Review of Civic VX Hatchback

[GasSavers_Ryland]

For the most part I'm compleatly happy with my car, it's the 3rd hatch back I've owned, my first was a 1984 civic dx, the 2nd was a 1985 CRX-HF, both awsome cars as well, so when I was looking for something that I could fit 4 adults in comfertably, and use for work (carpentry), I knew that a hatch back would fill all my needs, I'm around 6 feet tall, and have 2+ inches of extra head room in the front, and 1+ extra sitting in the back, and have had friends who are 6' 4" fit in the front without issue, and with more front leg room the other cars of simaler size.
I do almost all my own mecanical work, and it seems like all the important things that get checked, or replaced regularly are easy to get to, even the timing belt/water pump (every 100,000 miles) altho the engine mount has to be removed to getthe timing belt off, but even that is reasonably easy to do.
The only thing I am not overly impressed with is the short life on the drivers seat, the cloth on them wears out rather quickly, it can also be hard to find one of these cars as they are popular with amiture racers who tend to abuse them, and do their best to make them drive as rough as possible.
For all practical reasons, I plan to keep this car untill it becomes unfit to drive, and could only see giving it up to replace it with something more efficent like an Insight.

[Hockey4mnhs]

Looks like its in real good shape Nice car

[GasSavers_roadrunner]

That is a nice Honda Civic VX. I use to own a 4 speed 1991 Civic DX, which I sold years ago with 55,000 miles, in mint condition. My question is this, why doesn't Honda make a Civic like your hatchback? The new Civics have gotten a bit large IMO.

[thisisntjared]

Originally Posted by roadrunner

My question is this, why doesn't Honda make a Civic like your hatchback? The new Civics have gotten a bit large IMO.

yea i want a new civic that weighs less than 2500lbs... i guess all that is left is the fit, which has about the same sized engine as the early 90s civics... weird.

[GasSavers_TomO]

I'd just like to add to this review being a VX owner myself.
The VX holds up to all of my expectations for all Hondas. Most maintenance items are easy to get to. And yes, the OEM drivers' seat does tend to rip after much usage. My solution for this was to swap in OEM Del Sol seats. They are more rugged if you get the 92-93 ones. You only need to swap the seat rails in order to get them to fit into the Civic.

SVOboy and I are going to collaborate on a website dedicated to the VX and some other info that relates to the 92-95 Civic hatchbacks. So I'd like to use the info in this post to add to the site once it's up and running if I may.

[GasSavers_Jack]

As a fellow VX owner I would just like to toss in my 2 cents.

First I will start with the bad. I hate not having a tilt steering column. It is a bit tricky to get my legs under the wheel easily. My second complaint is what I would call a design flaw of the rear hatch. If you pop the release then shut the drivers door with all of the windows up it causes the rear window to lift a bit and relock when it comes back down.

Other than that I have nothing but great things to say about the VX. The seats are not the best but slap on some seat covers don?t worry about them. Best thing about it is it is a Honda. 200,000 miles it just a start. Most things are easy to work on and parts are easy to find and normally very reasonably priced.

On the scale of 1 to 10 overall I would give the VX a 9.

[GasSavers_Ryland]

I sort of forgot about rust, so far I haven't seen any with rust in vital areas like jack points, or suspension mounts, but like Tomo, my hatch came with some ugly rust around the rear wheels, there are simply a few areas that catch sand and salt and give very noticable annoying rust, that if it gets to bad it can seperate body panals, and let gravle fly up and hit the inside plastic body panals, it's rather annoying, the best sulution to this is to discurage people from living places that get snow and use salt on the roads, otherwise check the car for rust, and do your best to stop it, or at least slow it down.
the seals on my hatch struts are starting to wear out, so they are loosing all their dampening oil, so I just started to get that hatch bounce issue as well, the parts are avalible to fix it, it's just a matter of money.

[CharlieFoxtrot]

Hey, hope you don't mind me resurrecting this thread.

I'm looking at a 93 VX for my kid. It's the same color as yours, a rust-free FL car with 103K mi. Everything works (including cold AC). Runs & drives good. Body has more than average dings - not door dings, but maybe teens sitting on the car, or careless handling of items in the garage, or something... Good interior. Tires are close to wear bars.

Has Ebay stainless exhaust system meant for a coupe, with adaptations made by muffler shop locally. Exhaust looks good and isn't too loud. Also Ebay air intake.

Has new distributor and wires installed by the current owner, but he has no records of previous owner's maintenance, so we'll assume a timing belt is needed.

Asking price is $2600, and seems pretty firm. Does this sound reasonable?

I searched AutoTrader and Ebay for VX price comparisons, but only found one stock VX for sale. It was ~$5400!!!

thanks
kevin

[ben98gs]

If it is a rust free car, that does not sound that bad at all... A PDR place might be able to pop out most of the dings pretty easily.

I would see if you might be able to bargain him down just a bit because of the tires needing replaced, but Still $2,600 seems like a pretty good price.

[theholycow]

$2,600 for a 17 year old car with worn-out tires, lots of dings, some ricey modifications, and an unknown history? That doesn't seem like a great idea, and I'm not sure a 2000 pound car with 17 year old safety technology is a great idea for a teen's first car until he gets used to dodging 5000 pound SUVs.

Extremely good fuel economy is not the most important priority in a first car.