1997 Honda Civic LX Sedan from North America - Comments

Rear brake drums get warped, need resurfacing on the car - twice. O2 sensor replaced - twice. Taillight gaskets go bad, water gets into trunk - every two years. Factory stereo failed at four years.

I have constantly had a love/hate relationship with this car. In our immediate family, we also have a 1992 Toyota Corolla and a VW Jetta. The Honda's appearance is bothersome. Ours is a sedan, which you want to be fairly low-profile. But with the low snout and garishly glittering headlamps, it has a boy-racer look from the front. There are enough chrome accents around the doors, window, and grille to give it a "poor white trash I wish I had a Cadillac" look. So, score down on looks. Good news, though, the low hood means visibility outside is good. That moves us to the cabin, which is good news - exactly what you want in a low-key small economical car. Firm, supportive seats, although not wide enough if you're a Porker American. They fit us fine. Visibility all directions is good. Dashboard is classic Honda - well laid out, made of cheap plastic, but functional.

The driving experience is where I have a love/hate relationship. First off, the controls are a mishmash. The clutch pedal is very light-touch, but the throttle requires a heavy foot. The gear shifter, while pleasantly short-throw and requiring a light touch, is rubbery. The heavy throttle pedal means that you push gently, and nothing happens, then you push a little harder and the engine roars to life, nothing subtle there. The steering wheel seems too large for the rest of the interior and because it's got a built-in airbag, you cannot replace it with a smaller one without violating federal law. The steering has the "right" weight to it, and you expect it to give you great road feel when you get moving - but it doesn't.

The transmission shifts smoothly enough, but the clutch spring is too light, and it takes quite a bit of practice to learn to drive the car without bouncing the clutch.

Driving - once you get moving, the car can cruise steadily and stable. You get decent feedback from the suspension on the road, if none from the steering. Initial turn-in is great, you flick the wheel and the car heads that direction. Too bad there's no engine to back it up.

The worst part about this car is the engine. It roars, and is loud doing so, but has no poop. It'll do 0-20 pretty snappy, but then it's all over. 106 horsepower should be plenty for a 2400 pound car, but our Corolla - with 102 horsepower and 2300 pounds, moves out MUCH more quickly, and so does our Jetta. Also, the Honda engine simply feels sluggish, as if it's got a heavy flywheel. We've driven other 1997s, and this is how they all are; ours is not an exception. Both the Toyota engine and Jetta engine feel far more willing to rev and go. There's also a family member with a recent Focus engine: that is responsive in spades compared to the Civic. The Focus' suspension is also more nimble than the Civic.

In driving the mountains of Colorado, you are constantly struggling to maintain the speed limit without having to downshift to the point where the engine drone drives you batty. This is a LOUD engine when revved up. It's flat-out unsafely slow in some situations.

One would hope that in exchange for the lethargy of the engine, one would be rewarded with super fuel efficiency. Sadly, this is not the case. When I drive the car in my "super efficient" mode, where I lug the engine somewhat, keep the highway speeds down to 50 at most and generally drive just on the edge of being so slow as to impede people, I am able to squeak the car up to 40 miles per gallon. By comparison, the same driving style gets 44 MPG on our Corolla and 42 on the Jetta, both of which are snappier driving cars. Oddly, the high-efficiency driving style may as well be the one of choice, as the sluggish engine doesn't offer much else anyway. Push it hard and you go a little faster, drink more fuel, and tolerate a loud droning noise.

The suspension in the Civic gets good points, though. The steering turn-in is quicker than anything in its class except the Focus. There's good communications from tires to driver, better than even the Focus. The chassis feels as if its at its limit; I would not want to try a suspension upgrade as I'd fear a great deal of chassis flex would occur.

The final overall feel of the car is that it's a well-considered interior sitting on top of a decent suspension, but in sad need of a superior drive train.

Reliability has been quirky. Since my '78 Celica, I've never had to take a Japanese car to the dealer before 100,000 miles. This one has been an exception. For some reason, it LOVES to illuminate the "check engine" light. The owner's manual warns you in stern words to get the car to a dealer pronto when that happens. It's amazing how many of those occasions are nothing at all - the ECU detected a sparkplug misfire (sometimes on new plugs), or the ECU detected a glitch in a sensor that's now working. The dealer resets the light and charges us nothing, but frankly, we'd rather not have to go into the dealer at all! This happens about twice a year. Twice, the light required us to have the O2 sensor replaced, for about $200. Be aware also that Hondas have very dicey water pumps: you MUST replace them at the recommended interval, as the failure mode can damage the entire engine, as the impeller grinds away at the block. Recommended interval for timing belt and water pump is 105,000 miles, and this is a VERY expensive "routine maintenance" job.

The brakes and shocks have been a trouble for us, but not due to outright failure. The brakes get vibrate-y easily and then they need to turn the rear drums on the car. $150 each time. The shocks get soft at only a few years old and then need to be replaced. We've gone to aftermarket shocks, but can't get much more life out of them, except that they are cheaper.

