new, and looking at a 2003 civic hybrid and have ?'s

[1977busman]

Hi all, im new. Ive been an avid mercedes/vw diesel fan for a while now, but due to expensive repairs all of the time im considering other options. In my search for a tahoe, some how a 2003 honda civic hybrid popped up on craigslist. It sparked my interest, so I began looking. But now I have some questions to determine if it is right for me...

-I do all of my own repairs, and am looking for something I can still work on, is this still possible?

-How high is high miles?

-I really dont want to have to replace batteries for a while, so what mileage range should I be looking in?

-5speed or automatic??? ive read the automatics were bad?

-Is there an 8 year warranty on the hybrid equipment in ohio?

So the car im looking at is this: http://columbus.craigslist.org/cto/1998426765.html
The low miles concerns me about needing a battery replacement soon?
I am also looking at a few for the same price with around 150,xxxmiles what should I be worried about?
thanks,
zach

[atlaw4u]

Welcome to the club. We have many members who own civic hybrids so I'm sure you will have your questions answered here. I owned a 99 2000 Honda Insight and have owned several Honda non-hybrids over theyears - Accord, Civic, CR-V. I have found Hondas to be extremely reliable. I do my own routine maintenance such as tune-ups, brakes, etc. . . and rarely see the dealer.

[1977busman]

weve owned two accords and I know non-hybrid hondas are very reliable, but I just dont know enough about the hybrid. And I LOVE the insight but a two seater isnt practical for me...

[pasadena_commut]

Originally Posted by 1977busman

-I do all of my own repairs, and am looking for something I can still work on, is this still possible?

-5speed or automatic??? ive read the automatics were bad?

Avoid the 2003 CVT (continuously vexatious transmission). They are very trouble prone and expensive to fix. When I was shopping a year ago my impression was that "a lot of them go bad". So I bought a 2003 that had been carefully maintained (it had full service records, never missed an oil change or other scheduled work.) The CVT started acting up anyway. For your future sanity and the health of your wallet you would do well to assume that any CVT you buy will fail. The flip side is that it is possible to drive the manual in such a way that it is bad for the battery, but that transmission will probably not break. If it does any competent transmission shop can fix it.

Other than the bad CVT transmission the cars are reliable. and you should be able to do suspension, brakes, plugs, and the like yourself. Don't expect to do anything useful with the big battery though, it needs special tools for diagnosis.

[1977busman]

so would you go with the 9o,xxx mile car or other in the 130-160,xxx mile range.

[Mr. Pancake]

Hi 77busman, I really like my 03 civic hybrid (the only car I'd rather be driving than this one would be an original Honda Insight with a manual transmission). I bought it used a little over a year ago. To answer what questions I can:
Working on a civic hybrid is the same as working on a non-hybrid civic (with the exception of the hybrid battery and motor).
Not sure about mileage, mine has a lot. It would be preferable to find one still under warranty.
I'd go for the manual transmission, the cvt's (automatics) have had their problems.
There are two routes you could go down with this car: 1. still under warranty, lots of service records so you know what's been replaced. Or 2. Find one in good shape and for a cheap enough price that if you had to replace something expensive it would still be a good deal (this was the option I went for).
All that being said I would say the car you linked has been sitting for a while and/or has a bad hybrid battery because the gauge is showing no battery charge and the car is sendig charge to the battery while it is idling.
Here's what to look out for with these cars: bad hybrid battery (there's a company that refurbishes them for $1500 or Honda will sell you one for around $2500 I believe) and the nox catalytic converter can go bad, especially if the owner didn't get the updates to the car's computer ($650-$950 plus labor if someone replaces it). Most of the other components are normally priced Honda parts and generally available as aftermarket parts as well.

[Mr. Pancake]

Originally Posted by 1977busman

so would you go with the 9o,xxx mile car or other in the 130-160,xxx mile range.

Depends if the battery was replaced or not. It also helps if you've been in one that functions properly so that when you test drive one you know how it should behave. That is the only reason I bought mine, my father-in-law bought an 03 new and I had quite a bit of experience driving it.

[1977busman]

so what are some signs that the pack is going bad?

[Right Lane Cruiser]

Keep in mind that the battery gauge will show that behavior if the 12V has been disconnected for even a short while. The battery in that case may not actually be empty -- the car could just be going through a recalibration exercise.

A poorly functioning pack would show low capacity -- you might only get a few bars of the 20 to discharge normally, then the state of charge the meter could zoom to the bottom very quickly and start force charging back up to the top. A healthy pack will not have any quick jumps in status like that -- it will give roughly the same discharge rate for each bar of on the gauge. If the car shows this behavior regularly it could be a sign that the cells inside the pack are not balanced and/or one or more may be bad (with severely limited capacity).

[Right Lane Cruiser]

I should also mention that the programming in the second generation Civic Hybrid is much more complex and the above described behavior is not nearly as certain to indicate a deteriorating battery in one of those vehicles.