By the end of 1993, my wife and I had been living in Maryland for about six months and I had finally found a job (doing so wasn’t easy at that time, even with an engineering degree). The ’91 Accord was still serving as our only car but I was ready for something more exciting. Besides, the tires were worn out (a running joke in my family is that we seem to buy tires only if they’re attached to a new car). Since we were still just starting out, inexpensive would also be good. So off to the Honda dealer we went.
At this point, the next generation of Accord had just been released and was larger and more refined than the one I was driving. It was also a bit out of our price range, unfortunately, unless we looked at the Accord DX with manual windows and black bumpers. Even at that, adding air conditioning and a stereo (both of which were dealer add-ons) meant that the out-the-door price was getting to the edge of our budget. The Civic was much more reasonably priced and a two-door coupe body style had been introduced just the previous year. The Civic EX coupe was in our price range and came with a sunroof and a fancy stereo (but no CD player, unfortunately). Air conditioning was an extra (and a necessary one for Maryland summers) and wheelcovers were still plastic, but this car was much more appropriate for a young couple “on the go,” so to speak, especially with the manual transmission. The front seat headrests were a bit odd, as I recall, since they were supported by a bracket on the outboard side of the seat. Made for better visibility, though. Best of all, it came in green, which was and is my wife’s favorite color. It was a very early ‘90s green, too.
This was an interesting purchase process as it was the first time I had purchased a new car on my own without any help from my parents. They were almost 400 miles away, and I figured I had been through enough car purchases with my father that I could do OK for myself. My wife had never been involved in a new car purchase, as I recall. We may as well have worn “We’re new here” t-shirts to the dealer, but we must have been smart enough to avoid being taken for a ride. The negotiation went fine – didn’t get much for the ’91 Accord but I was already seeing myself in that new Civic so I didn’t care. I think it was $15k out the door with the add-on air conditioning – don’t remember what we got for our trade but it wasn’t very much.
Like the Accord, the Civic was enjoyable to drive and pretty nimble in traffic. Power was adequate (VTEC kickin’ in, yo!), but the manual shifter was light and easy to use (and you used it a lot given the relatively low power output of the engine). The back seat wasn’t as roomy as the Accord but it was a great excuse to have other people drive when we went out with friends. The stereo had name-brand speakers (Acoustic Research), which I thought was cool – the front tweeters had the AR logo prominently featured on them. Not as good as the JBL stereos in the Fords we had, but still not bad. We did pretty well with our first new car purchase together, or so we thought.
Unfortunately, this car appeared to attract bad luck. Nothing dangerous or expensive ever happened, really, but things occurred that were annoying nonetheless. The first problem came shortly after we purchased the car. We used it to travel back to Akron for our first Christmas on our own – I wanted to show my parents how well I’d done with my first new car buying experience and come back home for the first time since we’d moved to Maryland. All went well until our trip home. We happened to be traveling a stretch of the Pennsylvania Turnpike near the Allegheny Tunnel during some light snow. Our misfortune was to go through that stretch directly after a salt truck had been through and covered the highway with salt chunks that were pebble-sized. As you might expect, that did some serious damage to the paint on the front bumper, hood, and front fenders. When I cleaned the salt away, I found dozens of paint chips that covered the front of the car. Touching them all up would have taken days, and we were living in an apartment at the time so that was time and garage space I didn’t have. I tried several things to make the paint look better, including a pigmented car wax (in green) that was supposed to hide the chips. The pigmented wax was a big deal back then – I wonder if it is still being made. I also tried adding a smoke-colored wind deflector which can be seen in some of the pictures. It helped keep more dings from appearing on the front edge of the hood, but that was about it. Eventually I simply bought a front-end mask (one of those ugly vinyl ones) from the Honda dealer to simply cover up the dings in the summer. Not sure what looked worse…
Later that next summer, we had some of my wife’s high-school friends down for a visit, and we decided to go into Baltimore’s Inner Harbor to soak up some tourist vibes. As I was negotiating a left turn downtown, I stopped in the intersection to wait for some pedestrians (as one is supposed to do) and was smartly rear-ended by a rather unfriendly dude. He wanted to know why I stopped, and apparently “to avoid squashing people on the road” wasn’t a good enough answer. Luckily, the damage to the bumper was relatively minor and buffed right out, as they say.
