May 14th, 2022 - CR-X Info - Model Year -vs- Production Date

May 14th, 2022 - CR-X Info - Model Year -vs- Production Date

Model Year -vs- Production Date/Year

I hear these two confused a lot on the Internet and it sometimes leads to arguments or people buying incorrect parts. When I see it happen, I try and figure out where the parties are from, since model year and production date don't mean exactly the same thing and apparently aren't used in the same way in every country. This confuses a lot of people, including me until I took an in-depth look at the topic... yes, I'm a geek, and I'm fully aware of it and have come to terms with it... Let me explain.

Model Year is the designation from the manufacturer.

Production Date is when the vehicle was built/assembled at the factory.

For the US and Canada and even the 2nd gen CR-Xs built in Japan, the model year and production year are not always the same year. 

Car dealers here in North America typically receive and sell the new model year's vehicles beginning some time in the 4th quarter of the previous calendar year (Sept-Dec).*  Using a CRX as an example, my old Project 88, a 1988 model year CRX was was built in October 1987 in Japan was was shipped to Canada and sold from Richmond Honda in Vancouver to her original owner on November 28th, 1987.

This means we have a Model Year 1988 car that has a Production Date of October 1987 sold to its first owner in November 1987.

Coincidentally, during my research I learned that that's why a lot of TV series' debuts and season premieres in the US and Canada occur in September. In the early days of TV car companies were some of the largest sponsors, so to maximize viewership when it came time to introduce new models, they aligned the premieres to coincide with the new model announcements. 

In addition, in North America, almost everything in the auto industry uses the Model Year, including vehicle registration. When a gray market vehicle arrives from out of the country and the Model Year isn't clear, they often will use the production date to register it. 

It should be noted that during my research I discovered that not every country relies so heavily on the Model Year and actually use the Production Date when registering a vehicle. And, as we've established above, sometimes these dates don't match. 

So depending on where the car or the owner is from, technically both parties could be "right", from a certain point of view.

Maybe there *is* an '89 EF8 SiR after all.

*Yes, I'm aware that there have been exceptions, so no need to comment "What about the xxxxx, it started selling in March!" 

Some Background - Japanese EF6,  EF7 Chassis CR-X (88/89):
According to Honda Japan press release dated Sept 9, 1987 the new 1988 model year CR-X was to go on sale in Japan on September 16th, 1987 and was expected to sell around 10,000 units per month. All CRXs, regardless of what market they were sold in (Europe, North America, Japan, etc...) were made at the same factory, Honda's Suzuka Factory in Japan (not to be confused with the company SUZUKI). 

Note: Some Civics during this time were manufactured in Canada. This could be why CRXs in the US and Canada will have a sticker that states "Made in Japan" on the rad support T-Bar.

In the 1988 and 1989 model years there were only two chassis - the EF6 and the EF7. CR-Xs were only sold at Verno dealers. The Civic was sold at Primo dealers.

Honda Japan Press Release dated 9/1987, translated with Google Translate

The EF6 model had a SOHC, 1.5L dual carb engine, and was called the 1.5x

The EF7 had a 1.6L DOHC multi-port furl injected engine known as the "ZC" engine, and was called the Si

Some More Background - Japanese EF6,  EF7, and EF8 Chassis CR-X (90/91): 

Introducing the CR-X EF8 SiR Model

In 1989, the SiR model was released for sale in Japan. It used the chassis code EF8 and was equipped with the B16A engine. It went on sale on September 22nd, 1989 for the Japanese market. They started building them at the beginning of September, 1989. They were sold as 1990 model year.

Honda Japan Press Release dated 9/1989, translated with Google Translate

Confusion - Rumors of the 1987 EFx CR-X / 1989 EF8 SiR / 1992 EFx CR-Xs 

As stated above, I believe that people have mixed the production date with the model year because of the above-mentioned factors, hence the rumors of the '89 EF8 SiR or '87 CR-X EF7 Si / EF6 1.5x. 

Those years aren't model years, they are just the years when the cars were built.

