Out to pasture

What's that noise? It's noisy cuz of the winter tires.  Then I switched to the all seasons and it was just as noisy.  Guess it wasn't the tires.

It was the end of Feb and I took it to my hockey league game and on the way home the clutch felt like it was slipping.  It was barely noticeable but I sensed something wasn't right.

We weren't thinking of replacing the Civic.  Well not now.
Especially since like most people, we had bills to pay, things to do,  places to see, never ending things to replace or buy and a kid to take care of.  A car is car.  If it runs, great.  Don't care if it is 17 years old

This is a 2001 Honda Civic DX.  That we got from my brother.  It's been super reliable.  It's never broken down.  We have had the regular oil maintenance and yearly rust proofing, brake maintenance. And it's been great.  Great to learn off of.  There's lots of things that anyone can learn to do themselves.  So I learned.

The power window cable broke on the front drivers side door on our way to NJ one year.  I got the window up but it was hurricane season.  But I fixed it myself for cheap in NJ,  there's an old post on that.   That's when I learned that replacement  costs for parts differ depending on the location.

The OEM stereo was replaced with a Pioneer bluetooth unit.
The driver's seat belt had a SRS err. So I found out that in NJ, that would have been replaced for FREE.  But here in the GWN it's not.  That sucked.
It was like 150-200 for that component here in TDOT.
Both front control arms were replaced.
The trunk/gas cap cable was replaced.
The headliner was coming off so I replaced that last year (again. The first time I did it, started to come off when it got warm).

Other than that.  It's ORIGINAL like my Organic son.

We are pretty grateful for this car.  We took care of it and it's been good to us.  It's never left us on the side of the road stranded.  Never.  But never say never.  The Subaru failed on me back at the end of 2012 when the fuel pump went.  Shoulda saw it coming.  I didn't want the same thing to happen to Tresa.   So I figured it was better sooner than later.  And it was worth something to someone while it was working.  I knew the timing belt was due, and the clutch.  Those were the two big services to be done.  Better to sell it now and put it towards a newer car than to try to recoup that cost when it's older.  Because people won't pay much for an old car, especially on Kijiji, they're all cheap-asses.

It's 17 years old, so expect it to be used.  But for it's age it looked pretty good.  And only recently did it start to show it's age.  It has been dinged a couple of times in the last year.  We got rear ended on St Clair back in Sep 2017.  There was no visible damage cuz the rear bumper had some bumps in it from what I did years back, but we did get whiplash from the impact.  We are still feeling the effects.  More Tresa than me.

About 3-4 months before that, Tresa got bumped on the rear quarter panel by a girl that didn't look before she backed out of her spot at Sherway and Tresa was driving through.

The damage was cosmetic, and Tresa was upset since she'd never been in a car accident, but we got a settlement out of it, which made her feel better. I think she bought new shoes.  :-)

I created an ad on AutoTrader and kijiji and all but 1 person that contacted me was from kijiji.   AutoTrader seems to have higher prices but kijiji has a lot of people looking through it.

The fellow that bought it (from Kijiji), did so without seeing first.  I wasn't going to get the Used Vehicle Pkg unless the person decided they wanted it.  I had 3 serious offers on the table.  All were scrap yard dealers.   My car buddy said it was worth at most $300.  I got $220, $350 and $400 from scrap guys.  They would come and pick up the car and that's it.  No need for a Used Car Vehicle pkg.  They just need to provide an invoice and that's it.  But I'm not 100% sure.

I was a bit nervous when arranging for people to come see it.  I had just watched the Tim Bosma documentary.  Where he went off with two fellas that came to say they were going to buy his truck and then snuffed him.  I told my car buddy i didn't want to get Bosma'd over an 01 Civic.  But it was fine.  A young couple came to check it out, to replace their 2003 Toyota Echo that the guy had smashed.  But they never called me back.  They did ask me if the AC worked.  It still does.  And works great.  Didn't even think of it, since it works.

Everyone seems to focus on what's wrong with it, it was all i got asked by tire kickers.  In my ad I listed all the stuff that was replaced, and that it was rust proofed every year.  NO RUST.   And that it was still our daily driver.
If you have ever had to fix a dent.  Depending on where it is, it is expensive.  An engine overhaul will be cheaper than a full on body work job.  Just because you fixed a rust bucket is no guarantee that the rust won't come back.  Once rust starts it's a disease.  Ask a body shop guy about it.  And that's what he'll tell you.  Replacing an engine part is way cheaper than doing body work.  Been there. Done that.

The eventual buyer was a young mechanic.  He just wanted something rust free.  And this fit the bill.
I was happy to get something for it.    He gave me close to my asking.  We were just happy that it didn't go to a crusher.  A scrap yard guy would have sold it for parts and made a lot.

This Civic is great.  Kinda sad to see it go, but I didn't want to stress about finding a place to park it when we got our new car.  That was an interesting exercise.

Glad it went to someone that was going to use it and take care of it.
I discovered that the black book value of this car is $900.00.