The next incident wasn’t going to buff out, though. By this time we’d moved across town to a townhouse so our parking situation was a bit better, but the traffic was worse. One evening as my wife and I were returning from a fast-food restaurant with some take-out, we crossed a major intersection just as the light turned green. This intersection, as a number of ones in Maryland are, has right turn “ramps” that allow mostly continuous right turns along a curve instead of a hard right turn. Our misfortune was to be next to that right turn ramp just as a person coming from our right tried to beat the traffic but failed to do so, and failed to stop as well. It was timed just right so she hit our Civic directly across the right front wheel, folding up the bumper and breaking the parking light. She seemed excessively nervous and wanted to move along quickly once she realized our car was driveable. I realized much later that she had probably been drinking (it was relatively late) and didn’t want to get caught. Being 20-something and a bit naïve, we just went home without calling the police (a mistake I have not made since, to be sure). We were able to get the car repaired at a high quality Honda body shop – the fender repair was indistinguishable from the factory paint (and the side benefit of getting rid of some PA Turnpike nicks was nice), but the car never drove the same way because the collision was directly on the right front wheel. Nothing major, but on a straight flat road the steering wheel would gently oscillate from side to side enough for the driver to notice.
Despite all these problems, we did put quite a few miles on the car, particularly early in our ownership as it was our only car for a while. The hassle of carpooling when we worked in different directions meant that we needed a second car for me, which will be the subject of next week’s COAL.
As for the Civic, by 1996 I was ready to be rid of it forever, and wasn’t really worried about how much money I’d lose in waving goodbye to it. An upcoming COAL will explore the adventure of the car that replaced this Civic, which was as unlucky as the Civic itself in some ways.
I always liked this generation of Civic. It handled and drove great. The interior quality was impressive for an inexpensive car. I drove later generations and they seemed not as well built as this one, especially in handling and interior quality. The only problem is they had the tendency to rust around the wheel wells.
Don:
I’ve own this generation and the one before and the one after. While all 3 were good cars (I sold the 97 with well over 200K on the speedo), I feel the 88-91 Civic is the best built of the three.
When these first 2 door coupes came out, I so wanted one, I think they are THE BEST 90s small car. But a few car and even non-car magazines warned that the headroom was tight for someone over 6 feet tall….so I crossed it off my list and bought the slightly taller hatchback. The hatchback was replaced with a 2nd generation Integra 4 door which was replaced by a 97 Civic 2 door.
My 97 was even more battered over its “life” with me than the car in this write-up. But I recognized several instances like the collision with the possible drunk driver from my 89 Civic. That poor car would be hit 3 times: 1st on the right, 2nd from the rear, and 3rd (fatally?) from the left.
My 98 Civic was also snakebit.
Took it to the Firestone store for the free tire rotation that is a benefit of buying tires there. Of course they poked around under the hood looking for something else to sell me, but the twit tried to close the hood without folding the prop rod. Nothing was said as the write up guy handed me my keys and wished me well. Fortunately, the prop rod was toward the rear on the driver’s side, so I noticed the hood bent upward at that spot as I climbed into the car.
I was furious and charged back into the store. The write up guy came out and looked at the damage…upon opening the hood I noticed that the twit had pushed so hard on the hood that the prop rod had broken. Bottom line: it cost Firestone over $700 for my new hood and prop rod, and a rental car for the time the Civic was in the shop. The rental was a Toyota Echo, which has it’s own chapter in my memoirs.
The other big thing that happened to my Civic was the time I came out of the grocery store to discover the left front fender caved in. The damage was right at the top of the wheel arch and the paint was not scratched, but the layer of clearcoat had been abraded away. It had to be some huge SUV, as only a truck’s bumper would be that high, and a pickup would have a chrome metal bumper that would have scratched. Only the soft plastic bumper of an SUV would have rubbed the paint off. Some oblivious twit had tried to park in the spot next to the Civic, but didn’t see the Civic over the SUV’s huge hood, hit it, and skedaddled.