Debunking the 1987 EF7 and the 1992 EFx CR-X

So, we know that the 2nd generation CR-X (model year 88-91) was produced in Japan from calendar year September 1987 thru February 1992 (production date), according to Honda Japan's press releases. 

A lot of people claim to have a 1987 CR-X EF6/7 Si or a 1992 CR-X EFx (JDM). Why should we believe you over them? Surely, they know what they have!

Their registration papers may be using the production date as opposed to model year. I'm not insinuating that those folks are stupid, or that there's anything wrong with referring to their EF8 as an 1989, or that they're trying to deceive anyone. I'm just trying to clear up the constant confusion circulating the Internet because I'm a giant nerd and spent way too much time researching a topic I'm sure 90% of CRX enthusiasts don't give a rat's ass about.  

Recent eBay auction incorrectly advertising a 1987 EF7 CR-X

I can show this fairly easily with a simple examination and breakdown of the JDM CR-X VIN, or chassis code:

All EFx CR-X VIN codes start with a number 1, as in EF7-1xxxxxx. (See below breakdown of CR-X VINs in green and red)

The second digit represents the year. For an EF6 or EF7 model in 1988, the second number is 0 (or first year), in 1989 the second number is 1 (or second year), in 1990 it's 2 (third year) and in 1991 it's 3 (fourth year).

Fig 1.1 - JDM Honda CR-X Repair Manuals Showing The VIN Codes and publication dates

If there were a 1987 model year EF CR-X, what would the VIN number designation for the first model year be since there's no number less than 0...?

The EF6 / EF7 - 12xxxxx is the model that received the mid model change facelift... If the 0 were meant to be first year as 1987, then why does the mid-model upgrade happen in 1989 model year? This also contradicts what we know about the mid-model addition of the EF8 chassis which has been proven to take place in the 1990 model year (see below).

We can use this same method to disprove the 1992 model year EF CR-X. From the VIN breakdown below you will see that there is no evidence to support this model year CR-X either.

If we begin with a 1988 model year and there really were a 1992 model year we would have CR-X VINs as follows:

EF6/7 - 10xxxxx - 1988 (correct)

EF6/7 - 11xxxxx - 1989 (correct)

EF6/7 - 12xxxxx - 1990 (correct)

EF6/7 - 13xxxxx - 1991 (correct)

EF6/7 - 14xxxxx - 1992 (incorrect)

EF8-10xxxxx - 1990 (correct)

EF8-11xxxxx - 1991 (correct)

EF8-12xxxxx - 1992 (incorrect)

...the EF6/7-14xxxxx and  EF8-12xxxxx VIN codes simply don't exist. 

If we believe that the EF CR-X started with a model year of 1987, and ended with model year of 1992, we would see CR-X VINs that look like this:

EF6/7 - 10xxxxx - 1987 (incorrect)

EF6/7 - 11xxxxx - 1988 (incorrect)

EF6/7 - 12xxxxx - 1989 (incorrect)

EF6/7 - 13xxxxx - 1990 (incorrect)

EF6/7 - 14xxxxx - 1991 (incorrect)

EF6/7 - 15xxxxx - 1992 (incorrect)

EF8-10xxxxx - 1990 (correct)

EF8-11xxxxx - 1991 (correct)

EF8-12xxxxx - 1992 (incorrect)

... but the EF6/7-14xxxxx, EF6/7-15xxxxx and EF8-12xxxxx VIN codes simply don't exist. 

To take this a step further and skip ahead to the EF8 chassis' 1989 SiR rumor: If concede that 1989 was the first model year for the EF8 and accept that 1992 was a valid model year EF CR-X, then from the information listed above, the EF8 VIN codes should look like this:

EF8-10xxxxx - 1989 (incorrect)

EF8-11xxxxx - 1990 (incorrect)

EF8-12xxxxx - 1991 (incorrect)

EF8-13xxxxx - 1992 (incorrect)

... but the EF8-12xxxxx and EF8-13xxxxx VIN codes simply don't exist.  

1989 CR-X EF8 SiR

So what about the '89 CR-X SiR?

