As noted in my previous COAL on our ’94 Honda Civic, it took me a number of months to find employment once we moved to Maryland in 1993. Once I did find a job we tried to be a one-car family for a bit but that proved to be too much of a commuting hassle. So not long after the Civic showed up in early winter 1993 I was in the market for a car of my own. Cheap was the order of the day.
Since my job was in northern Virginia and we lived in central Maryland, I had quite a long commute. The good thing was that the DC Metro system could get me most of the way to the office as long as I got to the end of one of the train lines. With one car, my wife had to drive me to the train station in the morning, drive back to her office, and then drive back in the evening to get me. Because the train station was in the opposite direction as her office she was driving quite a bit in DC traffic. Needless to say, this didn’t make either of us happy, so we decided to invest in a second car as it was probably cheaper than couples therapy…
As the job I took didn’t pay all that well, I was looking for a car with a low monthly payment (probably the worst way to buy a car, I know). At the time, Ford was still making the Ranger pickup at a pretty attractive price point. I was pretty convinced that this truck would be the ideal solution for cheap transportation until I drove one. I took a 4-cylinder manual transmission shortbed regular cab truck out for a test drive at a local dealer and did not like the handling at all. I’d never owned or even driven a short-wheelbase pickup truck, so the alarming tendency for the unloaded rear axle to skip around dramatically over bumps did not build my confidence. I also tried the current generation Escort LX two-door hatchback (in teal, of course) with the manual transmission and a “sport” package which was mostly a spoiler and some stripes. That car was definitely not competitive with its Honda counterparts that I’d been driving so this car wasn’t for me either. On the plus side, Ford was offering a “drive new every two” promotion which, if memory serves, was a car loan with an enormous balloon payment that you could avoid by trading the car in and restarting the clock. The salesperson put the hard sell on me by telling me about how he recently survived a heart attack and really needed the sale to put him back on track. No sale.
Since I had a history with Honda I did some research on Accords, which had been redesigned since my ’91 LX. Unfortunately, in my price range the bottom of the line was the best I could do, and by the time I added the dealer-installed air conditioning and stereo (with two speakers only) we were already beyond what I wanted to spend. A little additional research turned up another option at the Acura dealer, though – the Integra hatchback was probably in my price range if I squinted a bit.
The local Acura dealer had a dark gray Integra RS that seemed to fit my needs. This was also the bottom of the line, but unlike the Accord it did come with a stereo, power windows, power mirrors, and body color bumpers/mirrors. Air conditioning was a dealer extra, but this RS already had it installed. The RS didn’t come with cruise control or power locks, both of which would have been nice but not necessary (the car was narrow enough that reaching across to unlock a door was easy).
As with the Ford dealer, the Acura dealer’s saleswoman was very eager to get me into this car, and was willing to give me the pinstripes on the car for free (they were a dealer add-on to pad the price). The lease deals on this car were pretty good, but I wanted to keep the lease payment under $250 per month. Once the finance department worked up the numbers the payment came to $268.91 per month (amazing that I can remember that after all this time). When I balked a bit the saleswoman said the difference could be made up by having fewer cups of coffee per month – she didn’t appreciate my observation that I didn’t drink coffee. I knew she drank coffee, as her cowl-neck sweater had a puddle of coffee in the collar when we were talking – no idea how she managed to get the pool of coffee there and it made the negotiations a bit awkward. After much discussion and nearing the dealer’s closing time I finally agreed to lease the car. The salesperson was so excited that she accidentally spit out her dentures on the paperwork: something that I can say has not happened to me since.
This was the third-generation Integra with the quad round headlights and low-beam projector lights and I thought it looked really good, even with the plastic wheel covers that were all my budget would allow. It didn’t take me very long to begin enjoying that car’s agile handling and reasonable acceleration with the 142 hp 4-cylinder 5-speed powertrain. The manual transmission had a pistol-grip shaped shift lever you can see in the photo above: it wasn’t like the pistol grips of mid-60s Mopars but it was nicer than the plain knob on our Civic.
The first few months of ownership didn’t see much spirited driving as that winter had several ice storms, something I’ve gotten used to here in Maryland but hadn’t really seen in Ohio. Not much fun hacking ice off your new car, to be sure. If you look closely at the picture above, you can see that the cold weather has resulted in the automatic power antenna being stuck partway up (and note that the car still has its temp tags so this was probably in the first month I owned it). That was always a pain in the winter, and when it would stick it would make some really awful crunching noises.
