Why we ran it: To see if the Honda Civic could save the everyday family hatchback
Month 3 - Month 2 - Month 1 - Specs
Life with a Honda Civic: Month 4
Over 5678 miles, this humble family hatchback demonstrated what other cars, and other drivers, are missing - 6 February 2023
We started this series of long-term reports by asking if the Honda Civic can save the hatchback. Well, the short answer is that it bloody well deserves to.
Rarely has a car as ‘ordinary’ as this elicited so much support and fondness in the office. I have a sneaking suspicion part of that is because it’s a hatchback and not an SUV. We all know which way the wind is blowing, but that doesn’t mean we can’t occasionally walk into the headwind.
But I also know we wouldn’t be so effusive about the Civic if it also wasn’t a great car. Normally, during a long-term loan, ‘your’ car gets driven by others and, because they haven’t lived with it, they can come back with negative comments. Foibles the owner has learned to ignore. But that has never been the case here. Even Jeremy Clarkson, he of the anti-Prius and hybrid brigade, raved about the car in his Sunday Times column. Rare praise.
It’s the effortless nature of the Civic that I’ll remember most. We covered just over 5500 miles and it never caught me unawares – jump in, stab the start button and press ‘D’. Such ease is maybe nothing new in modern cars. Heck, in an EV you often don’t even need to hit ‘start’.
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After two excellent Hondas, not only did the 4th proved to be the most unreliable car I ever owned but I found both the dealer and manufacture's attitude poor.
The reason I reply though is at the above comment about all you have to do is press the start button, select D and off you go. They may well have changed things now but my experience of that last Honda was something like a pilot having to go thru a pre-flight checklist before driving off. The problem was the car would not retain it's previous settings so if you wanted say auto-hold, you had to press it every time. The infotainment screen required two confirmation warning before it'd spring in to action. The cruise system would always have to be switched on before being able to engage it etc.
As I say things may well have changed over the past few years but each time I started the engine, my Honda required much button pushing before it'd work the way I wanted it to work.
Did a test drive of the new Civic. It is a very nice car. Roomy, well built, with decent ergonomics (including proper buttons for climate controls etc), good performance too. The only relative downsides were slightly firmish ride and - the main downside - fair bit of road noise (more than comparable cars) in an otherwise refined car.