Accord 2.4 VTec type S

Didn't buy the car. Guy was great and he let me have a fantastic test drive, we were out for well over an hour and he was perfectly fine letting me do some spirited driving.

Stunning drive but the clutch was biting very close to the floor and was difficult to use around town. I even stalled the car trying to get away from a junction, can't remember the last time I did that in a car. The other ST's I've driven had the clutch biting in the middle so this made me a little nervous as it's a £1000 job to replace properly. Apart from that it was great and had new discs and pads all round with fairly new tyres. Though one of the alloys was totally rotten and the others had obvious signs of corrosion so looking at getting them refurbed or new ones as they did ruin the look somewhat.

Performance blue paint looks great on these, this had quite a few scratches but nothing that wouldn't polish out apart from one nasty scratch on the back bumper. One part I couldn't get on with was the bonnet, it didn't sit flush with the wings, it was sitting proud by about 5mm at the front on both sides. Now Ford had a problem getting the bonnet open and had to replace all the fornt grill getting it open... a job that cost him £300 alone! The car hadn't been bumped but I think something wasn't setup right.

Other things made me think is I've read the rear bushes on the back WILL need replacing after 60k miles. This was at 59k and hadn't had them done yet, so another £280 job might need doing quite soon - though I didn't hear any evidence of this on the drive. Also tax and Mot both run out in Sept and also 12 month service due in Sept aswell. So all in all I was looking at maybe needing to spend quite a bit of money on it with in the first 3 months of ownership.

Had it not been for the clutch I prob would have bought it for the right money but decided to leave it and ask a mate of mine, who's now a Mercedes mechanic and overall car enthusiast to take a look first.
 
Interesting write-up. They are a great drive. I guess he wouldn't shift enough on price to settle your concerns about the clutch?

That panel gap issue sounds an odd one too.

Have you driven the honda or BMW330 yet or are they off the list now?
 
Well I finally bought a car last week after test driving a few cars.

Ended up with a Silver Honda Civic EX 1.8 V-Tec, 2007 with 42k on the clock. Great little car, suprisingly big inside and is very good on the petrol around town, happy with it so far :)
 
how the hell have you gone from looking for a accord 2.4 type s, st220, BMW 330.

and end up in some civic
 
I really looked into what we'd be using the car for, running costs, reliability and how much I'd use it compared to the wife.

Most of the cars life will be school runs, shopping runs and the occasional days out. Short town trips wouldn't suit a car like an ST220 at all. Also I didn't fancy the thought of trying so hard to find a mint example just for it to get wrecked as the family work horse. Paint gets scratched as prams and car chairs, etc are moved about the car, alloys get kerbed by her indoors - we had 18" RS4 alloys on the Golf, she's wrecked them and it's annoying when washing the car keep noticing these things :(

Also there's nothing wrong with the Civic, it's a good car.
 
Short town trips wouldn't suit a car like an ST220 at all.

Why not? Half my usage is very short town trips and my 530i isnt a world away in concept from an ST220. It's ideally suited to it - it's comfortable, a nice place to be, fitted with parking sensors to make parking a breeze and the fuel economy side of things simply doesnt matter on a short trip because you don't use much fuel doing short trips anyway.
 
The 1.8 V-Tec is even more ideally suited to the job than a 3.0 V6.

In what way?

The Civic is a nice place to be, it's far nicer than the inside of a Mondeo!

Not really, it's a sea of cheap and nasty plastic, the Mondeo isn't exactly loads better but it's hardly fair to say its 'far nicer'. It's just full of gimmicks which, in 2005, were trying too hard to be futuristic.

I dont dislike the Civic as such but it seems like a massive step down from where you were looking.
 
[TW]Fox;16920130 said:
...and the fuel economy side of things simply doesnt matter on a short trip because you don't use much fuel doing short trips anyway.
Well it depends how many short trips you do, doesn't it?
If most of your driving is short trips then the fuel bills quickly add up!
 
[TW]Fox;16920570 said:
It's quite a tall order to do 20k a year made up entirely of short trips around town!
Who said anything about 20k? :confused:

Regardless of the annual mileage, the Civic will still consume about 50% less than an ST220 around town. I make that a 50% saving whether it be 1,000 miles or 100,000 miles.

Either way, the Civic clearly makes more sense than a performance car for the OP.
 
[TW]Fox;16920651 said:
You think a 1.8 Civic will crack 40mpg around town!?
edit- über maths fail.

Make that 40% :p

Low 20s in the ST220 v mid-low 30s in the Civic
 
Last edited:
My 1.7 VTEC POS does low 30's around town

For the requirements the car fits the bill, a 6 cylinder large capacity engine will obviously consume more fuel around town, if that doesnt bother you then thats fine because I also see it as a good excuse to have a larger engined car but if it does bother and you want better economy then obviously its better to have a smaller engined petrol engine

Theres an 04 Accord Type-S with 54K in silver near me and I want ittttttttttt :( and I do 12 miles a day on A roads and rarely see a motorway :p
 
Back
Top Bottom