2000 Honda Civic VTi Aerodeck review from UK and Ireland

Nothing as yet.

Prior to owning this car, I had a Honda Accord 2.4 Type S or CL9 version of the Accord, and to be honest it pained me to sell it and buy the vehicle that you are reading about.

In short, the Accord was a great car, totally reliable - the only thing I had to replace in two years of ownership were the 2 front tyres. I can go on about this car, but I won't as I'm writing about my current vehicle; the Civic Aerodeck.

I had low expectations of this car, it looks like an OLD car and probably drove like a trolley. The only things that made me buy it was the engine and 'promised' reliability.

In all honesty, this car has been fabulous and has far exceeded my expectations. The engine is an awesome piece of engineering, nippy enough to 4 thousand rpm, starts singing to 6 thousand rpm, and then growls and goes mental all the way to 8400. Very quick car for what it is, BUT the downsides are the noise gets really tiring on the motorway; I mean at 70mph, the engine is revving at 4 thousand revs in fifth, and also the fuel economy overall is average, but absolute pants if you want to hear it growl. I suppose you can't have it all, and if you like the performance, it's a fair trade off.

The ride is smooth, and it soaks up bumps well. The handling is great at the front as you can really feel the limited slip differential grip, and the great thing is that the more you gun the throttle, the more it sticks. However, the rear of the car just does not want to follow, and to be honest the car does wallow a bit. This can be cured however by installing a rear anti roll bar, as is posted by many owners on forums, and apparently dramatically improves the rear end. I will look into this.

Interior is comfortable (apart from the wind/engine noise on the motorway). I recently drove a 400 mile round trip and suffered no back pain. Also, as this is an estate car, it has a great sized boot.

Overall I'd recommend this car if you have a small family and appreciate fine engineering and performance for a reasonable price. A word of warning though, check out insurance quotes before you buy as this is a group 15 car.