On the whole, it is reliable, if all you care about is that it continues to run and is safe, and you're not fussy about a car that jounces and bounces over bumps and the brake pedal vibrates when you come to a stop, and if you don't mind getting to know your dealer on a first-name basis for free visits.

I would still purchase another Civic. The driving experience is better than the Corolla, mainly because the Corolla is trying to pretend it's a Camry, and therefore the suspension is terrible and it cannot handle. I would be a lot happier if the Civic had the Corolla's smooth engine with responsive power-on demand. The Jetta's suspension would be a nice tick upwards, too, but the Jetta has been far less reliable.

Honda does make a higher-MPG engine, but it goes only in the HX coupe, and we need a sedan. That engine delivers more bottom-end grunt as well as delivering the MPG that you expect in a car this small.

If you want a small car that's reliable, you should look at this car and the Corolla. If you're not fussy about handling, you would do better with the Corolla - it's quieter, gets better economy in real-world driving, has a more responsive engine, and doesn't force you into the dealer as often. But if a car with nimble cornering and some connection to the road is important, you'll probably like the Civic better.

My '97 LX is similar. I've now had all four electric window motors replaced - $350 each!!! Feel good about your fuel economy. I've never gotten past 35 miles per gallon. My old Audi Turbo could get 32 miles per gallon. Even with the 5 spd in the Honda, you give up a LOT of performance for those three miles per gallon. Mine's had a dreadful clutch bounce, as if the clutch spring was failing, since a year old. The dealer calls this "normal".

All told the repairs on my Civic LX have been about the same cost as running the Audi for the same number of years. Used to be you expected a Japanese car to go 100,000 mile before the first thing broke; I have only 90,000 and lots has broken.

The real shock in terms of price is some of the "routine maintenance". There's no reason that a "standard service interval" should be over a couple hundred bucks. The dealer want $775 for the 105,000 mile "major maintenance". I can get a mechanic to do it for $600, but that's egregiously high for a car that's supposed to be economical.

Original poster here, I forget to mention, too, that the car has a lot of torque steer. This means that when you accelerate, the car pulls to the right, and when you downshift to decelerate, the car pulls to the left. All front-drive cars with transverse-mounted engines do this to some extent, but the Civic seems to be worse than most.

You get used to this if you drive it enough, but we also have a small truck, which does not torque steer, so I have to re-learn again every time I change vehicles.

Shortly after writing my original review last week, the windshield wiper motor failed. That'll be $300 more. VERY expensive parts on this car.

This review really sums up the Honda Civic and I believe that the Civic is second only to the Corolla when it comes to small cars.

Well I disagree with your comment "I would not want to try a suspension upgrade as I'd fear a great deal of chassis flex would occur" I havea modified suspension under my lx sedan, and the car is amazing handling. not enough power to keep up with suspension I see. if you open up the exhaust and intake with short ram intake and catback exhaust, the throttle response is amazing nad power is there. andi have owned the car only a year, but I drive hard, and not one problem, 10k on it since I owned it not a problem.

I'd agree on the suspension comments - it's pretty much at its limits now. I did an upgrade on mine, and you can def. feel the chassis flex. If all you've ever driven is Japanese FWD cars, you might not notice, but plunk your butt into a BMW driver's seat, and you will learn very quickly what a rugged chassis feels like.

My VTEC EX had reasonably tight handling after I dropped it 3/4" (and got new camber plates to compensate for the camber change that causes), but you could definitely see the hood moving around a bit under hard cornering, and after about three years, lots of rattles and creaks came about because the frame is really not up to much more than what's stock on it.

Inexpensive cars are all trade-offs...the Civic gives you better OEM handling than the Toy, but if you want the best OEM handling in a smallish car that's 35+ MPG, check out the Mazda 3 - but Mazda reliability is dicey.

One more thing on the Civic - many of them had the catalytic converter fail circa 90,000 miles, a $1200 repair. My dealer offered to pay for it, but I'm told not all dealers do. So it's unclear whether this is extended warranty or not - Honda has never been really good at "coming clean" on some of these things.

At 140,000 miles, mine has now had a few cracked suspension bushings, and if you thought a $700 t-belt/water pump was expensive, wait until you see the ego that Honda builds into the suspension parts costs on the car!

Thank goodness it doesn't often need repair, because Honda parts are VERY expensive - in my experience, about double the similar part on a BMW.

I had my Civic since the day it first came out, and not one problem I with it. The parts that I replaced on my Civic are the distributor and alternator, and those needed to be replaced at a certain amount time. Change them once and that's it. Some people are lucky and some is not.

Anyway, let's cut to chase, is there anyway you can make the chassis stronger, because I think all cars with uni body chassis tend to flex, that's my opinion.