I bought a Civic today!
 

Well me and the wife were tossing the ideal around of finding a beater car to save on gas. During the past 2 weeks my wife kept going back and forth on the ideal and then out of no where yesterday, she said just go buy a new car. So that's what I did today. I got a 2008 Civix LX sedan 5 speed. Traded off my 2003 Blazer, and the only thing I will miss about it is the 4 wheel drive in the winter, other than that, nothing. Now to start hypermiling:D !!!

Congratulations. I bet you'll love it.

I've been driving in heavy snow since 1972 (not including summers!), and I think 4 really good snow tires make a very big difference (get some extra wheels). I'd rather have great tires with 2WD, as compared with average tires and 4WD.

A brand I really like is Nokian. They are harder to find, and can be expensive, but I think they are worth it for the traction.

No connection to them, just a happy customer.

But even with good tires, you have to remember that you don't have the ground clearance you are used to. Especially when the car is loaded.

This is a good point. When I started driving my VW after not having driven a small car for 5 years, it was tough to remember that I couldn't just run over everything. What looked like a little snowball rolling down the road made an awful clatter as it bounced around under my car. Parallel parking at work, I allowed myself to get a little too close to the grassy hill on one side with its broken pavement at the edge and heard an awful scraping noise (but there was no damage to speak of). I drove over a small piece of debris in my driveway and later found a piece of plastic from the undercarriage sitting there. Luckily it just snapped back into place.

Congrats!!!! I too bought a Civic about 3 wks ago. I LOVE it! Im getting close to getting 42 MPG. I just need to qiut being late so much. LOL.

Good job. I returned a Civic to the dealership yesterday. It was just painful to drive ( size ). Im going to try for another Camry or Accord.

Fit is probably the most important quality of a car. If it looks ugly and runs like crap and has just the right dimensions/layout for you, you're bound to be more comfortable driving it than if it's brand new, fast, looks great, and the armrests/console/seat/steering wheel are all in the wrong place for the way you sit.