By way of introduction I'm on my 2nd Honda Civic, a 2009 EX I purchased in 2010 with 17k miles on it. Previous I had a 2006 LX that I purchased new from a dealer. The '06 had a straight xmission and I loved that car (I live in the mountains of southern AZ) except for the road noise and a cupping tires issues that was finally resolved after the car was out of official warranty, but at no cost to me. Put 75,000 miles on it in 3 years, but then my wife began complaining about her knee and the clutch (we're in our mid-70's) so we sold it and bought the 1 year old '09 with auto xmission from a private party. Once again, I don't like the amount of road noise, but there hasn't been an issue with tire cupping. The noise has gotten so irritating lately (we're now around 60,000 miles on it), that I had the dealer send me copies of all the repairs to the '06, and I had forgotten that the rear bearings had been replaced twice, either under official warranty or "good will" warranty. I plan to search around the site and see what other folks do, if anything, to mitigate the road noise. I had been a Toyota guy for the last 20 years, but my wife talked me into the '06 because of its crash ratings. And, other than the noise, I've been very happy with these two Honda's. Enough babble. :-)