Rep Power: 360

I haven't been on the forums for awhile now, but I was just sitting here thinking about this awesome community and how much fun I've had over the years and how helpful people were here when I needed them (check my join date).

I loved my 2001 Civic LX. It was my first brand new car at 17 years old and for close to 20 years this thing has been with me through it all. Some of the best days of my life and some of the worst, this car was part of it all. So many miles, so many stories.

It was time to let her go, with the stack of repairs mounting and the sad realization that I'm not a 20-something anymore, she would never be the same, I had to put her up for sale. She was quickly scooped up by a person for fair cash price for a young guy to get back and forth to school and work. I hope she treats him well and he enjoys her as much as I did.

With this sale ends my Civic ownership. I hope to keep popping in from time to time to reminisce. The new ride is an Audi A4, similar in size, and happily has rekindled that old feeling that the Civic brought me so long ago.

Cheers mates!

Here is the last dreary day photo I have of her, worn out, damage from hitting a dumb turkey on the highway. Heat and AC barely worked most of the time a small oil leak started, but she would not stop. Engine and transmission still took her down the road at an economical 38mpg!



Last photo.

 
Rep Power: 513

Holy relic of days past, Batman! Sad to see you're letting her go. It was definitely heart breaking when I let my EM2 go.

What you rolling in these days?

 
Rep Power: 368

I can relate to. So, you had her as 1st owner for very long!
Got mine in 2005 or 2006, still have it at 50 y-o
Drop by, many still are here even after selling theirs!

 
Rep Power: 360

With winter arriving, I got to the point where I wanted something with AWD, that was a car (don't care for the SUV/x-overs)', and of course had properly functioning heat...so I tried a Subaru Legacy, it was okay, but what a tank, just seemed to have no get up..

So, snuck over to the Audi dealership and test drove an A4 and ended up loving it and signing on it. 👍😎 Ended up being about the same monthly payments as the Subaru would have been. 🤷🏻‍♂️

 
Rep Power: 360

Such a good little car for so long, it was difficult to part ways, but it was time.

 
Rep Power: 360

Meant to ask, when did you let her go and for what?

 
Rep Power: 513

Nice grab. My only thing with euro cars is maintenance costs are stupid expensive compared to every Japanese car I've worked on.

October 2017 is when I called it quits. Admittedly neglected maintenance a bit, but did enough to keep her afloat. That is, until my hand was forced. Got to work one day and saw active steam coming from the backside of my hood. Popped the hood and saw active steam leakage from the back driver's side of the block. Limped it to my dad's house after work and pulled the dipstick to find a chocolate milkshake. Luckily it was the start of my weekend, so I had time to work on it. Ended up doing it over the course of 2 weekends, borrowing my dad's 2nd car to get around. Needless to say, ended up spending a crap ton at the dealership for a head gasket kit, had to replace a damaged lower timing cover, first round of torque for the head studs stripped out the block, tried to helicoil it, some of them stripped out on the 2nd round of torque, and that's when I called it quits. Just about broke down right there and then. I donated the car to charity so they could scrap it for whatever, and in November '17, picked up my '18 Sport Hatch with the 1.5T and been rocking that ever since.

Here's what the oil looked like when I pulled it


And the underside of the valve cover (oil pan looked worse)


and the damaged lower timing cover

 
Rep Power: 225

AWD swaps are a thing now-a-days Hope the A4 treats you well!