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Well, as much as I have never been that fond of Hondas, I have been wanting to put the Mustang into semi-retirement and drive her 2-3 days/week while getting her back up to car show specs. I also want to sell the bike since it's not as practical as I need.

In the meantime, nobody does economy better than Honda and I've been intrigued by 90's Civics, especially the Del Sols, hatchbacks, and/or any model Civic with the D15 motor (D15B7, D15B8 and D15Z1 seem to be the best of the best). Is the D15 a pretty good motor? Reliable? Good candidate for my "mild" style of hypermiling? How about the standard 106hp 1.6l D16Y7? OBDII and nearly as good mileage as the D15's, rated only about 2mpg lower. Being that there are so many versions of both motor and Civic that Honda put out, what would be a good deal? Are VX and HX models worth it? What about the Civic CX?

The lean burn engine seems to be a hot topic here...

http://www.cleanmpg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=9464

Yeah, I've seen the lean-burn VX and HX's, just curious if they're worth the money. They're low-volume models too, and ones not common where I live, but then again I've got time on my side.

I'd say the D16Y7 is a fine engine. ;)

You'll do better with the D15s overall, partly due to body aerodynamics and gearing. VX is best, then CX (vx gears but no lean burn). Both are hatchbacks. 96+ HX (only available as coupe) is probably next, but avoid the CVT like the plague. EX for both generations has short gears = bad highway mpg. 96+ CX is the same as my DX only with a hatch body.

Look at the exhaust manifold and make sure it's not cracking down the middle.

96+ can use a Scangauge, but will be inaccurate on the HX as it can't read lean-burn correctly.

I'd say the D16Y7 is a fine engine. ;)

You'll do better with the D15s overall, partly due to body aerodynamics and gearing. VX is best, then CX (vx gears but no lean burn). Both are hatchbacks. 96+ HX (only available as coupe) is probably next, but avoid the CVT like the plague. EX for both generations has short gears = bad highway mpg. 96+ CX is the same as my DX only with a hatch body.

Look at the exhaust manifold and make sure it's not cracking down the middle.

96+ can use a Scangauge, but will be inaccurate on the HX as it can't read lean-burn correctly.

Chock full of info, thanks :) that gives me some to chew on. As an aside, since you live in E. TX, what would be the easiest to find around here? Probably a D16Y7 Civic? Maybe even a Del Sol S?

You're likely right about the D16Y7 - both DX and LX use that engine.

Then since I'm not as "hardcore" as most on here, could I reasonably expect a 40mpg commute cycle with simple careful driving on a D16Y7? I would buy nothing but stickshift in any model. What RPM are you running @ 60mph? That alone could justify my dropping the motorcycle.

On the 96+ DX/LX 5mt, 60 mph is right at 2500 rpm.

You could easily beat 40. Last time I did a cruise-control trip (3 years ago :p) back from Dallas, I did 43 mpg with family on board, doing 65 mph in the summer.

Well, I'm pretty well sold then. Right now, I'm in the middle of job uncertainty, etc. and need full practicatlity, low costs, etc. Honda has sold me. In your humble opinion, where would be the best place to start shopping?

I'm not the best authority on that, since I've had this car eight years now. I'd start at autotrader and some other search sites.

40 MPG should be doable easily. I had the an automatic LX with a D16Y7, and I managed a 41 MPG tank only mild hypermiling. That was mostly highway - city was tougher but a manual transmission would definitely help with that. In these Civics, unlike the newest ones, the automatic doesn't have a taller top gear than the manual.

You might also consider a Toyota model with the 1.5L 1NZ-FE engine (Echo, Yaris, a few Scions...). Of these, the Echo is the lightest, and I believe it has the most favorable gearing. When I posted here 6 months ago expressing interest in buying another Civic, someone convinced me to look at Echos, and I ended up buying one. It was under $3000 with 85k miles and the EPA mileage beats just about anything sold in the US in the last 15 years. One of the major factors in my decision was that the 1NZ-FE engine requires essentially no maintenance because it doesn't have a timing belt or a distributor. As far as the downsides, virtually nothing is a standard feature (not even the heating wires in the rear window!), and I prefer the interior and exterior appearance of Civics.

But enough sidetracking... a Civic is a perfectly good choice. As Andrew pointed out, make sure to inspect the exhaust manifold for cracks before buying. Also check whether the timing belt was replaced as necessary (usually every 7 years or 90-105k miles), otherwise be prepared to spend money on that. Avoid any cars with performance mods.

Yeah, my girlfriend's got an Echo...not a huge fan of the centre-mount gauges, I still haven't gotten used to them and I find them to be a smidge distracting because of that. On the upside, I like strippo-model cars...my ideal would be a radio-, carpet-, and a/c-delete car with manual windows, brakes, steering, and transmission :) and I have to agree that they're hard to kill. They treat the car like s**t and at 192k miles it's still going strong.

craigslist will have some really good deals, cars.com or autotrader has some once in a while deals. Carsoup is terrible on all accounts, not user friendly and hardly any cars.

I have found that with older cars craigslist is best. As was mentioned above stay away from the ex or si models as they are not setup for fuel economy. I personally do not see the need to go with a 96 HX when a 92-95 1.5L hatch can get similar mileage.

Cool. Craigslist was my first inclination, I think it's finally actually caught on enough here to be useful :) Never heard of Carsoup, and Yahoo Cars (which I believe is affiliated with AutoTrader?) has never been too helpful in the past.

Thanks for all the help, I now feel I can look for just what I want and it was easier than sorting through Honda's alphabet soup of trim line designations on my own :)