EK1 Civic Advice

Hi guys n gals, :wave:
Im a new here and Ive been told that this place is great for advice...
so Ill get straight to the point and maybe save my intro for later

Just a lil background info
My family has a '96 model EK1 VTi Civic (CVT) it has has run up 140k+ kms and has been driven mostly in urban and suburban areas with lots of its time being spent in stop start traffic.
Now... we get our car serviced at my friends dads place (Toyota Specialist :mad: ) and weve been told that he recently changed over a CVT tranny. We have ALSO been told that this COULD be a common problem...
I dont really know enough and have looked anywhere i can ... and he doesnt seem that sure
Naturally... being Chinese... mum and dad are scared as hell (partly coz weve had bad experiences with car ownership)

So what I want to know is

- is CVT failure common / inescapable?
- can the CVT failure happen without warning?

if the former holds true
- would it be worth riding out and replacing the tranny with a conventional auto?
(we have 2 cars that are nearing the end of their lives... but I will be :( if the civic has 2 leave... I have big plans for it :D)

Your help would be very appreciated
Terence

PS ive searched already and cant find a relevant thread... but if someone can point me in the right diretion... i would be very appreciative and apologetic for this repost

Someone... Please??
*sigh... first reply in my own thread

there has been issues with the CVT on some HRV's, not sure about Civic, the start clutch craps itself and a couple of solenoids. Honda dealers are charging around $600 to fix for cars out of warranty inc labour ( special price )

other than that CVT is pretty reliable and good tranny, as long as you dont trash it to much and only use honda ATF. I wouldnt bother ricing up a CVT, sell it and get a manual.

Ooh... thanks for that
Can this be done in sydney? is it nation wide?

what do you mean sell it!
One of the rules of rice is that the car must be Auto... XD
yeahhh.... manual tranny definitely... i dunno what i was thinking just then

Anyone else have any advice?

What are the symptoms of CVT failure? My car has just started to shudder when taking off from a stand still. It has done 170000km

Thats the thing... I was told that the failure can happen completely without warning
*envisages a sudden breakdown in the middle of the city*

not nessasarily, fauly CVT can show signs before it just dies.

things like rpm flairing and bad bad shudder.

chameleon have a Honda dealer look at it. could be shudering from low fluid, or could even be out of tune engine.

wats bad shudder? or rpm flairin?

calling honda now to make appointment!!!

good idea

- Shuddering is like when you bunny hop a manual car if you get the clutch wrong, - Flaring of RPM's is when you RPM raise higher than normal and you go no where
- Surging is when your driving at a constant speed and the vehicle speeds up and slows down.

these are common signs of CVT failure

i'm dumb... can someone please explain the CVT... what's it stand for.. what is it.. what's it do etc etc???

just learning.. thanks

Quote:

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Originally Posted by rakfint

i'm dumb... can someone please explain the CVT... what's it stand for.. what is it.. what's it do etc etc???

just learning.. thanks

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Here is some information to get you started:
http://www.edmunds.com/ownership/tec...4/article.html