2000 Honda Civic Hatchback SE

Second car! Already been about two months since I’ve bought it, but it still looks exactly the same.

It replaced the Mazda, because the Mazda was beginning to get worse and worse, and I did not have the space to store it somewhere.

It was just too good of a deal to let it pass: this is a 5-speed EJ (EK body shape if you prefer) hatchback, completely stock, with low mileage (about 156 300 km at purchase, or just over 97k miles when bought), with little visible rust, and it has been female-owned since new (only two owners, the last one owning the car since 2002). The best? It was never winter-stored or rust-proofed, and I managed to get it for under $2,000 CAD (under $1,500 USD).

The thing is, for a 6th gen Civic hatch, to still be surviving in good condition in a place where winters are extreme, where salt completely destroys cars, where teenagers have owned and wrecked these in mass: that makes it a bit of a unicorn. And even more with the fact that it’s a manual: most survivors tend to be automatics since they’re owned by older people and since they’re less desirable, so it makes it even more rare over here when most Civics have been send to the scrapyard. I was afraid to see my insurance raise up since it’s an old Civic, but it actually went down by almost 25%. I might be paying somewhere around 33-34$/month of insurance for it, so it’s really cheap.

It’s a Special Edition, which is a Canadian-only trim, only available for MY2000. The SE adds alloy wheels (only 6th gen Civic save the US Si/Canadian SiR to leave the factory with alloys), a CD player (the only hatchback trim to be equipped with a CD player from the factory), a mid-hatch spoiler, body-colored side mouldings, mirrors and door handles. Oh, and it came with a little Special badge.

It’s a North American hatchback, so it only came with one engine: the D16Y7. It’s a very basic engine: 1.6L SOHC non-VTEC inline-four. Numbers? It’s a significant downgrade from my Mazda 3: only 106 hp @ 6,200 rpm, and 103 lb-ft @ 4600 rpm. Even if it doesn’t come with VTEC, it still needs to be revved to make any kind of power, because at low range it doesn’t pull at all. If you’re on a hill, you need to downshift because it’s literally going to slow down and the revs will fall.

The gearing doesn’t help much either: there’s a big hole between 3rd and 4th, and between 2nd and 3rd.

However, it won’t get swapped, even if it cries for more power. At this point, there are probably more swapped hatchbacks than stock hatchbacks, and this one is going to stay stock as much as possible.

Considered upgrades? Pretty much only a set of 15” SiR rims to be able to get a set of “performance” summer tires (stock rim size is 14” and there is literally no performance tire made in that size, even though I could buy a set of 14” RPF-1s), and an anti-swaybar because there’s a lot more bodyroll than in the Mazda. Maybe also a set of stiffer springs and that’s it.

My plans for it, then? It’s going to be my daily, and I’ll try to drive it as little as possible during winter, but I’m pretty sure it’s going to be its last winter as I’ll try to store it next year. I’m going to go the opposite way of Civic owners: rather than customising it, I’ll probably try to begin to restore it. It’s excessively simple to repair and it’s really less complicated than the Mazda, and I managed to find the dealer-issued repair manual for free on archive.org.

Now I’m just looking for an EG hatch or a Saab 9-5 Aero Sportcombi instead lmao, I’m still looking at used cars about as much as before I bought the Civic.