Honda Civic 1.8 SE > Car Reviews > Holy Honda it's a Civic!

Author's Car rating:   

Safety	Excellent
Comfort	Good
Road Handling	Good
Looks	Excellent
Features	Excellent

Advantages:	Fresh, economical, it's a Honda with legendary reliability !
Disadvantages:	Rear window, motorway road noise, 'plasticky' body parts

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full car review

Brand new Civic 2007, correct as of 05/08/2007

My gard... a Honda Civic not aimed at the old fogeys of middle class England? This is a car worth checking out.

As a test I actually took this car and showed it to a few senior citizens who themselves own Hondas, mainly the Honda “mid-life crisis” 4x4 CR-V. I am happy to report that after 3 hours of speculating and afternoon napping, they did not like it at all. That, therefore, means that this car is officially cool. I got this car because the Type-R was way more expensive, was in a higher insurance group and costed more to pay tax for to be on the road.

The car I have here is the 5 door 1.8l i-VTEC ES version, not the SE. Let’s face it, although SE costs around £1000 less, it has much less in features and doesn’t have the glass roof! SE doesn’t have cruise control as standard, it doesn’t have a glass roof, it doesn’t have the sport suspension and let’s face it, and it is at the bottom of the range in the 1.8 litre i-VTEC Civic collection. It will have the same engine, thus the same grunt as the ES, but honestly if you are going to buy a Civic you are going to want to go for the one with all the toys. Besides, Ciao doesn’t have a 1.8l ES section for the Civic, and the SE will have more or less the same exterior and interior good and bads... minus cruise control etc.

Honda have done a good job of keeping with their tradition of breaking with tradition by introducing a car that looks like it has a big smile on its face. When you look at the front it’s like its going ‘He he, look at me I am a Honda I am, drive me please!’ and you just have to smile back at it. This car is just oozing with character and charisma from the moment you lay eyes on it.

I don’t know why people compare this car to space stuff like spaceships or space rockets or some next space-related lump that you could make out of plasticine. The fact of the matter is that these cars looks different, and if you are going to compare it to something, then please try to compare it with another car! Don’t compare it to a magical spaceship because it doesn’t exist, and the last time I checked all space going stuff were all white and ugly with psycho cell padding.

The exterior of the car looks great, it is the sort of car that you wouldn't feel ashamed of when you get into it or get out of it. The visor like front only needs some red lights just like in Knight Rider and the effect is complete. There are two triangular exhaust pipes at the back which is a refreshing break from the norm, and the handles look like they are a pair of rockets which would propel the car further forwards. The lights when active are very bright and powerful using its projector headlights to illuminate the road in a wider fashion. The styling of the entire body is fantastic from any angle, it’s like they got a top graphics artist to come up with a superior design. For example, the 5 door version has the rear door handles built into the side of the window so it look like a 3 door sporty hatchback rather than a 5 door small family car.

The interior is even better, the dashboard looks amazing with its blue halo-like glow for the rev dial and the speedometer is digital and in a secondary screen above the main dashboard. The gear stick and handbrake are high up so the time to change gear and reach for the steering wheel is reduced. There are so many controls for the driver which are very easy to use and placed so intuitively that I have no trouble getting to grips with using the window lock, wing mirror adjusters, cruise control, climate control etc. And since everything is more bunched together for the driver I feel a little cocooned, like I am in a fighter jet off on a stealthy mission to shoot down some enemy spy planes using my halo-glowing instruments. Fantastic! The glove compartment is also massive. I could fit both arms in there and move them around, and it is chilled as well so it’s great for hiding chocolatey gifts. There is a removable ashtray just behind the handbrake which frees up more room for the storage box behind the ashtray. And, if you’re a thirsty sort of chap (like I am all the time), the storage box has a drinks holder you can pull out to hold 2 drinks. There is an elbow rest as well for long journeys, which also opens up to be a storage box for storing stuff inside it such as milk bottles, or other tall things. Other great things about the car include being able to retract the wing mirrors with a simple press of a button when parking, the automatic light and rain sensor installed on the windscreen so that the car and automatically enable headlights and/or windscreen wipers, the panoramic glass roof which lets light in or when used at night great for star gazing, the passenger can actually set up their own preferred temperature so that if they preferred it warmer then they have that power, an integrated CD/MP3 player so you can put your favouriteMP3s onto a CD and play it on the stereo, an industry leading massive boot for storing all those lovely little things you get after shopping with the missus, Honda’s legendry reliability and great customer service, tons of air bags for increased passenger safety, remote locking with immobiliser and alarm as standard, I could go on.

So what is lurking behind this car which makes it move? It has Honda’s legendary 6 speed i-VTEC 1.8 injection engine which churns out 138 brake horsepower, 0-60mph in 8.6 seconds, top speed of 127mph, 128 lb-ft of torque and it does 44 miles to the gallon. Ok, it’s not the fastest car in the world, but it has enough grunt to get you from A to B with relative quickness. Gear change is smooth and the engine is relatively quiet so driving to the shops or doing the school run with this car wouldn't give you a headache or draw unnecessary attention. Plus, it has sports suspension, sports tyres on 16” alloy rims and has a good turning circle so it grips very well around corners. The cruise control works very well and is a leg saver in long car journeys. Switch it on in an empty motorway road and you will cruise at that same speed with no leg work, all you do is steer the car and hit the brake when you want to disengage it and take control again.
But there are some problems with the car though. Take a closer look at the exterior and you would be horrified at the build quality. The fuel filler cap, the rear jutting lights, the front ‘smiling’ visor in front of the headlights and the Honda badge... all made from perspex! That same plastic used to make them safety goggles at secondary school which didn’t really protect you at all. I was so disappointed when I examined them; I was expecting reinforced glass because honestly, the plastic felt really flimsy. However, an upside to this is that it is cheaper to replace should the worse happen. The ride quality is also not as good as the previous Honda because of the sports suspension and sports tyres, so you feel the bumps and cracks of the road a lot more. Go over even a small pothole and you will feel your spine being stamped on as you bounce it to oblivion. On motorways, the road noise is quite loud so it could have done with some better cabin insulation, and the rear view mirror might as well be thrown away since you cannot see anything in the rear window. This is because the rear window is set too high, and the spoiler is also set right in the middle of it. You really really need a rear mounted camera and monitor to see behind you properly. Finally, the engine roar isn’t much of a roar but more of a muffled meow. A like a little car rumble when I hit the rev limiter but this car just doesn’t deliver the volume.

Buying this car would set you back around £16,000 (£15,000 for the SE). Honda dealers are well known to be hard to haggle with, but if you haggle hard and prevent the person you are talking to from trying to run off to ‘ask the manager’ then you could maybe knock off £1000-£2000 from the price. Any colour besides Milano Red will cost you an extra £375 on top of the listed price. I got myself the adequately named ‘Nighthawk Black’ and it is stunning. I have seen the various silver, blue and red versions myself and I am not too keen on them personally. The seats have the options to be leather which would cost an extra £800on top as well. You’ll need to pay for other car accessories such as a roof rack etc if you want them. It is in insurance group 9 and Road Tax Band D, so it’s not too bad, as long as you’re not a ‘youngster’ as they put it. It will come with 3 years warrantee and 3 years AA breakdown cover. Overall, I really like this car, and I can live with the few faults I can find with it. Because it’s a Honda, and I know that for the first 3 years Honda will be polishing my car for free!

Update: Oh and there is another reason why we should like it. Despite being a Honda, currently this new shape is only available in Europe. Plus, it's being made here in the UK... in Swindon.