• The move to the new server is done. There are some software and database maintenance updates in process. This has us passing the hat around to help out. We appreciate any donations. Seriously, even a dollar helps. The payment page may be found here - https://www.audiokarma.org/support.html

looking for reasonable reliable car

Actually, thats NOT the reason in our case. Assume NOTHING, thank you very much.
We bought the car at 34k and I get regular oil changes.
The factory clutch made it to 135k miles - since I'm gentle with a stick ...

Our 2004 CR-V 5sp had repeated problems with the V-Tec Oil valve, whatever that is.
It had failed a year earlier, dealer replaced it (with a refurb? new? I have no idea) .
Then it had failed a year and 2 days later and they fixed it again. (roughly 150k)
That weekend we took a 240 mile trip and we heard a faint rattle maybe 5 miles from home.
I limped it home from there and the CR-V died 1 mile from our house and would not restart.
Had it towed to the dealer and they claimed timing CHAIN (my typo) had failed/jumped a cog and since its an interference engine, they said engine was dead. They said it needs new engine and its too old to be worth doing - so I bought a used car elsewhere ...
Did they lie? Was it REALLY dead? I'll never know - I have to presume some trust even tho I had suspicions.
Emma loaned me her car for a few days (2000 Civic SI I had bought new) and I needed a car quickly.

But -
in the past I swapped a chrysler automatic into a 67 charger TWICE (the first one turned out to be a bad junkyard pull, so I got to do it again)
I dropped a 1967 Alfa Romeo Engine (1600 dual webers) and trans into a 63 Giulia body - ran great ...
Converted an early Pinto Wagon MT to an Automatic when my partner at the time proved to be unable to shift and chew gum at the same time.
Got a barn fresh 1970 Triumph trophy 500 basket case back in full running shape ...
FWIW, I was Service manager of Rockville Kawasaki circa 1976, tho I found I preferred bikes and sportscars as a hobby and not my livelyhood.

I actually do know HOW to change oil but prefer to pay a wrench to do it for me ...
at 62 years old with a sciatic nerve issue,
I frankly don't need to crawl under my cars anymore to prove anything to anyone.



savatage1973 said:
Only takes one statement--"lack of routine maintenance"--that's it, PERIOD. I know people that buy new cars, and basically only know how to start it, where to put in fuel, how to use the telenav and infotainment system, and what 800 roadside assistance number to call if it stops working. If it weren't for the dealer sending out "friendly reminder" cards for regular service (or maybe time to look at a new one), they would drive it til it drops, and then go ahead and buy a new one (wash, rinse, repeat). I have a friend that is a mechanic for a Honda dealership--he always has a CR-V of some sort--they get them in on trade with 200-300K and he buys them for a couple hundred bucks, drives them for a year or two and sells them (or scraps them) for what he paid for them.
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:

I noticed and edited my post.

Seems to indicate that microcars aren't as safe. Fair enough. But plenty of midsize cars can be much more reasonable alternatives to Crown Vic's and Caprices. Camrys, Accords, Altimas, Fusions, Taurus, etc should still be higher up on the list then those.

Have to admit, Crown Vic's could be neat. Get a police interceptor, or swap in the rear diff from one, and the joining could be great.
 
Mass and design can certainly be in your favor in some similar sized cars as I just happened to see in news reports
about 3 years ago within several months where 2 Audi A4 quattro's were involved in head on collisions in the US with similar
sized Asian/domestic (1st gen Ford Fusion which was Mazda based) cars which are for sure lighter and the sad results were
everyone died in the Ford's and those in the Audi's happily weren't hurt much.

I was in a bad accident with a full sized 79 Chev 4X4 short box pickup many years ago sliding on ice at 50 MPH and rolling down a steep 20 ft + cliff of huge boulders which extensively damage the truck , but not me. I think mass and size saved me. The headache rack also prevented the roof from collapsing. It was early in the morning and was tired from working late and forgot to slow down for that slippery spot as I had just brought the truck out for the winter and realized the front shocks were soft and intended to change them in the coming weekend.

I suspected the shocks were the cause as nobody else had to slow down in that spot and a study by Volvo Trucks years later warned against bad shocks on solid axles as being really bad on ice. In my experience driving different trucks I also found Twin I-Beam front ends (on older Ford trucks from the 90's and still used on the Super Duty 2WD are also really bad on ice if anything is worn out on them.
 
