1989 Honda Civic Si review from North America

What was wrong with the car;

The front half shafts are warped, causing serious vibrations at highway speed.

The car is practically rusting away!

Front rotors have small grooves in them even though the pads are fine and have never been run down to the rivets.

Plastic tabs holding the dash up have cracked and some panels shake and vibrate with the roughness of the 4 cylinder engine.

Uses 1 quart of oil ever 800 miles.

The car will unexpectedly quit and not re-start until one waits for several minutes.

Compared to my other cars, this one is a real disappointment; especially considering all the hype the 'car testers' and media pump out about Honda having such reliable, quality cars.

The way this car has rusted is unreal. Even though it got washed on a regular basis there were several rust holes right through the sheet metal and rust bubbles the size of a silver dollar up the sides of both doors. When we got the body work done to repair the rust and repaint the car some of the serious Honda design short comings were unveiled to us. The rust holes at the back wheels were caused by some foam between the double paneling that Honda installs from the factory. It holds water and rusts the car from the inside out. The large fist size holes at the back of the rocker panels were another blunder of Honda's design since they created an area that would trap water and mud thus rusting out the inner fender and later the rocker panels.

Doing oil changes on this car is hell. The filter is located at the side (back) of the engine up against the fire wall and the only way to get at it is from the bottom. Unfortunately Honda, in their infinite wisdom, ran the exhaust right near where one has to reach up to access the filter. Thus if the car has just been run it is practically impossible to get the filter off without burning your arm on the exhaust pipe. After you do get the filter off it is impossible to stop the oil from running down the side of the engine block and then dripping the on the exhaust pipe making a bad stink. Out of the many types of cars I have changed oil on this one is by far the worst.

The quitting problem is one that nobody could solve. After taking the car to several different Honda dealers to trouble shoot the problem, nobody could find out what it was. One time, while it was making us late for an appointment, I eventually discovered that the car had no spark. However after waiting 10 minutes it started fine. It was likely a problem in the spark portion of the engine computer which is an expensive unit to replace.

Highway fuel economy was OK for a small car. We would get between 30 - 33 mpg. However, I have a 5.9l V8 Jeep Cherokee that gets between 22 to 25 mpg and that's a large vehicle with 3 times the engine size so I would have expected a bit better from such a small engine and small car.

On long trips the seats became very uncomfortable. If the drive lasted more than 1 hour my back would be just killing me.

This car does use oil; about a quart every 800 miles. For such a small engine that is a lot of oil. Again my Jeep is 20 years old, with more miles on the clock, has an engine 3 times the size and it only uses a quart every 1800 miles.

While it sure is no muscle or sports car, this Honda did have decent acceleration for a 4 cylinder car and the cornering was pretty fair.

When I consider the short comings of this car (especially the rust) and compare it to a few other vehicles I drive that are almost twice its age I have to shake my head. How do all the auto testers come up with all this tripe about 'Honda Quality Engineering'? As a materials engineer, I have to say that the fellow that designed the body of that car could not have been paying much attention when he took his undergraduate course in corrosion control. Needless to say, based on what I observed and experienced, I will likely never own a Honda again.