jwood_06TSX

Hey Guys,

I have a few questions about some maintenance on my 93 civic commuter car that i bought. I bought a 93 Civic EX coupe with 45,XXX original miles for $3600. It runs great and so far i have only changed the oil regularly, changes the tranny fluid twice due to a hard 2-3 shift, and recharged the AC. It came with 3 different tire brands on it, yoko's on both fronts, a goodyear of driver rear, and a falken on the passenger rear.

TIRES-
I have driven 12,XXX miles on those tires and the fronts need replacing so i started shopping craigslist for any cheap tires i could find before buying 4 new tires. Make a long story short i bought 4 new wheels and tires from a guy for $100 that have 95% tread left on all of them but they are 4 different tire brands (i was in a hurry, bought them in the dark, seemed like a nice kid who had a good sob story as to why he needed to get rid of them so i just bought them). They are 175/70 R13 instead of the coupe's 185/60 R14 but its only a .3% difference, no big deal there. They are all the same size and all radials (from what i remember off hand right now). My question is, once i get them checked out and balanced, is there any real issues in having 4 different tire brands if they are all the same size? NOW, i know about some slight safety issues in rain, brake locking due to different tread patterns, and the car might pull one way or the other slightly, but this cars does not have ABS anyway and i drive very conservatively due to the amount i drive (55 miles one way to work and sometimes 25 miles on the job a day). Advise, opinions?

OIL-
I want to switch to synthetic now that i have 56,XXX miles on it. Do i need to blend the first switched batch of 50/50 of regular and synthetic, or just go straight to synthetic? I've seen mixed reviews on this.

TIMING BELT-
This has never been replaced i'm sure and honda doesn't call for this to be completed until 90,000 miles but the car is a 93. Should i just wait for the 90k mile mark before i should even worry about this?

RADIATOR FLUSH-
Is this necessary by 60k miles or can i wait a little longer?

Anything else you civic folks care to add for me to check? At 60k miles, i plan on checking the spark plugs, wires, etc and such but i'm not sure what else i need to check on a civic, like do i inspect the vtech selonoid?

Other things about the car, it was def a shore car and superficial rust on the suspension parts but by inspection it seems to be in pretty good shape. The only areas that have a decent amount of rust on the trailing arms by the rear brake drums (behind the backing plate) and the front behind the rotors. I haven't had a single problem with anything else on the car. Power everything still works great with the exception of a weak radio signal with the aftermarket headunit that came with it.

Thanks in advance guys

ChrisQ1980

When buying any used car you should replace:

-Oil (yes you can switch to full synthetic)
-Tranny fluid
-Brake fluid
-P/S fluid
-Coolant (flush and fill with Honda coolant
-Belts/hoses
-Plugs/wires/distrib cap.

As for the tires, you should purchase 4 OEM size tires (all the same brand/tread pattern) IMO you wasted money on the 4 rims/tires that were the incorrect size. You can go to Mavis and get a decent set of 14 inch tires mounted on the OEM wheels.

Seafoam the car as well to clean out the fuel system, do this before you change the plugs, and also run a can in the crankcase before you switch over to synthetic. With such low miles I'm sure this is a buildup of crud. Since you drive highway it will burn a lot of it off.

ChrisQ1980

Yes, change the timing belt due to it's age, it's rubber.

charliemike

Also, if you've missed it, tire tread means nothing if the tires are over six years old.

This shit will kill you!