Happily reinforced door pillars and side curtain airbag saved my son from his carelessness when being T-boned in this one. Didn't do the car much good. new cars are designed to sacrifice themselves for the drivers. It tends to make them disposable after any kind of serious impact. Air bag deployment adds something like 3 gs before the adjuster starts figuring out damage.
 
nj pheonix said:
Happily reinforced door pillars and side curtain airbag saved my son from his carelessness when being T-boned in this one. Didn't do the car much good. new cars are designed to sacrifice themselves for the drivers. It tends to make them disposable after any kind of serious impact. Air bag deployment adds something like 3 gs before the adjuster starts figuring out damage.
Click to expand...

Happy to hear that your son is OK. I'm betting car safety is more than a selling point. As far as both the manufacturers and insurance industry goes, a totaled car is peanuts compared to medical bills and potential lawsuits. Even a leg fracture could end up costing more than a 2 year old Honda.
 
savatage1973 said:
Only takes one statement--"lack of routine maintenance"--that's it, PERIOD. I know people that buy new cars, and basically only know how to start it, where to put in fuel, how to use the telenav and infotainment system, and what 800 roadside assistance number to call if it stops working.
Click to expand...
Oh, don't we know it! I even wonder if some of the more clueless owners even know what those "maintenance minder" messages on the car are for.

One issue also is that some who get maintenance done at quick lube shops are at the mercy of who is working there, many who don't know the proper procedures for many of these cars. I've read of a few of the CVTs from the Civic Hybrid destroyed because the lube shop either topped it off or worse, flushed out the entire trans and put in standard auto trans fluid. Even in the regular auto trans, using only the Honda fluid is recommended, and only a three-quart drain and fill. No "flushing" whatsoever--there's even a technical service bulletin that was issued many years ago clarifying the practice. Yet these shops will read us their doomsday script about how our car is going to die an early death if we don't do it their way. The fluid might be a few bucks more, but since I've gotten nearly 287k out of this trans so far, it's cheaper than replacing a transmission! And it's about the simplest maintenance a person can do on the car--there's not even a filter to change.

On a (now dead) forum I used to hang out at, a few of the members had bought dirt cheap CR-Vs that had flaky auto transmissions, and often would bring them back to life with the OEM recommended triple drain and fill. Like you say, it was that lack of routine maintenance that could have destroyed those transmissions!
 
hjames said:
Had it towed to the dealer and they claimed timing belt had failed/jumped a cog and since its an interference engine, they said engine was dead. They said it needs new engine and its too old to be worth doing - so I bought a used car elsewhere ...
Did they lie? Was it REALLY dead? I'll never know - I have to presume some trust even tho I had suspicions.
Click to expand...

It's a crap shoot. I've heard a few lucky individuals have replaced the timing belt and had the engine work fine afterward. Some can get away with replacing the cylinder head, which is not that expensive, if only a few valves are bent. But if a valve has somehow damaged a piston or scored the cylinder wall, then it is all done. And the only way to find this out is to pull the head and inspect it.

The stealerships always take an easy way out, and assume the worst. They'll assume an entire transmission needs to be replaced, when it might only be one of the solenoids that went bad, a faulty torque converter, or it could be it just needed a good 3x drain-and-fill to purge the old fluid.

Now that I think of it, the dealer was lying. The 2nd gen CR-V uses a timing chain, not a timing belt. K24A engine, i-VTEC, correct? And it's very, very rare a timing chain is going to fail or jump time. I'd be suspect of any shop that did not know a car had a timing chain vs. a timing belt.

I had a timing belt break on me--I had an '88 Accord parked for a few years (starting/driving it only occasionally) after we bought this '97 CR-V. My daily driver was a '92 Civic. In June of 2000, my ex got rear-ended at high speed in the Civic and I had to start driving the '88 again. I only got a few months use out of it when the belt failed; there was an oil leak, and the portion of the belt where the cogs stripped out was dampened from the oil. This happened in early 2001. I bought a used cylinder head, new belt, etc. but was so busy with life that I never had time to fix it. Then I only just found out two years ago that this particular engine was not an interference design--I could have aligned the timing marks, slapped the belt on and driven it again! Still pissed about it.
 
