Piston Slap: Can I Still Drive This?

Nicholas writes:

Hi Sajeev,

Daily reader but not a commenter. Had a question regarding a recently deer damaged car that I wanted to see what you and the community might have to say about it. I’m the owner of a 2003, Honda Civic LX, 4-door, manual transmission, with 56,000 miles on the odometer. The car spent most of its life in an underground parking garage in the District of Columbia and was driven sporadically on the weekends. As a result, it was in great condition until its unfortunate encounter with the deer.

My insurance company estimated damages at approximately 3600 dollars (cracked headlight, chipped windscreen, windscreen trim, dented hood, fender, rear passenger door, and missing side view mirror). I opted not to have the car repaired immediately and the assessor cut me a check for the amount of damage less my deductable. I had the body shop put on an aftermarket mirror and the car is now drivable albeit ugly. No damage to the frame or mechanical bits. CarMax offered me 4,000 for the car in its current condition.

Right now I use the car for a once a week mega commute to DC (200 miles round trip) and to drop my infant daughter off at daycare in the mornings. My wife drives an Audi Q5 that we use for everything else.

Since my car was 9 years old and somewhat small, I had been thinking about getting a new car. I wasn’t planning on doing so until next year since there’s a lot of interesting new products in the pipeline. As I see it now, I have a couple of options going forward.

1. Get the Civic repaired. The only problem with this option is that I’ll never get the put into it money back when I sell/trade it in. This is more true if I pay for OEM sheet metal (insurance will only pay for aftermarket). Right now if I were to sell the car to CarMax and cash the insurance check, I’d have 7,000 in my pocket. If the car is repaired I can’t see that I’d get more that 5-6k for it, so I’d basically be losing 2,000 dollars. One caveat, I did an autotrader search and saw that identical civics (same year, manual trans etc), which more miles on them (80-100k) were being offered for sale a 7-8k. A lot of them had accident damage according to the carfax reports (damaged bumpers). Perhaps I could get more than 5-6k for mine, but not certain.

2. Get a new car. I planed on driving the Civic for the next year or so while I determined what kind of car to replace it with. Against my better judgment, I was thinking of getting a German car (my wife has had excellent experiences with her current Audi and the A4 she owned before that). GTI, Audi or BMW are all under consideration. Although I could afford the Audi or BMW, I’m wondering if it’s really worth the 40k to get one (spend money on experiences not things etc.). GTI is expensive when compared to Camcords, but significantly cheaper than the other German iron. Problem is with a child and potentially another one in the future, should I really be spending my on a 4-door hot hatch? I pretty much driven the equivalent of ‘hair shirts’ my whole life, so part of me wants to actually get a nice ride for once.

3. Drive the ugly Civic until the wheels come off. Although it offends my aesthetic sensibilities, the Civic is drivable. The only issue I’m having is wind noise from the after market mirror that the body shop put on. Can’t seem to cure it with high-density foam tape. Considering the primary use of the car is for a DC commuter, does it matter if it’s ugly? Did I mention I’m the son of immigrants so frugality has been ingrained into me?

I think that’s everything. Probably need to make a decision in the upcoming months so a speedy resolution would be welcomed.

Thanks in advance\

Sajeev answers:

Son of immigrants? Okay with driving a junky looking car because someone close to you has an Audi Q5? Your story hits close to home.

That said, this is a no brainer: drive that little shit until there’s nothing left! Don’t use new OEM parts, any junkyard or aftermarket bits will do fine. Going on eBay is a good idea, you can easily install a cheapy repro headlight in your spare time. But let the rest be for a while. You can get the hood,windscreen, etc fixed later.

Ahem, this is also a good time to tell everyone to inspect their (Halogen, not HID) headlight filaments to look for chrome peeling or other degradation. If so, replace them. I’ve seen some people need new bulbs after 2 years of use, so this is IMPORTANT!

See if your body shop can exchange that noisy mirror for a proper Honda part from the junkyard. Doesn’t matter if it’s the wrong color, just paint it (both?) semi-flat black with some cheapy rattle can paint. Be proud of what you are doing. You are obviously of the fixer-upper personality from your letter, so don’t be shy. Roll that bucket up and down DC with pride!!!