I spent a lot of highway time in that car and, like yours, the front started getting chipped up. Same solution: a visit to the Honda dealer for a half bra with “Civic” embroidered on it.
Here it is, showing the replacement hood and fender, when I sold it in 2013.
Ha! Reminds me of why never to go to those “quicky” oil change/service places.
Ha! Reminds me of why never to go to those “quicky” oil change/service places.
This wasn’t a quickie oil change place. It was a Firestone tire store. I do have a quickie oil change place story tho.
Wheeled my 85 Mazda GLC into a Valvoline oil change one day. i had noticed the several bottles of Valvoline fuel injector cleaner on top of the kiosk were the clerk wrote up the work order. Sure enough. He grabs one of the bottles, saunters over to me and starts the spiel “your fuel injectors need to be cleaned…a bottle of this in your gas tank will clean your injectors up and you’ll get better gas mileage”. I replied “this car has a carburetor”. Sort of threw him off stride.
That Mazda was snake bit too. Less than a year old when some punk threw a rock at it, leaving a 2″+ dent in the driver’s door. I lived in an apartment then and apparently a group of people had been shooting the breeze in the parking lot one night and a couple of them decided to sit on my hood. The next morning I had a couple of foot+ wide dents in my hood. I worked in a shopping mall then, where employee parking was behind the mall. I finished up inventory one night about 1am and opened the back door of the store to see a pair of perps breaking into my car. Didn’t have a stereo in that car, so they broke out a $200 window and got a $7 flashlight for their trouble. Didn’t park behind the mall after that. I parked out where the customers parked, and some twit ran into my car, dented the left rear fender…off to the body shop again.
The Civic and the GLC were both excellent cars, nearly trouble free in over a decade of ownership each. But wow did they attract trouble when they were parked.
Getting painful flashbacks of my ’73 Sport Bug, hit 3 times in less then 2 years, car was hit stopped at red lights 2 different times, the third time it was hit it was parked and dragged down the street behind the pickup that backed into it. Stereo (and tapes) were also stolen in another while parked incident. At least they popped open the vent window without damaging it.
My next door neighbor has a ’93 Si hatchback in this same color of teal/green. It’s all original and he says he gets offers all the time from kids who want to modify it. Kind of funny as he’s around 70!
He said recently that the new Civic Touting hatch had caught his eye and might convince him to sell the Si..
Definitely a Civic fan in general, his other car is a ’99 DX hatch and the Si’s predecessor was an ’84 CRX.
I really liked this generation of Civics, especially the Coupes. Great looking cars, and the interior trim and instrument panel were especially nice. I remember these cars being hugely popular with 20-somethings and 30-somethings–they always came across as a cool car that was well priced, versus being a “budget” car.
I’m surprised you got a lousy trade-in valuation on your ’91 Accord–they typically held their value really well. I’m wondering if yours was a case of the fairly common Honda dealer mentality back then of “let me count the ways I can gouge the customer, because I know they really want to buy a Honda!” IIRC, the Civic Coupes were a hot commodity then, and typically selling at/near MSRP.
Probably so – I think the ’91 Accord only had about 35k on it when I traded it in, so it was barely broken in. I suspect my bad trade in valuation had more to do with my position as a 20-something sucker who wanted a new car. This theme of me getting suckered and gouged on a trade in because of the desire to have a new ride will come up many times over the next few months of COAL…
When my wife and I got married in 1992, she had an ’86 Honda Civic AWD station wagon with 5-speed manual transmission. What a wonderful car that was!
Alas, it rusted to death. Still ran great, though it burned a bit of oil.
I think if we could find a little-old-lady version of that car NOW, she’d buy it in a heartbeat. I liked the car, she loved it.
Ah the right side ramps of maryland. It is always a joy dealing with them. The one I hate the most is the ramp going from 95 to RT 32 going towards FT Meade. The idiot that designed it did not allow for a merge lane so it is always backed up on 32 right there.
The other interesting ramp is the one going from RT 32 to RT 95 if you were coming from FT Meade, the ramp onto 95 is in the far left lane(the fast lane) and you have to deal with merging into 60 mph traffic.
