Amila_Silva

Sira, I once had the very same issue caused by a loose tie rod end. Tie rod end looked fine from the out side but once it was taken out and inspected by the mechanic he was sure that it needs to be replaced which solved the issue.

Buy a rat cage from a hardware store. The one I used is very much like this. Take a small piece of coconut and burn one side of it until the edges of its sides become grey / black. You will know its done when you get a nasty smell from the burned coconut piece. Hook it to the wire of the cage and set up the trap. Place a cardboard or a paper on your back seat or garage and place the cage on top of it. I used this method to capture a mice attacked to my car. It got trapped from the very first day I used it. This cage will not kill the mice. The maximum damage to the mice would be, it might capture it tails when the trap executes. Once you capture the mice be sure to release it into woods / non populated area. After that you can attend to the damage it has done to the vehicle.

What was the previous brake fluid in the car? Dot 3 or Dot 4? What is the new fluid you have used? Was the new brake fluid container was sealed? On a side note, I don't trust any vacuum pump to bleed the oil. The good old paddling always works fine.

Hey Don!, Very nice explanation Yes I do remember that they preasurised the shocks by using a hard cardboard type of thing. I didn't realize the use of it at that time and now I know thanks to you.

I believe the factory fitted shocks comes with Ek3 is Showa. If you replace the shocks through agent, most probably that would be the one that they would install. Unless you are doing a performance upgrade in your car, the Showa shocks will provide you the expected level of comfort and handling for an EK3 Civic. Since showa is expensive and bit hard to come by, I have installed genuine KYB shocks to my car and after about 25 000 kms, it still runs geat. Haven't felt any hardness in the shocks. Apart from that, KYB is the stock shocks for Toyota vehicles. So i doubt that the shock getting hard could be an urban myth (At least on genuine shocks though). However, I have no experience on tokiko shocks.

Glad it helped. On a side note, The agent (Stafford Motors) refused to give oil unless I am going to do the oil change through them. Then I managed to buy oil from Teck Motors for a reasonable price than the agents and do the oil change with the aid of my trusted mechanic for a very reasonable price. So, unless you are expecting to do the oil change through agents, please contact tech motors when the time comes near to reserve oil because sometimes they don't have the stocks.

What are the letters near the Gear shift? Is it P, R, N, D, 2, ... or P, R, N, D, L, ...? If the letter L is there, it is CVT and you have to change the Fluid in every 15K kms with HONDA CVT fluid and otherwise you have to change the fluid in every 40K kms with Honda ATF DW1 (ATF Z1 is discontinued). Change the gear oil according to the manufacture recommended intervals. Doing it frequently than the recommended intervals will not save you anything. It is like pumping 95 octane to a vehicle where the manufacture recommends 91 octane leaving aside the fact that the God only knows what is what in Sri Lanka.

Very true mate Too bad that it was not registered. However that car looks awesome. Its a yellow colored car in its original condition. No stupid modifications done and it even had zebra seats and zebra carpets.

RViji, Thanks for the info. I'll take a look at it.

Honda Beat came with an Acty van engine - E07A. So it has already run as an acty van. My goal is to put the new Acty van Engine - E07Z which comes with acty vans from 1999 to present. So it will run as a new Acty van and would be easier to source parts since the engine is still in production. One another note.... Honda Beat is not a Sports car. Its a Sporty looking roadster which is very much light in weight and because of that it is capable of handling itself like a sport car in the traffic in a country like Sri Lanka. Its top speed is 140 kmph which is the same as for any buddy vans / cars like Mitsubishi Mini Cab, Suzuki Every, Daihatsu Hijet, Pajero Mini, Honda Acty, ...etc which consists a 650cc engine.

10.9 K for head gasket is not fair and 49 K for the whole kit is like crazy. The whole kit usually contains Head Gasket, Valve oil seals, cam oil seals, tappet core packing ...etc. I wonder how they could could quote 49K for those items. I bought the head gasket for my car from Teck Motors for 5K (Genuine) and the other oil seals (Except the tappet core packing which they didn't had) for few thousand bucks. For my mechanic 5K for head gasket is still too much. However since its Genuine, can't argue more on that. So my advice is, please surf ebay for good quality OEM brands head gasket / kit. You might be able to find a good quality product for a reasonable price.

Ah yes Rumesh. But I prefer the test drive after the marriage. Too many test drives will make you like Jeremy Clarkson. It would be too hard to satisfy him. Which car satisfies him now eh

Market value is low because the fuel consumption is low compared to other saloons. That's the main factor being considered by a typical Sri Lankan buyer. That is the same reason why the market value is low for cars like Peugeot 406. But both of these cars (and many of other other low priced cars) are great workhorses. If carefully taken care of the vehicle (that is by doing the regular servicing and running repairs) these cars will never let you down. The biggest myth in this country is "If the engine capacity is more than 1500cc it will cost a fortune to maintain the vehicle". Well, it is not true. Going bit off topic here.... Since I assume that you are hunting for your first vehicle, this is an advice that you might won't get from elsewhere. Buying a car is pretty much like marrying a woman. You have two options. Love marriage - Get to know the girl you like, share your thoughts, fall in love and decide to marry her. This is similar to inspect the car, do a test drive, feel that this will be the car of your dreams and buy. Arrange marriage - Ask others opinion on how well this car will serve you, decide to buy the car since there are not much negative comments and you feel not bad about it looks and thinking that you will fall in love with it after the marriage. If you go in this Arrange marriage path you will most likely end up in buying an N16, corolla 121 or FB15. My advice is, do not take anyone's judgement on it. Just go see it your self, drive some cars and you will feel what you will be happy to live with. There are some of my friends who have bought brand new maruties and indian altos when their heart told them to buy a Lancer CK1 / CK2 or a Civic EK3. They bought them because other people advised them that they are newer cars and do more kmpl on fuel. But after few months of the purchase they are criticizing on how awful the ride is. Plus the kmpl is not that great too. Also there are some people who follow their hearts, do the research and buy the car they fell in love with and enjoying the ride. Fuel consumption is not the only factor which defines the quality of the car. It is like deciding to marry a woman who spends on least amount of money on her clothes / jewellery, ...etc. Choise is yours mate. Follow your heart and decide with judgement.