My Bad, our 1990 and 200 Civic Si had timing belt, (replaced them at 80k) my 2012 Fit has a belt, but the CRV of course had a timing chain.
I was thinking chain and typed Belt - but - there is no tooth to jump, no cog with a belt ...
Don't know if the dealer lied about valves meeting pistons and having a party, but that is the issue with the interference engine design.
That CRV 2.4 liter 4cyl had a ton of power ... but its gone and there's no value second-guessing if it really blew-up or if I got cheated ...


Wildcat said:
Now that I think of it, the dealer was lying. The 2nd gen CR-V uses a timing chain, not a timing belt. K24A engine, i-VTEC, correct? And it's very, very rare a timing chain is going to fail or jump time. I'd be suspect of any shop that did not know a car had a timing chain vs. a timing belt.

I had a timing belt break on me--I had an '88 Accord parked for a few years (starting/driving it only occasionally) after we bought this '97 CR-V. My daily driver was a '92 Civic. In June of 2000, my ex got rear-ended at high speed in the Civic and I had to start driving the '88 again. I only got a few months use out of it when the belt failed; there was an oil leak, and the portion of the belt where the cogs stripped out was dampened from the oil. This happened in early 2001. I bought a used cylinder head, new belt, etc. but was so busy with life that I never had time to fix it. Then I only just found out two years ago that this particular engine was not an interference design--I could have aligned the timing marks, slapped the belt on and driven it again! Still pissed about it.
Click to expand...
 
Interesting. My '05 CRV has been super reliable, would recommend it to anyone. I just finally got tired of it, and moved on a month ago to a Subie Forester, for its outstanding safety features, reliability, best AWD system in the industry and the fact that it hasn't gone all swoopy, still looks like an SUV. The Eyesight system, with adaptive cruise control, is fantastic.

The CRV will run for another 100K miles, so giving it to my starving-artist sister.
 
hjames said:
That CRV 2.4 liter 4cyl had a ton of power ... but its gone and there's no value second-guessing if it really blew-up or if I got cheated ...
Click to expand...
Yeah, that's a bummer. A second opinion is kind of hard when the car needs to be hauled somewhere to be tested. Those K series engines are as beefy (if not more so) as the B series my CR-V has. At the very least I'd have tested the compression on the cylinders, if not pulled the head. But shops doing a quick diagnosis are not likely to put that much labor into it. Worse, the dealership would probably recommend a new engine, when it's far cheaper to get a JDM engine and have it installed (dealers won't do anything outside the "official" channels). I'm lucky that I have a neighbor who is the service manager at an auto repair shop, so I have a backup plan if I need it.

The Civic Si is pretty cool though. ;) Not at all practical for my needs and my kidlet can't drive a manual yet, but I really like those '03-'05 Si models. The Acura RSX of that era is another favorite. It's just hard to find one that hasn't been molested by ricer kiddiez.

chicks said:
Interesting. My '05 CRV has been super reliable, would recommend it to anyone. I just finally got tired of it ...
Click to expand...

I know "tired." I'm 19 years on the same set of wheels. :D Very dependable though. I need to move up, though, so I've been leaning towards the Pilot or MDX, largely to get the towing capacity. It just depends on how the work situation pans out.
 
savatage1973 said:
--if you remember that ad campaign.
Click to expand...

My fathers,Oldsmobile weighed 4500 lbs and had a 455

On the training. I don't think it has to do with training
Don't kid yourself
We had people that drove like crap then too.
There are more distractions now for adults as well as kids ( driving age)
Like I said before. Accident son is banned from driving by me now and I suspect they'll suspend his license. He's going into the Marines. When he gets out in several years I'll give him another chance
 
Last edited:
When I was of age to get a driver's license, my parents gave me a reasonable donation toward the purchase of any used car of my choice (within reason), and insurance and gas were ALL on me from that point--"hey, boy, you gotta job, so have at it". I was on their insurance for a matter of months, and drove their cars for a matter of months--it was all on me after that (unless they deemed it too dangerous for a 16 yr old to be in a Trans Am in a snowstorm)--then I took mom's car. I just don't get where kids these days expect access to their parents' cars or to be given a car upon completion of high school--but that is whole other debate.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom