Civic 1.4

NeverWinter · 4 Mar 2011 at 13:04

Posting for a friend who's getting rid of his 52 plate CTR for financial reasons and wants to stick with Honda.

He's going to look at a 1.4 S reg Civic and I told him that it may be a bad engine for that size of car and a larger engine may be more economical for him... Any input?

ajstan · 4 Mar 2011 at 13:06

He'd be better off with the 1.6 I would have thought

lordrobs · 4 Mar 2011 at 13:16

I test drove a 98 1.4 Civic and it wasn't too bad. No flying machine by any standards but better than the 1.4 306 I ended up buying in terms of performance.

Clarkey · 4 Mar 2011 at 13:41

Dog slow compared with a CTR thats for sure, is a VTi too much expense?

NeverWinter · 4 Mar 2011 at 14:04

For now I don't think he's worried about speed more reliability and economy at least until his finances are sorted. But I think he'd be better with a bigger engine for economy

Clarkey · 4 Mar 2011 at 14:10

Bigger engine for better economy, how did you figure that one?

loltim · 4 Mar 2011 at 14:12

ajstan said:
He'd be better off with the 1.6 I would have thought

No the 1.4 would be more economical.

wingnuttzz · 4 Mar 2011 at 14:26

Other than you'd have to drive the **** of it to get it to move...

ajstan · 4 Mar 2011 at 14:35

Tim said:
No the 1.4 would be more economical.

This isn't the only criteria to choose an engine on.

And anyway, chances are because the 1.4 would have to be worked harder, it would achieve similar MPG in the real world to the 1.6.

NeverWinter · 4 Mar 2011 at 14:38

ajstan said:
And anyway, chances are because the 1.4 would have to be worked harder, it would achieve similar MPG in the real world to the 1.6.

This was my thinking.

In a smaller car (mini sized) I would definitely say 1.4 is easily more economical than a bigger engine. But this is why I'm asking on here.

fullmetaltony · 4 Mar 2011 at 14:52

I had an R plate 1.4 civic, but it was the Aerodeck and automatic, so probably unrealistic representation of what the engine's really like.

Gutless, would be my opinion of it. Worst fuel economy of any car I've had since the Rover Sterling too, and that had a V6 2.5L petrol engine, at least that took off when you needed it to.

merlin · 4 Mar 2011 at 15:03

The 1.4 is rather feeble, but it doesn't make the car dangerously slow.

1.6 is 106bhp (from memory) and goes well.

loltim · 4 Mar 2011 at 15:04

merlin said:
The 1.4 is rather feeble, but it doesn't make the car dangerously slow.

1.6 is 106bhp (from memory) and goes well.

depends which one I guess, you can get the 1.6 B16A vtec, 158bhp.

merlin · 4 Mar 2011 at 15:08

Tim said:
depends which one I guess, you can get the 1.6 B16A vtec, 158bhp.

Good point.

I'm talking of the vanilla units in the EP3.

Peerzy · 4 Mar 2011 at 15:10

Clarkey said:
Bigger engine for better economy, how did you figure that one?

What would be more economical, a 7 Series with a 1.6 litre 100bhp~ petrol engine or a 7 Series with a 3 litre 230bhp~ petrol engine in it?

Generally speaking.

loltim · 4 Mar 2011 at 15:12

merlin said:
Good point.

I'm talking of the vanilla units in the EP3.

Aye OP is on about an S reg, and I think you mean EP2

NeverWinter · 4 Mar 2011 at 15:16

Peerzy said:
What would be more economical, a 7 Series with a 1.6 litre 100bhp~ petrol engine or a 7 Series with a 3 litre 230bhp~ petrol engine in it?

Generally speaking.

But does this hold true to the Civic engines?

Peerzy · 4 Mar 2011 at 15:30

Who knows, can't say I've tested the two Civic engines.

The post I quoted picked up on the simple statement of 'bigger engines can never be more economical' which might not always be true.

NeverWinter · 4 Mar 2011 at 15:32

Peerzy said:
Who knows, can't say I've tested the two Civic engines.

The post I quoted picked up on the simple statement of 'bigger engines can never be more economical' which might not always be true.

Oh yeah, I understand that. I'm just trying to find out to stop a friend from buying an 'economical' 1.4 engine with a lack of power when he could get a 1.6+ with similar real world economy and a bit more power when needed.

dannycivic02 · 4 Mar 2011 at 16:41

A 1.6 civic of that kind of year screams non economical even more so if it is VTEC 1 with fuel and 2 with road tax cars of that age group are in the higher tax bracket which comes in at around £112 for 6 months iirc.

The 1.4 has no grunt as people have said feeble my advice for your friend is to go for the 1.5 EK3 115bhp which has economy VTEC and returns about 47 to the gallon as opposed to the 1.4s 39mpg.