NOTE: The car is now sold. I’m leaving this article here for archival purposes.
The time has come to move on from my beloved friend, my 1990 Honda CRX with a certain terrific athlete airbrushed on the hood. It is a bittersweet goodbye. I’ve had many good times with the car, as it was mine in college, and has served me well over the few years I’ve had it.
The car has 220xxx miles on it; but the engine was replaced with an Auto Zone remanufactured engine at 175,000 miles. Shortly before that, the transmission was rebuilt (around 150,000 miles?) The radiator was replaced shortly before the engine was, and the car has been running well since.
For the first 1000 miles on the new engine I never brought the engine over 4000 RPM, and I changed the oil twice before the first 3000 miles. I’ve changed the oil every 3000 miles (or sooner) since.
A few thousand miles ago, I flushed the radiator as a normal maintenance procedure. Other recent maintenance includes new spark plug wires, recent brake replacement, and a new bushing in the steering rack (the plastic bushing wore out, and my mechanic replaced it with a custom-milled brass bushing.)
The car was in one accident while I owned it, wherein it slid off the road into a shallow ditch. The front bumper was cracked (see pics,) but no other damage was done to the front end. The rear bumper was cracked driving the car out of the ditch (the crack is very hard to see,) and one of the rear wheel supports was bent. I drove the car to the alignment shop where the rear wheel was straightened out, and I’ve been driving it since. That was December of 2007.
I have not replaced the shocks and struts since I’ve owned the car, and that is probably overdue.
The tires on the car were replaced in early 2008, and are still in excellent shape (see pics below.)
There are two spots on the car where the paint wore off and rust was starting to form. I sanded down the rusty spots, primed, and painted them so more rust wouldn’t form. The first spot is on the driver-side door, and all rust was successfully removed (it was surface rust only.) The other spot is on the passenger rear fender, where the rust was not completely removed (might require body work.) You can see pics of these spots below.
I replaced the air condition compressor at around 200,000 miles, and recently re-charged the AC system with with r134 refrigerant.
Everything in the car is stock except for the high flow air filter (K & N) and the alloy rims. The car is very light and fun to drive, and gets excellent gas mileage. On a recent trip I recorded 38.5 miles per gallon!
