Should I buy Honda Fit straight drive or automatic? For some reason Honda has the straight drive revving about 600 more rpms on the interstate. I wonder why. My 2000 Civic Si revs very high (around 4000 rpm at 70 mph) and it's annoying.
No. I Certainly Wouldn't. "Should I buy Honda Fit straight drive or automatic?"
Why go from one annoying little car to another annoying way too little car?
"My 2000 Civic Si revs very high (around 4000 rpm at 70 mph) and it's annoying." CSA
Not everyone likes the same thing in a car. If they did we would all have the same make and model. The fast is many people prefer smaller cars. Most of my cars have been compact or smaller size. That is my preference. I really hate driving large land ships.
Bmanno Is The One Who Noted That The High Revving Little 2000 Civic Was "Annoying" And Noted The Other Really Little Cars Revved, Too. That's What I Was Talking About.
How can your RPMs be that high at 70mph? I have a 99 EX(1 step down from the Si, and same body style as yours) and I'm doing around 3000~3500 RPMs at 70mph.
If you find a high revving engine annoying, perhaps you should buy something with a larger, slow revving engine. The Civic Si and the Fit were both designed to be high revving vehicles.
Honda Civic Si 2000 gets added horsepower by revving high. Later model years of Si increased engine displacement and did not rev as high. I think Civic Si 2000 revs higher than about any other small car, except Mazda RX8 with its Wankel engine.
My daughters' Corollas run at much lower RPMs on interstate and are much quieter, but not as fast.
I have ridden in both manual and AT Honda Fit. Neither revs a high as my Civic Si. But I am very curious as to why the manual transmission Honda Fit revs higher in 5th gear than Honda Fit automatic transmission.
My 2000 Honda Civic Si, now with 157K miles, has been an excellent car and very much fun to drive. But it now burns oil (1st of many Honda I have had experience with to burn oil). The noise generated by the high revving engine has been annoying. Hence I look for something that does not rev as high. I much prefer small cars.
bmanno, I think most of us in this group know why the Civic Si revs high. We have had discussions on the merit of high and low-revving engines, VTEC engines, and other related issues.
Honda's small lightweight cars are known for being noisy. Since it bothers you, I think you should find another model that doesn't have that problem.
Perhaps if you want to know why the manual version revs higher, you should ask your salesperson. The salesperson probably won't know why, but it is a good chance to size up your salesperson to see if he/she knows the product.
Have you observed this phenomenon by looking at a tachometer or is it something you feel? If it is something you feel, they might not be operating at different RPMs. It is possible you feel it with the manual transmission but you don't feel it with the automatic.
I think the difference (auto v man) is due partly to marketing.
The kind of driver who chooses the manual is more likely a serious enthusiast who may even take take it to the dragstrip to time it.
Si was Honda's top offering to the ricer-boy-racer crowd.
I had a '75 Civic and it was almost like a go-cart with a motorcycle engine.
The buyer of the auto on the other hand just wants a fine economy car with a little extra zing.
I wouldn't be surprised if the auto had come with a slightly softer suspension.
Respectfully, I think the Civic Type R was Honda's top offering to the ricer crowd, and that is only if you ignore the S2000's capacity for ricer upgrades. It wasn't widely available in the US, but some people figured out ways to get them into the US. If you ever watch Car and Driver's Superflea challenge, I think six of the top ten cars were Hondas, and I don't think any of them were the Civic Si.
As to your remarks about your '75 Civic, I think you are right. I have thought about what it would be like to make a trike motorcycle or street legal dune buggy with the engine from my '98 Civic. If I used it for a trike, the engine would have to sit behind the driver. At about 1,800 CCs, my Civic engine would be pretty quick if I was able to eliminate much of the weight of the car body, and would be just about right for a high displacement motorcycle. Just look at the Ariel Atom. It would be pretty quick even if it's Civic engine wasn't turbo charged.
Edit: One of the top cars in the last superflea challenge (2003) was a Civic Si.
Why are you blaming it on the high RPMs? There are plenty of high RPM engines that don't burn oil. Engines burn oil for many reasons, but that isn't one of them.
Personally, I would attribute it to either abuse, neglect, or poor design. The fact that it is a VTEC engine means it should be able to handle the high RPMs quite well.
Your Civic should have two maintenance schedules, one for normal conditions and one for severe conditions. Which maintenance schedule did you follow?
I considered engine oil and filter to be the main protective maintenance item. I ran Mobile 1 Synthetic for the first 80K miles or so, changing it every 3K to 5K miles. Then decided synthetic wasn't help much since oil was burning (or going somewhere -- not leaking). From that point I used Castroil or Penzoil.
Well there you go. If your Civic Si was driven in stop-and-go traffic, in low or high temperatures, or other conditions that break down oil, you should have been changing your oil every 3,750 miles, whether you were using synthetic oil or conventional oil. If you went 5,000 miles between some of your oil changes, that might have led to your oil burning problem, especially if you drove it hard during those long periods between oil changes.
It doesn't sound like you are familiar with your car's maintenance schedule, and your maintenance habits may have reflected this. If this is the case, it won't matter what kind of car you get.
Your Civic Si has a high compression engine, so high octane (premium) fuel is required for it. You didn't use cheap gas in it, did you? Also, you should expect most high compression engines to burn a little oil.
I'm going to have to disagree with you there, Whitey.
Since neither you nor I know the conditions that the bmanno drives his car in, we can only speculate wether or not he needed to change the oil in his car between 3k to 5k miles.
Lets say that he lives in Byers, CO, just off Interstate 70 at exit 316, and drives everyday to Kanorado, Kansas, which is 136 miles due east on I-70. So that whole trip is in a 75mph zone, and all at highway speed. High rpms the whole way in his little high revving Civic.
What happens to engine oil at high rpms, in a small, hot running engine?
The oil gets whipped around pretty good, and smaller droplets turn into an oil mist. That oil mist gets sucked into the PCV system, and burned with the air and fuel in the combustion chamber.
A light weight 5W-20, which is what is most likely recommended for mbanno's engine, will turn into mist and get burned easier than a heavier weight oil, like a 5W-30, a 10W-30, or a 10W-40. But that doesn't mean that the oil that is in the crankcase needs to be changed out every 3k miles.
I bet if you tested a car run under those conditions, you would find out the oil is still in pretty good shape between 3k and 5k miles. I would bet the Mobil 1 oil would probably even be fine way past 10k miles.
Personally, I run my '07 Nissan Altima between 5k and 9k miles on each oil change, and have sent samples to Blackstone Labs with each and every oil change. I have used Kendall 5W-30 Semi Synthetic and Full Synthetic for every single oil change after the initial oil that Nissan put in the car when it was new, and every single oil analysis came back perfect for wear materials, and for lubricating properties.
Can we see your evidence that oil needs to be changed every 3k miles that you have accumulated?
11/02/2009 3:54:09 PM
