I bought an '02 Civic the other day to use as a beater, and the steering feels really weird. I've owned 3 Hondas, and I don't recall noticing this on any one of them.

The issue I have is with how the steering is weighted. In other words, the steering wheel should want to return to the neutral position when you release pressure. My car does this when the wheel is turned more than thirty degrees or so, but on smaller deflections (ten degrees or so), the wheel wants to stay off-center. If I turn the wheel a small amount (say to change lanes on the highway), the wheel will not recenter itself.

Is this normal? The car has 15,000 miles on it and doesn't appear to have ever been in a front-end collision.

 

Over 40 views and no one's got an opinion? I know a bunch of S2k drivers use Civics as beaters, so throw me a bone here. I don't want to visit the local $tealer if I don't have to.

Thanks!

 

I have a 01 ex coupe with 17" Eneki wheels wrapped with Yokahama rubber. I have not noticed what you describe here. I also use this car to drive to work, I drive about 80 miles a day I would hate to put these miles on a nice car. You might not find a lot of help here these guys always trash talk about the 01-03 civics. Apperantly, there seems to be more interest in the older models and the new designed 04. I think the car is good for what it is reliable transportation. I bet these guys hate having to drive their s2000's as a daily driver. Check out

 

I can't give you an answer as to why it doesn't want to return to center by it may be the tires. I recently got rid to the crappy General tires on my Silverado and replaced them with Mich MXLT's. I like the tires much better but with a slight turn of the wheel it doesn't move back to center. It's not bad but it bugged me for the first few hundred miles.

 

I've considered that it might just be the fact that I'm not used to the car. I guess I could go test drive another one and see how it feels.

I've come from a VW Golf, an S2000, and two Integras, all of which had great steering feel (obviously the S was the best and in a class of it's own), so maybe the Civic is just a step down from what I'm used to.

Thanks for the replies.