If we accept the premise that the EF-chassis CR-X started in model year 1988 and ended in model year 1991 and we accept that the information regarding JDM VIN codes as described above is accurate; then the JDM VIN code/model year translations are as follows:

EF6/EF7-10xxxxx = 1988 (correct)

EF6/EF7-11xxxxx = 1989 (correct)

EF6/EF7-12xxxxx = 1990 (correct)

EF6/EF7-13xxxxx = 1991 (correct)

then we must accept that the first model year for the EF8 is 1990...

EF8-10xxxxx = 1990 (correct)

EF8-11xxxxx = 1991 (correct)

in addition, this is supported by the 1990/1991 Service Manuals in the Fig 1.1 shown above.

If there were an 89 EF8 the VINs would look like this:

EF8-10xxxxx - 1989 (incorrect)

EF8-11xxxxx - 1990 (incorrect)

EF8-12xxxxx - 1991 (incorrect)

There is no indication of an EF8-12xxxxx VIN code, which would have to exist if 1989 was the first model of EF8.

Breaking down the books in Fig 1.1 (from the top down):

1988 model year Service Manual (EF6/7 - 10xxxxx Sept '87)

No EF8 models listed. Sept '87 would be the effective date of the last major change thus necessitating an update to the repair manual (the building of the new EF chassis from the previous AS (?) chassis.

88 model year Specialty Service Manual (body or electrical)

Same info as above

1989 model year Service Manual (EF6/7 - 11xxxxx Aug '88) 

No EF8 chassis listed. Notice the publication date is is Aug '88. According to a press release from Honda Japan, dated August 3rd, was when they announced the addition of ALB (or anti-lock brakes) as an option for the CR-X beginning August 4th, 1988; this change very likely coinciding when they began manufacture of the 1989 model year CR-Xs. Note the smaller size of this book indicates this is likely a Service Manual Supplement for 1989 model year only and likely contains very specific information pertaining to that and other changes for the new model year.

1990 & 1991 model year Service Manual (EF6/7 - 12xxxxx & 13xxxxx / EF8 - 10xxxxx & 11xxxxx Sept '89)

The publication date coincides with when they began building the EF8 and the mid-generation update to the other CR-X chassis as well.

1990 model year Service Manual (EF6/7 - 12xxxxx / EF8 - 10xxxxx Sept '89)

The publication date coincides with when they began building the EF8 and and the mid-generation update to the other CR-X chassis as well. Notice that the corresponding EF6/7 VIN codes for 1990 line up perfectly with the EF8 - 10xxxxx code for 1990 as well (shown in green above).

16A Engine-specific manual. 

This is a chassis-independent manual, though it should be noted that the engine number on this manual starts with a 1 however engines from CR-X started with a "5". See Fig. 1.2 and 1.3 at the bottom of this page.

In addition to the information listed above, I have confirmed this with Honda Japan as my own EF8 was manufactured on September 6th, 1989 and according to the letter I received from Honda Japan, it is classified as a 1990 model year.

Letter from Honda Japan regarding my EF8

Summary:

The pieces just don't fit to support the existence of a model year of 1987 or 1992 CR-X EFx or even an '89 EF8. 

The only reasonable conclusion we can draw is that people are using the production date of the vehicle, rather than the model year. 

JDM CR-X VIN Number Breakdown (Definitive and Proven)

EF6-10xxxxx = 1988 CR-X 1.5x model.

EF7-10xxxxx = 1988 CR-X Si model.

EF6-11xxxxx = 1989 CR-X 1.5x model.

EF7-11xxxxx = 1989 CR-X Si model. 

EF6-12xxxxx = 1990 CR-X 1.5x model.

EF7-12xxxxx = 1990 CR-X Si model.

EF8-10xxxxx = 1990 CR-X SiR model.

EF6-13xxxxx = 1991 CR-X 1.5x model.

EF7-13xxxxx = 1991 CR-X Si model.

EF8-11xxxxx = 1991 CR-X SiR model.

Fig. 1.2 - Model and Engine Codes from Honda Japan EPC

Fig. 1.3 - Model and Engine Codes from Honda Japan EPC

Remember, this blog was written in chronological order so, you will need to click OLDER POSTS to move forward in time, and click NEWER POSTS to go backwards.