civic diesel

[Boney]

Owdo

anybody out there got or driven a new honda civic diesel, thinking of getting one as the runabout to work and back and was wondering if any one has an opinion of them as looking for a cheap new diesel

Boney

[WEMORGAN]

Which generation?

[Boney]

owdo

thinking of a new one so latest model

Boney

[SteveH]

They are just launching the latest one now I think so may be some discounts on the outgoing version.

[WEMORGAN]

The 2.2 diesel is a decent engine being quite smooth across the rev range. The balance of economy and performance is quite impressive I think. Though a friend with the same engine in the Accord found the economy never matched the claimed figures, but isn't that true for so many cars these days, I also think he had a heavier than average right foot. Manifolds are known to crack on those engines, but Honda seem to be quite good with replacements. I imagine they've resolved this issue by now for the latest production cars.

[Young Pretender]

2.2 is a good engine that can see very decent power once tweaked - if that's your thing.

The paintwork is really soft. Impossible to keep it free of swirls so will always need some tlc in this area.

[ljsanders]

I've got a EX (all the toys inc. sat nav ) had it for 4 years now and its not let me down, but I've had the following problems:

- Handbrake failure, caused 5k's worth of boot damage. The accident happened around the time of the honda recall. Make sure its got the recall mod'd handbrake. Honda gave me 300 quid good will gesture as a result of the accident.

- Exhaust manifold cracked. Honda fixed this FOC even one year after warranty expired.

- Clutch slip from 60k miles. Honda refused to fix this under warranty. Its now done 115k miles and slowly getting worse but I'm not that bothered. I'll keep going until it breaks.

- Paint damage along the top of the windscreen. Fixed under recall with the mod applied to the top of the wind-screen to stop this happening.

- Rear discs and pads seem to wear as quick as the fronts! Honda say this is normal as they use all 4 brakes evenly. So I've been replacing all 4 corner pads+discs at around 38k mile intervals at mostly motorway mile-age which seems excessive to me.

- Engine management light came on, turned out to be low coolant sensor in the expansion tank. Replace expansion tank.

All of these are common problems on these.

Otherwise a good torque-y engine, although the build quality is a bit tinny.

It does use a bit of oil. So I advise to check regularly. I use approximately 1litre of oil (0w-30) per 10k miles.

I get around 45mpg (my calculation not the over optimistic gauge on the dash) on long motorway journey's at a steady 70mph. If you boot it, the mpg does drop to around 40mpg, but I've never had any worse than that.