Thanks for the reply RViji What you said is true. I meant the E07Z used engine of Acty van (and updated the post)

Sorry for bringing up an old thread. Recently I saw a Honda beat parked at Dilmah tea factory on the way from Nuwara Eliya to home and my wife fell in love with it from the first sight of it. However, that car has not been registered. Then I did some research about the car and found out that it has the same engine of Honda Acty van (E07A) manufactured up to 1999. The new Acty van comes with E07Z engine. So I am wondering whether it would be possible to replace the riced up and abused E07A engine of Honda Beat by a E07Z engine without much of a hazzle and restore a Beat and gift it to my wife. Does anybody aware of these engines or owns a Honda Acty? Will the engine mounts will be same? Basically it would be enough to do a complete Engine overhaul and replace the parts. But I'm just asking to prepare for the worst case scenario. Has anybody ordered a used engine from Japan? considering the small capacity (650 cc) does anyone know a rough price of an E07Z engine to be ordered from Japan for the replacement? And again, sorry for two much questions.

20K is just a rough figure they mentioned for the Yokohama Japanese tyres. Some of them had Yokohama Philipines tyres for arround 13K. I bought the GT Radial Indonesian tyres for 8950/= each from Universal Tyre house opposite to the Borella cemetery.

JadeyBlitzen, Can you please tell me the size of your tires? I had to replace my front tyres (Yokohama Japan - 175/65r14 82S) about month ago. I tried to find the exact tyre from various places but they didn't have it. They told me it would cost about 20K these days. So finally had to settle with GT Radial Indonesian tyres.

I have always been surprised seeing people spending so much hard earned money on buying a brand new / unregistered Japanese vehicles and getting frustrated on end of every month for paying the lease or a loan. According to my experience most of the Japanese cars are so much reliable if they are maintained properly. And that is by doing the on time service including the oil change and small running repairs like replacing the brake pads. By the way, if a person has 4M to burn like VVTI said, then that would be a different story. But still it does not make any sense to me spending all that money to buy an Axio, Allion or a corolla because they all look boring and ugly to me and the roads are flooded with these vehicles which are owned by people who cannot drive and scared to drive in the left lane (Please note that this is my personal taste only) If I have 4M in hand and no other commitments, I would buy two vehicles. One would be something like a Mazda Axela, Honda Civic ES5, Mazda Demio or Lancer CS1/2/3 to be used for weekdays. The other one would be something like a first gen Subaru Impresa, second gen Subaru Legacy, first gen Toyota Rav4, Mitsubishi FTO or even an Alfa Romeo 156 for weekend getaways. Then again, that is my personal day dream and you don't have to agree to what I wrote. I am jobless and sleepy today

Ebay would be the ideal place comes to my mind. If the specific model of your car was not sold in USA, try www.ebay.co.uk or any other variant.

Yes It could be a simple issue like that. If not I doubt whether your bumper stops are worn out or damaged. Bumper stop is a hard rubber component residing at the top of the shocks. When you replace the shocks, you have to replace them as well (costs about 800 rupees per each)

Agree with Don. It seems that the best first thing to do is to remove the radiator and check whether it is blocked by corrosion. If you take the car to a radiator & AC repair shop, they can perform a pressure test on the radiator too which detects for leakages. You can even remove hoses and test for leakages and send high pressure water through the engine and hoses to remove dirt or any matter which has blocked the water circulation. If there are any faults exists for above tests you have to fix them first. Then, replace coolant and make sure there are no air bubbles exists in the cooling system. Once you replace coolant, and when the engine is cold, start the engine with radiator cap off and inspect whether there are air bubbles popping up. Since you have replaced the head gasket and plate the cam head, there should be no air bubbles. Since you have replaced the thermo switch which turns on the fans, I believe it is not faulty. But how about the thermostat? Check whether your car has it and if so check whether it is faulty

Before buying a new sets of pads, check the quality of the brake oil. When did you replace the brake oil last time? Some service centers has a pen like gadget which can test the quality of the brake oil. Once I have replaced brake oil from a service center since the above test indicated that the brake oil is bad. Then Couple of months / weeks ago I too felt poor braking in my car and I thought it was the brake pads. However, the issue was, the service center has replaced the brake oil using some machine to suck the oil. It has not sucked the oil properly and also some air bubbles has also got into the system. The issue was sold by replacing the brake oil using the good old method paddling the brake. Thereafter, as a rule of thumb I always use dot 4 brake oil and never let service centers / garages to use posh looking useless sucking machines. The good old method always works.

You got lucky dude. I was fined 100 rupees for the same reason. I thumped on the light but it didn't worked at that time but it worked when I thumped it after arriving to the destination. What a awful day it was . GRRRR

Ok lets assume that I am driving at about 70 ~ 80 kmh in Gall road. But still they can charge me for "Anarakshitha lesa riya padaweema" if they feel that the speed is too much for their self standards. Am I right?

Yes Don You are correct. If the fins are damaged or the fan blades are not tighten enough still the fan will spin and the rpm gets low by the time and eventually the fan blades will spin in a very low rpm.