Review : Crashing my EP3

Now, crashing a car is something nobody wants to do, especially as a car Guy/Girl because these piece's of metal are our pride and joys and we love them and when people say 'it's only a car it can be replaced' they have no idea.

Even though by the time I owned my first Civic EP3, which was the UK's First Civic Type R for those that did not know, I had owned my Integra DC2 before this one but it was EP3's that got me into Honda's years ago, I remember walking to and from school and spotting them and instantly falling in love! What I did not know is I would go on to dislike EP3's for multiple reasons.

The EP3 gets a lot of mixed reviews from people up and down the country Clarkson liked it, Chris Harris not so much...I am a person who is not so much a fan of the EP3 as an all round package, YES it is FUN and it is reasonably quick, but my god on Standard Shocks they handle like crap and lack the most essential tool of a FWD Hothatch..a Limited Slip Differential...only the JDM models came with these as standard...They came with independant rear suspension but without the Double wish bone front suspension the EP3 in my eyes handled like a car with a solid rear beam, the independant suspension just seemed pointless with how tail happy these cars like to be which on a road is something you do not want...

For an Un-Biased Review have a read of this : drivetribe.com/p/B70G3MuaSOyv2wrbtVzd3g?commentId=BhQwvyANR0-flWmUT77M1A&iid=D6TNdwLhTluuOBPPyCymOw&replyId=bR9VKCijRy2KzDSuZKAjSQ#comments I stumbled across that a few days ago and it made me glad to see that 1. It saved me a job of doing a full review and 2. The guy has similar views on the car too me.

Perfection in an EP3 did exist..

Perfection in an EP3 did exist..

Anyways back to the point of this Review, crashing my EP3...I bought the above Civic from a lad in Manchester in January 2017..I had been looking for a while and waiting for a supercharged one but I grew impatient and my friend sent me a photo of the for sale ad for this one..that afternoon I picked it up, I fell in love with it instantly which is something I have never done with a car based on the looks because I am a driver and the way a car drives is more important to me than how it looks. So its 2/1/2017 I had been going through a bit of a crap time for a few months and this was my present to me and a bit of a new year new car sort of thing, in 1 month I went through 2 front tyres, a set of front discs and pads, 3 litres of engine oil and 1300 miles...from those figure you can probably tell I really liked this car and drove it a lot and drove it hard, I'm not gonna lie, if I didn't crash this car I would probably still own it to this day...Just look how beautiful it looked!

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Aside from the looks the car itself was actually a 30th Anniversary model which meant it was a limited numbered car meaning 250 silver, 250 black, 250 red (I think that is the correct numbers, I'm sure Wikipedia could probably tell you exact) So after nearly a month of owning the car obviously I had come across a few things I wanted to change, better brakes after ruining the OEM ones very quickly, stickier tyres and get the tracking setup as it had all adjustable camber bolts, arms etc etc.

24hours after buying the car

24hours after buying the car

At the time I worked at a Honda Dealership so I got all my parts and labour at next to nothing, it used to cost me £9.10 for an oil and filter service for labour and around £40 for an OEM filter and some good oil so it was was no brainer for me to get on my back on a weekend and service it myself..so as a payday treat in January I got the car serviced on the Friday and Sunday AM I got 2 Brand new Michelin Pilotsport 4's fitted to the front and the tracking setup on a Hunter system, went for a little blast and was surprised just how much of a difference the changes had made...I carried on with my day went to the partners house at the time chilled out for a bit it was a Sunday so not a lot going on apart from dreading work on Monday, I left the partners house at around 10pm Sunday 2/2/2017 and knowing how I drive she said 'Drive safe let me know when your home' baring in mine its a 5 minute drive through town with road that have a speed limit of 30mph...me being me decided nahhhhhhh I'm going to go the long way home...20 minutes later I was ringing the partner from a ditch...

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'Drive Safe' is something I now will never have said to me before a journey just like 'One last run' when I'm out on my mountain bike...i'm sure you want to hear how the above happened anyway...it was slightly moist out and probably no more than 4 Degree's it was the 2nd of February afterall...so I'm coming into a left hand corner which you can safely take at 60mph I start braking at 80mph and probably slowed to around 60mph but..the corner after is literally 50 yards after the first corner and is a right hander obviously late at night I was using both lanes midway round the right hander headlights suddenly appear and I am on their side of the road, so I swerved to avoid the on-coming traffic but as I straightened back up to go where I wanted to go the typical EP3 oversteer came into play so there I am, a cold Sunday evening, drifting on a backroad trying to keep my car on the road and all I can think of is the kerb that I am heading for sideways (yes everything slows down) and how much it's going to hurt if I hit that kerb side on...luckily for me the car pivoted some more and the backend went some more which meant I went backwards over the kerb and into the ditch, through some trees and into a bridle path where I came to a stop after hitting a tree, pretty scary at the time but hey we live and we learn, sort of.

Passenger Side Rear Quarter panel

Passenger Side Rear Quarter panel

The first thing I did was shout at myself did a lot of swearing and then I got out of the car, looked at the drivers side and thought 'Oh its not that bad' til i walked round to the Passenger side...It was a dead EP3 but it still ran and drove so I phoned my partner who was rather confused as to why I was ringing her 20 minutes after leaving her house so I calmly started the conversation off normal as if nothing was wrong then explained what had happened then I got onto the phone to my friend who own's his own recovery truck, he didn't answer TWICE! so I then rang another friend who managed to get in touch and offered to come see me to make sure everything was ok, so he turned up with another friend while we wanted for the recovery truck, but in waiting for the truck I thought I'm going to get myself out of this ditch...at the time I didn't think Drive out the way I came in...so I'm surrounded by bushes but my first thought was go as fast and you can drive through the bushes and hopefully get out the other side on the road...it worked until I beached on a flood drain.

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I'm not making excuses for running out of talent that night but! 2 brand new sticky tyres upfront and some cheap shitty budgets on the back definitely did not help with the whole situation which is why I do not run mix-matched tyres now so I suppose I have learnt one thing from this and the fact that it's expensive. I sold the engine and gearbox to a friend while i was still in the ditch, sold the cage to a guy in wales who drove over 4 hours to pick it up, the seats I put into my next EP3 that I bought and the wheels I sold to a friend and he has since sold them to another friend who has put them onto an Accord, and they are gold now.

So after a mixture of events I no longer like the way an EP3 on standard shocks handles and it is similar views with a lot of people that have them in standard form..I think I spoilt myself by owning one of the best if not the best Honda ever made (DC2), so if you have learnt anything from this Kids, don't drive fast when its wet and under tree's, don't drive an EP3 on standard shocks really quickly, DO NOT EVER mix and match budget tyres with good tyres on different axles if you're trying to escape a bridlepath drive out the way you came in...

It was the most fun 1 month I have ever had since owning cars even though it ended badly..RIP Cool EP3 2/1/2017 - 2/2/2017 you have been missed everyday since.