Would a high-mileage Honda Civic still be reliable enough?

chssvl

We've been without a car for about two years now as we rarely used the car - about 2.5k miles a year, of which 1.5k were a single, long trip. However, we may need to buy one again and we're looking around. The key criteria are that it is cheap-ish (£10k at most - or thereabouts), (ideally) Japanese, automatic and, most importantly, that it is reliable.

I've been thinking about something like a 2016-2017 Honda Civic MK9 (last ones made of this series). It seems to tick all boxes and seems to have a reputation for reliability. Having said that, there are some particularly cheap ones with quite a high mileage (100+k miles). 

As we do so few miles, the high mileage doesn't bother us a lot per se (not like we need something that will do another 100k miles), but I guess the question is whether it will still be reliable having covered that many miles. Of course we would look for one with full service history and few previous owners.

prowla

Some old cars go on for ages, if you keep up their maintenance.

However, I don't think anybody can say whether a particular one is guaranteed to have no issues.

chrisw

A friend has one and is always complaining about the cost of parts, but that might just be him! Could we worth checking out though.

Alanp

I suppose all you can do is check the maintenance history and the general condition of the car you are interested in, there’s still no guarantee of reliability though..

fatbelly

Generally ok. If you do a lot of short trips, avoid the diesel. A 1.4 petrol should do you nicely

For 10k, I don't think it need be a high mileage car

sheslookinhot

I have had  a Civic Mk8 Type R for 12 years. Only repair was replacing a rear calliper and a drop link. Very reliable. 

cymruchris

There’ll be horror stories of people spending thousands on them to keep them going - and positive reviews of people that have done nothing more than change the oil once a year. 

It’ll be the same for all used cars. 

On the balance of probability I’d say you’d have less trouble with a Honda civic than you would with a Citroen or a Peugeot or a Vauxhall or a Ford etc.

Nobody can guarantee that though. You might still buy a lemon. 

If you find one with decent history that doesn’t show up on any ‘car check history’ platform
as being written off etc. then it’ll probably be worth a chance.

Even new cars go wrong. I’d be happier with a Civic than lots of other options. 

chssvl

Thanks for the replies. We had a 2012 Ford Focus with the powershift gearbox, which was absolutely fine for seven years - until it wasn't and the gearbox issues eventually hit. For a car that does so little mileage is overkill to spend too much repairing it, but also overkill to spend a lit actually buying it! Hence why I was thinking about the Civic given its reputation

Goudy

I think from around 2017 Honda started fitting a 1.0 litre turbo engine and this has a wet timing belt, though I think this was fitted to the 10th gen model.

Along with other manufacturers that fit wet belts, there have been reports of this one going the same way.
The belt starts to break up and clog the oil ways which ruins the engine.

The 9th gen is pretty reliable but quality appeared to take a bit of a dive from the 8th gen.

They do have a few foibles and one or two problems.

Clutches can be weak and gearboxes have been know to grind and crunch in between 2nd and 3rd gears (weak syncro).

Petrol's can start to sound rough at cold start up. A dreaded rattling sound caused by low oil pressure when the car is cold. It utilises oil pressure for the Vtec system and it can take time to get oil up to the top of the engine.
Any rattle should fairly muted and stop very soon after cold start.
You need to be there at it's first start up when it's stone cold to check, if it's noisy warmed up, walk away.

Some have been noted to use a fair bit of oil as well, Honda gave some pretty high figures for "normal" oil consumption.

Electrical maladies are common.
They have a relatively small battery with it's charging controlled by rather poor software, but have some power hungry electrical devices like electric power steering.
An older or low battery can cause all sorts of electrical issues.

The build quality, particularly inside can be a bit low. Trim tends to look well worn before it's time, dashes and trim can rattle and heater blowers seem to fail fairly often, make sure you try the heater fan on all speeds. 

Even the most reliable brand/ models tend to wear their parts out and will require replacement at some point.
At this sort of age you need to carefully check it's history. and how it drives.

A 100k car that's had plenty of care and replacements parts would be a better bet than a 70k car that hasn't.