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I have a Mark 8 2006 (european) honda civic hatchback (1.8L petrol), sold to me by a friend a year ago. It has no crossmember behind the radiator mounting, and consequently I inadvertantly lifted it by the (lower) radiator mounting frame crossmember when changing the oil for the first time, under the impression I had found the crossmember jacking point.1 Moreover I was not the first person to make the mistake (the crossmember was already somewhat deformed).

Thus I borrowed a friend's drive, put the car on stands and took the plastic off to bend the radiator frame back and find the subframe crossmember. There is no crossmember at all, and no frame (that I can see) running down the sides of the engine. Should there be one? I was expecting to see a frame assembly with crossmember across the front looking something like this:

Example subframe.

Here is what I do see:

Looking forwards from behind engine

Looking left from behind engine

Looking forwards from under engine

Annoyingly I didn't take any photos looking backwards from the bumper. Oil is overspray from removing a stubborn bolt when taking off the plastic.

Should there be a subframe assembly with crossmember here? (If so: does it have another name?) This car is supposedly stock, but there are reasons to think the dealer my friend bought it from was not exactly perfect in every regard. If not, can I lift by the frame/subframe behind the engine?

[This may be too vehicle-specific a question for SE in which case I'll take it elsewhere.]

1 The radiator is (as far as I can tell) suspended on another frame from the top frame member, but the lower had risen far enough to make shutting the bonnet harder.

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  • Vehicle specific questions are fine. Someone one here will be able to help.
    – HandyHowie
    Commented May 15, 2022 at 19:42
  • Which car is your first photo from?
    – HandyHowie
    Commented May 15, 2022 at 19:44
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    I personally don’t know of any cars that have a front crossmember that you could jack the whole front end of the car from. Even the front subframes are not designed to be a single point of jacking the whole front end.
    – HandyHowie
    Commented May 15, 2022 at 19:46
  • @HandyHowie many civics apparently do have a front jack point on the crossmember (hence my mistake with the radiator crossmember). Seems to be marked on the plastic under, but that's in such a state it's impossible to say if original. The frame picture is listed for a 2.2l diesel civic. I'll edit tomorrow and add shots apparently showing such a frame in similar vehicles.
    – 2e0byo
    Commented May 15, 2022 at 21:35
  • I’ll be interested in the answer to this.
    – HandyHowie
    Commented May 15, 2022 at 22:09

1 Answer 1

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According to the 2006 Honda Civic Owners manual, that I downloaded from here, these are the jacking points -

enter image description here

My google searches did find older Civics (up to the year 2000) with centre front and rear jacking points, but not for newer ones.

This is just from my search. There will be others who know these cars well, who may be able to provide more information.

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