Honda Civic 2.2i Ctdi
After having some fun with the Ibiza, I decided to look for a more modern, better spec car. There are a few cars that tick these boxes but, yet again, I settled on a Honda. I've always liked the interiors of these Civics and lets face it; it's where you spend all your time, so I started looking for a 2.2i Ctdi.
Eventually, I found this top spec model with only 2 previous owners. It had a few minor things that needed fixing so I set about re-painting the wipers (there's a common theme here with Honda wipers aging badly) and re-fixing the undertray.
During the viewing, I noticed that a few front-end components had been taken off and put back on fairly poorly. It all looked original though so I wasn't overly concerned.
When I removed the bumper however, I noticed that it had been in a very light front end bump which had broken various brackets. Some parts had been replaced with other used items from a car the came colour, hence all looking original. Really nothing major, it would have just been nice if it was put back together a bit better.
As the car was in daily use I prioritised fixing the undertray first as it was scraping on speed bumps, the rest could be done at a later date. Lots of U-nuts and nut-serts were used to hold it together with fastenings instead of cable-ties.
The next job was fix the headlights which were very broken! But also pretty expensive to replace, so I tried a few techniques and products to fix them:
Apart from the usual service items, it was largely left alone for a few months until I started noticing the fuel economy starting to drop. One cause of this can be a block up EGR valve, so that was removed and cleaned.
Shortly after that, the air-con starting to cut-out when it got hot...handy. Some research showed that the clutch disc can wear down and Honda sell a shim kit to bring it back in tolerance, so that was fixed as well.
With the car mechanically sorted, I gave it it's first proper clean.
The car had been otherwise faultless until one day, almost out of the blue, I heard what I figured was a wheel bearing noise. It seemed to have gotten really loud almost immediately! so I wanted to sort it pretty quick.
Jacking the car up and checking revealed basically nothing. Considering the noise it was making, I was expecting a wheel to be nearly falling off! Anyway, fairly simple wheel bearing job without a press involving lots of bashing (in the right places). The only thing to note on these cars in the ABS ring is inside the wheel bearing so you need to make sure it's pressed in the correct way around...easier said than done when it looks identical from both sides. The way to check is to use a very light piece of steel (I used a thin wallpaper scraper) and check which side is magnetic, confirming the ABS ring is there.
With that done, I used the car for a few more months before deciding I was a bit bored and fancied something new (to me). It was sold pretty quickly to a pair of gents who didn't even try and negotiate a penny off.
That meant I was back in my trusty Seat Ibiza for the meantime, which I was pretty happy about.