Tuesday, February 18, 2014

The Civic - Life Moves On

Personally, it felt great to have a mechanic look at the civic and simply state that it was just fine.  It felt great to have paid professionals tell me that the work I had done was on.  It felt great to know that the car was in great shape... except for the shifting problem.

Two transmission shops, one muffler shop, and a mechanic later, and I followed the advice of the mechanic - I changed the catalytic converter.  Apparently, the shifting problem was a result of the catalytic converter breaking down.  It was a 14-year-old piece of fragile costly precious metals, with 249,088 miles on the clock.  So, I ordered a catalytic converter (after being told by some exhaust shops the cost would be $600 for parts, and $200 for the welding and flange fitting).  $250 and one week later, I had it installed.  I drove it a few times - it seemed to be much better.  But, I thought I'd better drain transmission fluid and fill it a few times just to make sure.

Then, I changed that pesky door lock actuator (passengers' side, front door only - this came as a result of teasing my brother when we were carpooling).  The hood still rattled (then I remembered I "adjusted" it once, and put it back to where it was - and the rattle was gone).  With all of that complete, it simply had a high-mileage transmission, and it had cosmetic issues.

It sold really fast.  150,000 miles were freeway miles, so I know it's in phenomenal shape.  But, it's time to move on and try something else for a while.  Who knows, maybe this will fund the rest of the headlight paint and the interior map pocket for the corvette.  It'd be nice to have that one done.