secret is out? A great value car, and if it fell under the new emmisions based system would only be €104 tax for the year (116g/co2 per Km)
Hope this helps !