I had to deal with another bad winter during my time with the car – we had a major winter storm crop up in 1996 that started when I was still at work. I had to drive all the way home (roughly 20 miles on surface streets) in increasingly heavy snow. My relatively low and sporty hatchback was sharing the snow-covered streets mostly with 4wd pickups and snowplows, but I didn’t have any trouble getting back home. The streets were essentially unplowed because the snow was coming down so quickly, but I didn’t have any trouble at all on my trip…until I got to the end of my driveway. There, I got stuck thanks to the snowbank at the end of the driveway. Nobody’s perfect, I guess.
My experience with the Integra was much more positive than my experience with the Civic. The car was more fun to drive (no idea why, as the basic platform was essentially the same) and the hatchback made it pretty versatile. I was able to bring home a large overstuffed recliner in that car by putting the base of the chair up against the front seats and laying the back of the chair under the rear hatch. I did learn, however, that it was very important with the large hatchback to have one of the doors cracked open a bit when the hatch was closed. If the doors were closed the hatch would be difficult to shut because of the pressure built up when the hatch was closed. The pressure was enough that I actually dented the hatch sheetmetal with my hand when I tried to shut it.
Early in my ownership of the car I brought it back to Ohio to show my parents my “sporty” car, and my dad was jokingly scoffing that I’d bought a “base” economy car with plastic wheels. Of course, not long after that he traded in his ’92 Prelude on a ’94 Integra himself, but he got the GS-R model with sunroof, CD player, uprated VTEC engine (170 hp), and rear spoiler. His car was significantly more fun to drive than mine. That was the first time I realized that my dad took my car knowledge seriously.
I learned from my experience with the Civic and bought a front end mask (the black vinyl kind) to protect the paint. They were expensive and fairly ugly, but at least they were a pain to install. Even so, I thought it was better at the time to have those hassles rather than a forest of stone chips on the front of the car. Same with our security system – I am sure that the Curbside Classic audience will remember “The Club” anti-theft device. We dutifully put it on the steering wheel every time we parked, much to the amusement of my parents when I did that in front of their house (at a time when they still left cars unlocked in the driveway). We finally gave up on the Club when it was pointed out to me that the device was easily foiled by simply using bolt cutters to hack through the steering wheel rim making the device easy to remove.
The car was a great joy to drive but my ownership period was relatively uneventful (and not that memorable, oddly enough). We did have a minor collision in a snowstorm with it, but that was quickly repaired. I didn’t have any mechanical failures and did little more than put gas in it and visit the dealer for maintenance periodically. After a little more than three years of ownership a lot had changed. We had bought our first house and I’d gotten a different job that was much more interesting. We were looking for a car that was roomier for passengers and had a few more amenities, so we traded the Acura in on something more “mature.” Its replacement wasn’t nearly as much fun, as we will see in a couple of weeks.
MDLAUGHLIN, Interesting read that adds to my own conclusions and prejudices about cars and life.
You write: “… but my ownership period was relatively uneventful (and not that memorable, oddly enough).”
For this CC reader that’s a very good sign. Uneventful is good; surprises are (usually) bad. When you have a lot going on in life, a reliable car is a joy.
This Integra was (as you mentioned) a great choice.
After owning a much loved 82 Accord, I read and was told that American cars had vastly improved. Perhaps they had, but not sufficiently to beat the Japanese offerings. I tried to buy American, over and over, but I now own a Mazda and a Toyota, and I am not likely to go back. But that’s just me (and frankly lots of others as well).
The note about your father following your lead is especially memorable.
The power antennae on my 78 280Z would freeze in the down position in freezing/damp conditions. After it thawed, I started wiping the fully raise antennae with a WD40 soaked rag. If I recall, that did the job.
Was the Escort you looked at the Mazda based one or the older Ford design? The late 90’s to early 2000’s Mazda based ones weren’t bad cars at all. They could take a surprising amount of abuse/neglect, although they weren’t as refined as the Civic.
I always thought this generation of Integra was an attractive car. I liked the unique quad headlight design. Unfortunately I rarely see these on the road anymore. I suspect rust and a lack of maintenance did most of them in. They need timing belt changes when they get older/higher mileage, or risk major engine damage.
I still see a few on the road, but they were very popular with the rice-rocket crowd, so most have been modded and/or thrashed into the ground.
Most I see are beat up and have fart pipes.
Agreed – I have thought about trying to find another one to play around with since I liked my original one so much, but all the ones I can find have 200k+ on the odometer and many look like they’ve been through at least one Fast and Furious casting call. I think it’s more thrashing that gets these cars rather than rust.
The ’94 Escort I looked at was the Mazda-based one. It wasn’t really all that bad, objectively speaking, so I probably had expectations that were too high. It would have been an acceptable choice had I not found the Integra at a lease payment that was pretty close to the Escort payment.
As we’ll see next week, great stories make for very problematic ownership experiences. I have tended to avoid cars that would give me that memorable owner story (i.e., British or Italian sports cars) so a lot of the interesting stories I have are either awkward purchase stories or the occasional accident.
