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I'm a bit confused here regarding the gauge clusters in our civics. From my knowledge, the 01 - 02 civics are supposed to use a black or graphite colored gauge cluster with 4 individual pods for gas, temp, speed, and RPM. The later model 03 - 05 facelift civics are supposed to use the updated 3 pod gauge cluster where fuel and temp share a pod, and has a blue or red ring around the pods depending if you got the DX or SI (Canadian). I have a 05' Civic DX Value Package and yet I still have the 4 pod graphite gauges in it, making me wonder if they were potentially replaced or "upgraded" at one point. I've also seen ones with white gauge faces in them (usually on automatics from what ive seen) and I have no idea where the hell all these different gauge faces and clusters are from and would love some help so I can document it properly. For reference, these are the graphite gauges im talking about on my car:
Thank you very much for your help guys
Last edited by Very Strong Boy; Sep 28, 2022 at 12:55 PM.
I believe the lack of tachometer is exclusive to automatic transmission cars. As far as the actual faces are concerned, I think the fancy ones (black face, red/blue backlight) came on the EX facelift models (Si in Canada). My '01 LX was identical to that.
I thought the blue backlight was for DX, and the red backlight was for EX / Si; with the Si-R using it's own bespoke white cluster. I did some further digging and it looks like the EX (Si) Sedan uses the blue backlighting. It also appears that the coupes use the red backlighting because... sporty I guess. It looks like the DX models still use the graphite or black gauges, It's hard to say because most images are EX models even though I specifically searched for DX. But then that raises another question, where the hell did the white gauges come from? I've only seen them on ATs so far, and also what factors decided if you got the black gauges or the graphite gauges. Im going to take a wild guess and say if you've got the value package like me, you got the graphite gauges because they're all sparkly and therefore "fancy."
I didn't have the value package. I had a standard LX. All the non-EX cars had it, to my knowledge. Now that I think about it, I don't think there was ever a white face on the non-EP3 cars. I think any that went in were an aftermarket option.
ohhh I see what you mean now. Yeah, so far my searches have led me to believe that the EX sedans had blue backlighting and the EX coupes has red backlighting. I think that the DX coupe uses graphite gauge faces, and the DX sedan uses black gauge faces. I've seen a few too many white gauges to believe that they are aftermarket, and I mostly see them on automatic sedans. HOWEVER there are quite a few white gauge faces available for purchase online with manual options and they're pretty cheap. However, it doesn't seem logical to me considering that all of the ones I've seen at the junkyard are as stock as could be. I mean, who would put white gauges in their bone stock automatic sedan unless you just like cruising like me
EDIT: Doh! Posted this right after riceboy posted his response. Just clarifying that I was responding to you, FRSam.
Last edited by Very Strong Boy; Sep 28, 2022 at 02:25 PM.
Reason: Clarifying who im responding to
01-02 had the graphite face with regular bulb backlighting
03-05 had the black face with LED lighting
non-EP3 white faces were overlays (had one in my 2002)
Yeah that makes sense. Odd that honda would spend time diversifying the clusters so much, just another reason to love older cars I guess.
As mentioned in my reply to FRSam, I've seen the plethora of white gauge faces online available for both automatic and manual. However I've seen quite a few images of otherwise 100% untouched bone stock civics with white gauge clusters and it almost makes me wonder if it was a special sort of option like maybe some dealer specific sport package or some BS. I usually see them in sedans exactly like this:
This has been a really cool and interesting exploration actually! I hope to eventually fully document the differences between the Dx / Si that may have been lost or forgotten about so that all the information is located in one place. If that hasn't already been done on this forum, of course.
