LRL

Hi,

I am new to the forum. I signed up to this forum to learn how to take care of my 2004 Honda Civic, which I got in my recent divorce. It has always been a reliable car needing only maintenance, as far as I can remember. We bought it used several years ago from the original owner. It has around 82K miles.

My first concern is maintenance. I know to check the fluids which I plan to do either this weekend or the next when I have several days off of work. If there are specifics I should know when doing this, please let me know.

I will have lots of other car questions in the future. Being a single women with little car knowledge, which is my fault for not taking the time to learn, my biggest fear is that it will have issues that I cannot spot costing me a great deal of money.

I hope you don't find these questions tedious. While they may be simple to others, this is a whole new world to me.

I am both grateful and fortunate to find this forum.

Lorrie

ezone

Welcome to the forum.

Where would you like to start?
Do you have all the service records on the car? Most? Some? Any?
What has been done to the car already, say in the last 30,000 miles or so?

LRL

I think I can find the former owner's service records. I'll have to look. Prior to the divorce, maintenance was done. Here are the records from my maintenance spreadsheet.

9/15/2013 70,306 smog test 42.00
5/9/2015 79,229 oil change 46.67
7/3/2015 ? replaced front struts
7/3/2015 ? alignment
7/5/2015 ? new tires
10/4/2015 ? driver door handle replaced
10/5/2015 ? auto remote replaced
11/7/2015 81,463 replaced oil/filter and trans fluid (3 qts)

The timing belt was replaced within the last year or so. I'll have to get the date and document that, too.

I hope this helps.

Lorrie

ezone

That's quite a bit just in this year, you might coast a while on just oil changes and little stuff LOL. Fix what wears out or breaks when needed of course.


Have you had your local Honda dealer check for recalls that need to be done? Have you had the airbag recalls done for about the 4th time yet this year? (yes that was serious)


See your owners manual, this stuff should be mentioned in it:
Other fluids....brake fluid replacement is suggested every 3 years

Coolant (antifreeze)-- first drain and fill at 10 years, (unless the water pump was replaced with the timing belt service) then every 5 years thereafter....using Hondas coolant.
If someone did this service using ordinary coolant the service interval is now every 2 years.

Power steering fluid is not mentioned in the owners manual service list, it's up to you if you want to mess with it or not. Very few issues, serviced or not.

Trans (automatic) service, drain and fill with Hondas fluid every 30k. I know that's more frequent than the owners manual says but Honda has had a lousy track record with automatic transmissions and every little bit extra you can do helps.
The personal and family Hondas I take care of get ATF changed with every other oil change...or even more often.

Rotate tires (if possible, sometimes they get too far gone to mess with or mismatched can cause handling problems)....some people do it with every oil change, others do it at every other oil change. Regular intervals of some sort like 5-10k is the usual suggestion. Regular is key here.

I'm sure there is more. I'm burned out right now.


Regular inspection by a competent and observant professional during the basic services (oil change) is suggested, BUT oil changers are usually entry level employees with little experience...and not everyone will have your best interests at heart.
Some people see those inspections as prime time to try to move all money from your wallet to theirs, so be careful.

Check oil and coolant levels at every gas fill up.
Has it had a head gasket job done yet? Checking levels is key to catching this before it's a big problem.



If/when I make service recommendations, I have no problem showing or explaining why.
You should have plenty of Honda specialty garages there...
Find someone you can trust.

LRL

A lot of work was done at the time as a kindness to me before we separated. My former husband did all of the maintenance, having a backing in building race cars.

I'll review what you have suggested and put together a schedule. Thank for all of your advise.

Lorrie