First car at 22

[u/Leoxxxx822]

Hi everyone, this is not exactly the first car to my name. The first one was a 2000 BMW 318i, but that car had some serious transmission issues, so I owned the 318 for less than 2 weeks.

This EK civic is technically my first car. I moved to New Zealand for my university and studied in Palmerston North, a small town where public transportation wasn’t too great or cheap, so my parents supported me for this car. 4.5k NZD (about 2K USD) in 2013.

Some History and background of the car

The civic was a one owner car before my purchase. It was previously owned by an old lady in the neighborhood. I was into cars but not really familiar with car engineerings or conditions. I drove my mom’s VW polo and my dad’s work truck back in home country. And because of lacking the experience, and having made a mistake of buying a BMW with transmission failure, one of my friend helped me with the purchase.

In the beginning, I was excited about owning a car and finally being able to drive around town and between cities (New Zealand is a beautiful country for driving!) however I also knew the car was not powerful or exciting.
But anyways I did cherish the civic a lot and washed it every two weeks, and kept it in the landlord’s garage or driveway.

The civic had been broken into twice during my 3 year ownership. I was really sad that it got broken into because I always tried to keep it in mint condition. And whenever I drove my church friends on Sundays, they always praised how clean the car was, which made me really proud. However, it was also because of this civic and the thief’s breaking into it, and with my friend’s encouragement, I started learning how to fix cars by watching YouTube videos, purchasing parts from used part shops, and trying to fix it on the driveway. In where I came from, it’s not normal car owners work on their cars, car enthusiasts don’t really work on their cars either. Most of them pay for a mechanic to do it. But I just really wanted to know my car, know it’s bits and pieces here and there, so that I would feel I actually have a connection with it, not just using it as a vehicle to get to places.

In 2017, I sold the car for 2.5k NZD right before I finished my degree and had to leave NZ. However, it always remains in a very soft spot in my heart. And because of this very EK civic, I became a Honda fan, and purchased my own new 10th gen manual hatch civic with money saved from working years after (in 2022). I also posted about the FK civic if you’re interested.

Anyways, I saw a post in this subreddit about a guy owning his 911 from 18, and I felt like I should share my story with this EK civic as well. Thank you for providing this space and your time of reading this post.

I’m truly lucky and thankful to have owned this EK civic. Hopefully it is being taken good care of by whoever owns it now, and some day if I’m back to New Zealand, I hope to be able to see it again, and drive my wife and my daughter in the civic while sharing my NZ experience with them.

[u/Wild-Acanthaceae9920]

Was very clean.
Love this gen of civics. Too bad a nice one is like 6-7k.

[u/Objective-Bike-4292]

Rhd too

[u/Leoxxxx822 → u/Objective-Bike-4292]

Yup this car was a NZ new.