At $6,500, Is This 2009 Honda Civic Si Clearly A Deal?

In the ad for today's Nice Price or No Dice Civic Si, it claims to have "VTEC 2.0 six-speed and two doors." Honestly, what more could we ask? Well, we could ask that the car's clear coat kept up its end of the bargain. Could we also, however, ask for a lower price as a result?

Michelangelo Buonarroti, who is perhaps Italy's most famous and feted artist, once offered the advice that (paraphrasing), "The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it."

The seller of the 1997 Jeep Cherokee Up-Country we looked at on Thursday was certainly aiming high with its $12,000 asking price. In its favor, a clean, unworn appearance, solid mechanical presentation, and the factory-added Up-Country off-road package helped it stand out from the crowd of other classic Cherokees. That price proved a little too aspirational for many of you, as the vote didn't go in the Jeep's favor, ending in a 57% 'No Dice' loss. As a few of you noted, the seller pulled the ad down while we were debating the Jeep's merits, so perhaps it was the right price (or something near it) for someone.

When it comes to Honda's Civic, there's a bit of a Goldilocks problem across the lineup. The standard Civic is a little too bland, and the balls-out Type R is priced too close to the likes of BMW's M240i to feel comfortable buying. Thankfully, Honda has our collective back, yo, with the middle-model Si. The Si served as the Civic's sporty model for literally decades before the Type-R came along to usurp its performance crown. Since then, though, it has served as the sweet spot for Civic performance (and insurance cost).

That means that there are plenty of Si models of various ages and performance levels out there from which to choose, and taking the advice of the tremulous Templar in "Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade," it is important to choose wisely.

This 2009 Honda Civic Si seems to be a bit of a Goldilocks itself. It has a few plusses—a solid service history, three-owner past, and a clean title. It also has a few flaws, though they are limited to aesthetics. Naturally, the party piece of the eighth-generation Si is the drivetrain. That's comprised of the 2.0-liter K20Z3 i-VTEC four, which made 197 horsepower when new, a slick-shifting six-speed manual gearbox, and a limited-slip differential. Together, that all powers (overpowers, some might say) the front wheels. According to the ad, the car is mechanically solid and passed its recent smog test.

The Si is a driver's car, a fact made clear by the killer drivetrain and the cabin fitted with deeply bolstered front bucket seats and a fat-rimmed three-spoke steering wheel. The thing is, while carving up canyons or yelling "VTEC JUST KICKED IN YO!" at people, the car should look the part, too. And that's where this Civic lets down. Per the specs in the ad, this Si has 180,000 miles on the clock, and the clear coat looks to have given up on doing its clear-coating job somewhere around halfway through that not-insubstantial journey.

Other elements of visual blight include a scrape on the front bumper that the seller attributes in tattle-tale fashion to the previous owner, and a bodged repair on a broken tail lamp lens. This Civic's biggest downfall, however, is that failed clear coat, which doesn't give it so much of a pleasant patina as the impression that it's sat out in the sun for way too long without and protection.

That's all a moot point from behind the steering wheel, though, and the cabin appears to have held up just fine for the years, miles, and the butts of the three owners it's had to endure. The cloth upholstery appears to be in great condition, as do all of the plastic bits in the cabin. This is the generation of Civic when Honda decided to get weird with its cabin design, so the car has an oddball two-tier instrument display and an emergency brake handle that looks like it might eject the driver's seat rather than clamp the brakes when you yank it.

Craigslist

On the plus side, the seller claims to have kept up with the Civic's service intervals and has maintained a binder full of receipts for any work performed on the car and the parts that have been replaced. This Si rolls on Michelin meats, which suggests the level of expense the current owner is willing to put in to keep it running properly.

Why has the present owner put the car up for sale? The explanation is that it was used as a commuter car, and that commute is no longer part of their work life, so the car is now just taking up space.

If anyone wanted it to take up space in their driveway, the seller has set a $6,500 price tag for the opportunity. For that much, the next owner gets what looks like a solid, stock Si with a reasonable history and some really crappy paint. What's your take on that possibility? Does $6,500 feel fair given this Civic's presentation and specs? Or do the cons outweigh the pros, yo?

You decide!

San Francisco Bay Area, California, Craigslist, or go here if the ad disappears.

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