long update- you should check this out
 

Ok, I joined this forum back in like 04/05 because I picked up my 01 civic back in february/march of 05.
The car had 54k miles on it.
last year I had lots of overheats, and oil burning but nowhere to be found and all this crap happening to the car in the summer.
I decided to take it to my honda mechanic. he's a licensed honda mechanic that works for honda but takes jobs off the clock for extra cash and of course, cheaper for me.
my car went into his care before as he changed my timing belt and water pump. I believe that cost me like 5-700 bucks. I forget really. anyway, at 169000 I send my car to him again.
My transmission wanted to rip out of my car according to him(it was a bearing that was the inner most part of the manual transmission) and my head was either warped or the gasket was blown. either way, the car was ****ed up.
That isn't whats messed up...at 170k miles I thought I would just get the clutch replaced too. mechanic says that its still got lots of meat on it and its fine. im like "wtf I thought it was stock" he says "no way its stock im looking at it right now"

so this is what it tells me. some idiot drove my car hard as balls around for 54k miles, burned up the clutch in that time, had it replaced and then sold it back to a dealership. I put 120k miles on it, and have to pay 3 grand to get a new motor, fix the tranny, and some other parts of the car such as bushings and such.
So, in the past 6 years of owning my car, it has cost me oil changes(4 a year at 20 a pop) $480
600 for the timing belt/transmission fluid change the first time
2600 for the new motor/tranny fix/new timing belt on 50k motor/new water pump on 50k motor.
$3680/6 years $613/year. i skipped the tire stuff cause that varies from driver to driver. before the new motor it would have been 180 a year cost to own.
The moral of the story is, even if you are nice to your car, the idiot before you might not have been. sad.

Re: long update- you should check this out
 

Thats the big risk with buying used cars, and why I always run a car fax and check the maintenance records.

Re: long update- you should check this out
 

every car has its problems, doesnt matter new or used, or the brand. just too many things that can go wrong. my old jetta cost well over $1k a year just to keep it on the road. im sure the civic cost me more than i care to admit as well. but if it wasnt the civic, it would be something else. just part of car ownership. two people can buy exactly the same car from the dealer and two yrs later one of them might have 10 problems and the other might have 5.

Re: long update- you should check this out
 

sorry to hear about that bro... same thing happened to my buddy when he bought his 05 WRX... some dude drove the snot out of it till 87000 km and gave it back to the dealership... and he started getting major problems around 140, cracked heads burned clutches and bad suspension problems...

mind you if you buy a WRX youre buying that car for a reason hahaha so i dont think i would ever buy something like that used but i know how youre feeling!!