Where in MD were you at? That pic of the apartments looks like some of the ones in Columbia
As for low trade in, I think the dealer took you for a ride. When it came time to trade in my Honda I took it to Apple Ford. I got more for it then from those idiots at Colman Honda
We don’t see those ramps around us, thankfully. What we are getting recently are long left- turn lanes separated from the straight-ahead traffic by a curb. All well and good. Unfortunately, you’ll fairly often get a knucklehead who misses the turnoff and proceeds to sit stubbornly in the left-most straight lane, waiting for a turn arrow that will never apply to them. Got sandwiched between one of those morons and a guy who wasn’t watching once, fortunately for only minor bumper damage. Grr. Not that I’m bitter.
Those apartments are actually on the south side of Laurel but there are quite a few apartment complexes around here that look very similar. The accident I reference was after we moved to Burtonsville – it was where 198 and 29 intersect back when they met at a traffic light instead of an exit ramp. That 32-to-95 ramp is definitely a risky one – especially during non-rush hour times when traffic is likely to be really hauling.
Ah the 198 to 29 intersection. That is terrible intersection and it is even more terrible now as the ICC is built.
However there is a Roy Rogers chicken place in that shopping center now so I do come by more then I used to as RR chicken is on point
Laurel MD, I see it every day as I cut through it to get to 197 to go to Bowie for work. Between the red light cameras, idiots pulling out of the shopping centers, the merge going from 197 to rte 1 (going towards the new Laurel shopping center(that replace the Laurel Mall) ) which the drivers are supposed to yield (but don’t) and the traffic lights were one changes to green as the other 3 feet away is turning to red, is an adventure everyday.
Sometimes I will drive from Brock Bridge Road to 197 but only if it has not rained as it floods out every time.
I’m sorry about your bad luck with the Civic, but you made a great choice of car overall. These always seemed like an excellent combination: good handling, nicely built, airy interior, logical controls. I remember the unusual headrests; didn’t the hatchback of this generation have a sort of tiny clamshell tailgate? Odd but interesting.
In high school I had a crush on a girl who drove a Civic coupe that exact shade of green. Funny how a picture of a car can bring back memories like that…
I used to own the world’s worst car ever: a 1998 Pontiac Grand Prix GT that finally died a much needed death after a head gasket failure at 79,000 miles. I purchased a gorgeous sparkling silver 1995 Honda Civic EX Coupe that a retiring college professor was selling for a mere $2,200. It had 140,000 miles on it and ran like a top. In the six years and 325,000 miles later that I owned the Civic it only needed routine maintanence.
The Civic was still tight and rattle free after all that mileage and looked great too. My horrible Grand Prix was full of squeaks, creaks and rattles at 40,000 miles with interior bits cracking and falling apart. GM crap!
It’s no reason to wonder why Honda and Toyota anhilated GM, Ford and Chrysler. It’s no reason to wonder why Honda’s and Toyota’s are such awesome, respectable cars after you’ve had the honor of owning one.
Oof… $15k in 1993 converts to $26k today. And the base list for a Civic in 1994 was $8800…
Maybe rolled $4k in from the trade in …
I don’t think that $15k included the money I lost on my trade, but I could be mistaken. I think I have the original window sticker from the car around here someplace – maybe I can lay my hands on it and scan it.
Yes, the EX coupe was pretty pricey relative to the base Civic hatch or sedan. The price of style, I guess.
Like that tealish green, those were fun colors back in the 90’s.
My wife had one of these, exact same car, with the 5 speed, but in white. At the time it seemed like a grand ride, go-kart fun, “fast”, and high quality. The car was kept in great shape and well maintained.
Eventually we sold it on to one of our boys, he only used it for his 1 mileish commute to work and never modded it or drove it much. It mostly sat in his garage. Years later I helped him sell it and drove it to see how it ran and refresh my memory.
I was surprised at how what had seemed fast and high quality when I was younger now seemed slow, noisy, cramped and cheap. Time marches on.
But it was still fun to drive, and had a great shifter.
Too bad yours was a bad luck magnet. They are incredibly popular here with the tuner crowd, we see them all the time, lowered, wheels angled, ski rack on the roof, lots of Japanese decals in the windows, tow hook on the front.
