My dad bought my ‘98 Civic back in April ’98, two months before my 16th birthday. The car was my birthday present. I’m the oldest of my parents’ four children and they promised each of us two big ticket items in our lives, one of which was college and the other a car to drive there. The Civic was my choice and it was a good one.

The first 8 years of its life, my Civic averaged 25k miles per year owed to my dad’s commuting, pizza delivering, driving to and from college, as well as many a trip to Las Vegas. The car has seen virtually every part of California from San Francisco to South Lake Tahoe, and San Diego to Yreka. After graduating from college in 2005, I took a job with a company in the Chicago suburb of Naperville. The move was an opportunity for my wife and me to see the rest of the country, in the Civic, of course. With the move, the car has now seen the Pacific, the Atlantic, and the Great Lakes from both the US and Canadian sides.

It’s one thing to keep a car on life support for whatever reason, but the truth is that it’s uncanny how little maintenance my Civic has required. The extent of maintenance on the car has been oil changes, spark plugs, and drive belts on schedule; otherwise, I just fixed things as needed. The car has had only two unexpected repairs in its 11-year life, one being a busted radiator and the other a burnt out coil and distributor caused by my own tinkering. Brakes have been replaced only infrequently, to be honest, and I have had no transmission work needed. I am still on the factory clutch!

This car has been an incredible blessing to my wife and I and we thank Honda for making such an awesome car. I wish I could give you more business, but the first car you sold me keeps running! I expect to pass a quarter million miles in the very near future and hope to eventually get to 500k. I plan to keep the car until it stops running; let’s see how long it takes! Thank you for the wonderful car.