Hello! I bought my Tafetta White Si coupe back in late June and figured I'd register after some lurking. I've never owned a Honda before (car, anyways) and never bought any Japanese vehicles brand new before. I have a 110 mile round trip work commute 3-5 times a week so long-term reliability was a large concern. I'd like to get about 8 years and 200K miles out of this car, along with lots of smiles along the way when I get the chance to have some fun.
I was considering the Mazdaspeed 3 and VW GTI, along with maybe waiting for the Veloster Turbo and Focus ST. In the end I decided the Hyundai and Focus would need to age a little to "work the bugs out" before I was comfortable buying one, and didn't want to wait that long. After lurking around the GTI discussion sites and seeing some of the relatively large problems people were having, I decided against one. If I was planning to only get 100K or less miles out of the car I was buying, it still would have been in the running. The Mazda...well I've never seen a Mazda that has aged well. They generally don't seem to do so well much past 100K miles. In the end I decided the Si was the best "blend" of the attributes I wanted. I had a hard time deciding between the coupe or sedan, but in the end I decided that since I'd be alone in the car almost all the time, I could sacrifice the 2 extra doors and practicality of the sedan. I still sometimes think I may have been better off with the sedan, but either way I chose the coupe with navigation. I have about 1900 miles on her so far and I'm loving it!
All I've done is remove the DOHC/vtec decals from the side and the civic badge from the trunk. Well, I also added some "SAVE THE MANUALS!" stickers to the rear 1/4 windows. I have no plans to sink much money into it as far as modifications go. The rev hang annoys the freaking hell out of me so as my warranty period draws to a close I might go Hondata, unless Honda comes up with a reflash/update that truly gets rid of it. Up up in the air on removing the intake resonator. I might add the OEM splash guards and auto-dim rear view mirror, but no real plans to do anything else.
I was considering the Mazdaspeed 3 and VW GTI, along with maybe waiting for the Veloster Turbo and Focus ST. In the end I decided the Hyundai and Focus would need to age a little to "work the bugs out" before I was comfortable buying one, and didn't want to wait that long. After lurking around the GTI discussion sites and seeing some of the relatively large problems people were having, I decided against one. If I was planning to only get 100K or less miles out of the car I was buying, it still would have been in the running. The Mazda...well I've never seen a Mazda that has aged well. They generally don't seem to do so well much past 100K miles. In the end I decided the Si was the best "blend" of the attributes I wanted. I had a hard time deciding between the coupe or sedan, but in the end I decided that since I'd be alone in the car almost all the time, I could sacrifice the 2 extra doors and practicality of the sedan. I still sometimes think I may have been better off with the sedan, but either way I chose the coupe with navigation. I have about 1900 miles on her so far and I'm loving it!
All I've done is remove the DOHC/vtec decals from the side and the civic badge from the trunk. Well, I also added some "SAVE THE MANUALS!" stickers to the rear 1/4 windows. I have no plans to sink much money into it as far as modifications go. The rev hang annoys the freaking hell out of me so as my warranty period draws to a close I might go Hondata, unless Honda comes up with a reflash/update that truly gets rid of it. Up up in the air on removing the intake resonator. I might add the OEM splash guards and auto-dim rear view mirror, but no real plans to do anything else.