What’s amusing to me is that these will be the cars at the car show nights at the old folks homes in 2052, a stanced 94′ Civic EX hatch surrounded by elderly millennial guys listening to Tupac and dreaming of the good ol’ days.
They’ll be listening to Biggie as well, even though they were only around twelve or so when both died. I wonder it they’ll be sipping on 40’s of Colt 45 and pouring a little out….good times, thanks for the (future?) memories, Heath!
Those Civic coupe’s were super popular in California, they looked great, were priced well and generally ran forever. The EX especially, with those wheel covers and the sunroof. I think they only came in red, white, black and that teal. Maybe silver as well. This really takes me back. Good times!
Good stories here .
-Nate
my 98 civic… paid 1200 bucks for her 2 years ago and besides general maintenance Ive never had an actual part “repair”. everything works. Maine winters are unfortunately getting to her but has been held back with the awesome POR15. 275,400 Maine miles and counting. Best car I ever owned.
As I get older, my dealership experiences get more and more entertaining. In the last few years, i have come to realize that I want to keep as much of my money as possible. Since 2003, I feel like I have been able to get a better deal every time I trade/buy. My current “COAL” is 2007 Ford Edge. In “Blazing Copper”. I told the salesman we would only be done when both of us were cussing and a little bit angry about the deal. He played all the normal salesman cards. And we did our part. I lowballed them up front and made the sales guy take it to the manager. Which got us halfway to where I wanted to be. More haggling and them pushing around the trade in numbers got us close enough. We even walked out and got in the old car to leave – for real. The salesman and sales manager came running, asking for 5 more minutes to work out the deal we asked for. this is after a couple hours of haggling. BUT… for what they gave for the trade, I really wish I would have just kept it instead. turns out my son’s CAMRY that his mom and nana bought for him is a REAL POS. Who woulda thought a 2001 Olds Aurora would be a better/cheaper/more reliable car than a 97 CAMRY?
My point here is to do your research (easier now), be ready to walk out on a deal, and get the car you want at the best price. So many of these COALs have that part about “the deal” and how it felt ok for the first time or whatever. Believe me, I have been screwed so many times because I bought with heart and not head.
A guy I work with bought a used car in black because “you can’t choose your color buying used”. Umm no… I have a blazing copper Edge that I found on the same day I looked. I did have to drive 1.5 hours to see it. But so far it’s been awesome and it’s in the color I want.
I love cars, but hate buying them. Glad the Honda worked out well for you. Seems like nothing was really wrong with the car and that it was enjoyable.
My brother got a ’93 Civic DX in that same teal with 5 sp. It was a memorable month of May for him: new car, new job, new wife all in the same month. All that remains today is the wife. He really liked the car, but he liked married life more. He was upgrading from a Corolla coupe which was a pretty good car, but getting old.
Up to 1998 when their daughter was born, the bro was tooling around in his DX and the wife was in her Honda Del Sol. After her birth, the bro had to wedge himself into the Del Sol daily (wife refused to give it up and married life led to about a 60 lbs weight gain on him) while she put the car seat into the DX. Then one day about two years later, I was talking to him and he said that she was in an accident and the DX was no more. Our conversation:
Bro: she collided with another car.
Me: whose fault was it?
Bro: Hers.
Me: Let me guess–she was turning left into traffic and hit another car.
Bro (exclaiming): How’d you know that???
Me: Because that’s how you totaled mom’s car in 1979; I figured that you taught her the technique. (Mom’s car was the 1965 Dodge Dart sedan, a car worthy of a COAL).
Bro: (expletive deleted) you, etc. etc.
So Bro being the CPA bro, he said it was time for a minivan and aggressively shopped for one and got a Mazda minivan at his price, which served them for many years and particularly well in interstate driving as well as Kiddo transport; eventually the Kiddo inherited it as her car until late last year when the Bro bought my wife’s surplused 2007 Subaru Impreza for Kiddo to drive. The Bro was still stuck in driving the Del Sol until he like literally outgrew it, and got a used BMW 530i about three years after that.
The bro, much like our dad, isn’t sentimental about his cars.