I was amused about the comment on the plastic wheel covers. I used to hate steel wheels with wheel covers, but several years ago my brother in law dispensed a bit of wisdom that I’ve taken to heart. When he bought his first Saturn years ago, it was a fairly up-market car, but he got it with the factory steelies and plastic wheelcovers instead of the alloy wheels. When asked, he told me that if you have a run in with a curb you replace the plastic wheel cover for maybe $100. If you really run into a curb you replace the wheel cover and the steel wheel for maybe $250. But if you prang an alloy wheel, you’re going to spend maybe $400 for a factory replacement. The numbers are hypothetical, but are for illustrative purposes.
I had never thought of it that way, but it makes a lot of sense. Along with other parts on modern cars, even steelies have gone on a weight reduction program and are within a few pounds of alloys, not the dramatic difference there once was many years ago. My last couple of new cars have had the steelies with plastic wheel covers. GM does a heck of a job making their wheel covers look like alloys, at least in my eyes. The last couple of used cars I’ve purchased have had alloys, and have been somewhat problematic.
The point of this ramble is: do what makes sense for your ride, not for what other people think.
Besides, since I haven’t spent money on alloys for my cars, I can spend that money on much better performing tires, brakes and shocks.
geozinger, Good points.
I also like the old fashion poverty hub caps that were scoffed at back in the day as being the choice of skinflints. They are so rare today that they are now a style statement.
The most recent VW Beetle models offer old style hub caps and they looked much better (to me) than the alloys. But because I owned a type 1 Beetle, I may not be totally objective.
Most modern steel wheels do not appear to have the nubs that can be used for dog dish caps, so some thought and effort needs to be taken to resolve that issue, e.g., http://www.autoamenity.com/KartList/CBM.htm.
Those 17 inch “Heritage” Beetle wheels you point out aren’t what they seem; they are indeed alloy.
That is a great point – we don’t tend to park in places where we get close to curbs but if you do it is much cheaper to buy a plastic wheelcover replacement. I didn’t think the Integra’s base wheels looked bad, actually.
Having spent some 4 decades driving gravel roads I have come to dislike steelies intensely. Dust builds up on the flat inside surface of the rim, is pulled to the bottom by gravity when parked at home in the late afternoon or evening and then turns to mud with the dew. Read; unwanted wheel weight and severely unbalanced wheels (Which my wife would never notice, or if she did she would just speed up to see if the vibration would become less at higher speeds, while still on the gravel. She would slow down when we got to the pavement). The grit wasn’t just in the wheels, it was also the way I had to hold my jaw. The stones rattling around between the hubcaps and the rims were just icing on the cake.
Steelies with hubcaps are also extremely difficult to get cleaned out inside. I still have nightmares of crawling under our vehicles with a car wash wand, blasting that portion of the diameter that was accessible, trying to roll the car forward while still underneath so I didn’t have to crawl back out and then in again, and coming out looking like the Swamp Monster.
There are only alloys on our vehicles now. Scarred and corroded, but cleanable from the outside… and balanced.
I am guessing that you did not come to Maryland until the middle of 1993 and thus skipped out on the “blizzard of a Century” that occured in March of 1993. That one made the Blizzard of 1996 seem like nothing. I was in high school in 93 and we missed so many days that we had to attend school an hour extra everyday until the end of the school year to make it up. I think my folks(and a lot of others)abandoned the use of their cars for several weeks after this storm and walked to get to store and spent most of the time at home. There was so much snow that they pilled it up on top of other snow when they cleaned up the sidewalks and it made it look like trenches of the first World War. I was 6 foot tall at that time and it still towered over me.
I understand about the Ford Ranger “hop”, I only noticed this on 495 though, I solved it by just keeping a couple of cinder blocks in the back and all was good.
I glad the hear that the Metro in the old days was good, however it sucks so much nowadays due to them trying to save $$$ and deferring all the repair work until it needed to be done ASAP.
Yes, we got here in June of ’93. We had visited the area just after the March ’93 blizzard so we got to see the enormous snow piles but missed all the challenges that came with the snow. We’ve lived through some big ones since!
True, more or less, but it’s beside the point. Any anti-theft measure can and will be defeated by a sufficiently dedicated thief; if they really want your car, and they’ve got tools, time, and opportunity, they’re going to get it.
But most car thieves aren’t desperate to get your particular car, they want a car—and they want it as quickly, quietly, and easily as can be. The point of a device like a club lock is to make your car less attractive to a thief than the numerous others in the vicinity without club locks: why take the chance on being caught skulkin’ around with bolt cutters (“Uhhh…well, y’see, officer, ummm…”)? Why spend risky extra time and make extra noise dealing with the club lock when it’ll take less time and effort and make less noise stealing a car without?
