My trusty ’03 Civic Type-S has expired (damaged loom from a car park incident causing the airbags to fail the MOT) but having test driven a few newer similar cars I’ve been left feeling rather underwhelmed at what you get for your money. So I’m now on the hunt for another pre’06 Type-S. I’ve always leant towards higher mileage for a given age because unless it’s a taxi it usually means easy motorway miles rather than hard urban miles, but my aim was to run this car for another few years and then get something bigger/fancier at 3 years / 60k. Hence thinking stop-gap… My car had done 120k hard miles and the drivetrain was still perfect but I’d had to replace most of the front suspension (I should probably slow down more for speed humps).

Current choices:

(price plate mileage)
£2.5k 05 97k
£2.6k 53 66k
£1.3k 54 137k
£1.8k 52 48k
£2.2k 54 72k

We don’t do much mileage now, easily under 10k/yr. Any thoughts/suggestions appreciated!

None of those are high mileage.

Are those all the same model cars with that spread of price?

£1.8k 52 48k probably gets my vote if so, and there’s no astronomical service due at 60k

Well I did feel like my 120k Type-S’s drivetrain was as good as new (and the MOT emissions test results always looked good), so thanks jam bo! 🙂 Yes, they’re all Civic Type-S, some pre facelift, some post facelift, v similar specs. Chain cam engine so I don’t recall 60k being expensive, though mine went through it years ago…

At that age it’s all about condition and spec, like you say mileage not that important anything under 70k would be good. I’d be looking for a full SH and the best bodywork, wheels and interior I could get. Go and look at a few and decide from there. Stonechips, corroded wheels and cheap tyres and I’d walk away there’s so many about you can afford to be choosy and the mechanicals are pretty bombproof. Why not a type r?

http://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201310119234748/sort/pricedesc/usedcars/price-to/3000/model/civic/make/honda/onesearchad/used/onesearchad/nearlynew/onesearchad/new/keywords/TYPE%20R/postcode/kt89lg/page/3/radius/1500?logcode=p

Not a Type-R because it needs 5 doors – one reason I’ve been so unimpressed with other small family hatchbacks is because they’re so much less spacious inside.

£1.8k 52 48k probably gets my vote if so,

+1 what mork said

As jools says, down to condition, spec (you say thear are all fairly similar), but also history; service and owners (number of, company/private, etc). There will be some low milage nails that have been abused/neglected and some lovely well cared for examples.

I’m thinking that higher mileage but 12k/annual servicing should be in better nick than lower mileage but servicing not done to schedule?