Same goes for tamper-resistant licence plate screws: they’re not tamper-proof; if someone really, really wants your plates, they’ll get past your special screws. But most plate thieves want to get a plate as quickly and inconspicuously as they can, so they’ll just move on to the next car without the special screws.
The automotive version of the old punch line “I don’t have to outrun the bear, I just have to outrun you.” 🙂
Love that joke – I use it all the time…
Not sure about when it was new, but this generation of Integra was still in the top 5 most stolen cars as recently as a couple of years ago, IIRC. So maybe the OP was right to at least try a deterrent. Maybe his particular Integra wouldn’t be worth the effort and the thief would move on.
True enough – I should amend my comments by noting that we gave up on anti-theft devices like the Club once we started to buy cars that had more sophisticated alarms and ignition key chips. The Club was sometimes more of a hassle than it was worth, so being able just to set an alarm that would deter the casual car thief was much better. No doubt that none of these really deter the thief who really wants your car for a particular reason.
I worked with a guy who had 2 of these. He loved them both. These were really nice cars in their segment.
I agree with R L Plaut: the cars with the best stories and the best cars are not usually the same ones.
I had a good laugh about your encounters with the Acura saleslady, I recntly went to look at the Toyota C-HR, and the saleslady, who was pleasant but fairly clueless, rambled on about ‘when the Chinese make them’ and when my eyes widened said ‘ er, I mean the Japanese’. At VW a salesman told me the Golf 7.5 is bigger than the 7, it isn’t.. These and so many similar encounters leave me feeling really aphrehensive about anything I hear at the dealeship.
I did some time in the trenches at a Toyota dealer, I can attest that the vast majority of the sales staff was far more interested in closing a deal and getting on to the next one than anything else. They will say/do anything to get you into the closer’s office. Occasionally, their ignorance slips out, too.
On the staff of about 20 salesmen there were three of us who knew anything about cars. I was one of them; I was the sports car guy. Which was great if I only sold sports cars. It didn’t help me at all selling cheap Corollas and stripper pickup trucks…
No doubt – I have realized over the years that the salesperson’s job is to get you to the deal as quickly as possible. As a result, I tend to signal to salespeople early on that they don’t need to push a lot of information on me. If I’m here to test drive a particular car that probably means that the car is one for which I have already done a lot of research. The sales transactions seem to go much better for me as a result. I applied for a salesperson job early in my career when I was having difficulty finding an engineering-related job, and it became apparent to me in the interview that I didn’t really need specialized car-related information, but rather education and experience on how to sell somebody something. Understandable, to be sure.
A friend of mine has a similar 2001 Acura coupe in black that he bought used a few years ago. It had been sitting for quite a while, and he talked the seller down to $900 (Canadian). All it needed to safety it was new tires and brakes, and it passed the e-test with no problems. It’s his daily driver, and with well over 200,000 km on the clock he’s had no trouble with it other than normal maintenance items. It’s got a bit of rust on it (hey, this is Ontario) but he’s quite happy with it and he’ll drive it into the ground like he did with his last car (an ’89 Prelude). Great cars.
We didn’t have the Acura, but we had the DX version of that Civic in the exact same color. It didn’t go through snow like the 85 Jetta it replaced, but it performed flawlessly for nearly a decade. When GM needed a bailout a few years ago, I thought the government should of offered Honda the $$ to let GM build the 1993 Honda Civic, indefinitely.
If GM was taking The Peoples money it should’ve produced a “Peoples Car”, like the Beetle, and made it a good one.
Also, unfortunately Acura no longer makes a sporty hatch like this. I considered a used RSX a few years ago, but couldn’t find once close with good miles, so I ended up with Civic Hybrid. Of course the Three-thousand dollar battery went out and that was that.
Good story here .
My Son bought one of these in white when it has two or three years old from a guy who bought insurance totaled cars and fixed them more or less (the AC was never repaired).
It was dirt cheap and came with loads of Hot Rod crap so once past 8,000 RPM’s at came alive and he had much fun with it, going through two transmissions before getting impatient at a stop sign with me riding shotgun and rabbiting out in front of a pickup truck that drove ever the hood on two wheels, rolling on top of a ’67 Chevelle Coupe and totaling out all three cars although we were able to drive home .
Talk about lucky kids ! he was under insured and no one was hurt so he signed up to pay for the destroyed Chevelle but the stupid kid who owned the Chevelle got cute and tried to double dip, he got arrested and they told my Son not to pay anymore (?! WTF?!) .
It’s very interesting to watch the under side of another vehicle go past your windshield .
IMO, the Acura Integra was very much like a Japanese Buick in fit, finish and driving pleasure .
That his had all that rice racer crap was icing on the cake .
-Nate
-Nate