Seeing has there is no place here for the Honda Civic 1.8 ES 6 speed manual 5 door model, I have no choice but to put this here in the SE model panel. The SE and ES models are virtually identical, except that the ES has more stuff thrown into it as standard, and its cooler.
This is a review of the car itself. Honda's customer service is pretty average, but as it's not exceedingly bad, I have no complaints.
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A ferociously angular beast, a car with styling akin to a sci-fi convention nerd's idea of a futuristic vehicle, this is a car that has the task of making Hondas hip for those of a younger disposition. Plus, it's made in Swindon.
Does it succeed? No. Hondas are known for their reliability, thus their reputation has made them synonymous with senior citizens of the motoring world. This car tries very hard to appeal to a younger audience in an attempt to erase the derogatory image associated with a Honda badge. It does look very nice, but there is one problem. It is styled like a 1980's space rocket, the period of time when most sci-fi geeks had ideas of space exploration vehicles that were similar to this car in appearance. Fast forward to today and you'll find those geeks are now in their late fifties, they are still living with their mums and the styling appears to appeal only to them. Oh the joys.
Funnily enough, I am one of those strange 'young' people who actually fell in love with the Honda Civic when I first laid my eyes upon it. The front of the car has a big smiling perspex mouth with goofy front teeth in the shape of a large Honda badge. The profile view makes the car look as if it only has 3 doors, and the rear is humungous, continuing the trend of practicality that most Hondas are also known for. While I was looking at it, I kept seeing it saying to me, 'Duuuuh, please buy me' in a goofy voice, and being the sentimental sucker that I am, I did. I could have saved some cash by going with the 'hot milano red' default paint job, but a quick look through the massive catalogue of colours (all 8 of them) introduced to me the colour of 'Nighthawk Black'. How could I resist an awesome name like Nighthawk Black? It has Night, it has Hawk and is has Black in it. The name implied to me that the car has the ability to fade away into the inky blackness of night, stealthily driving me about on my business to secret dark locations when my headlights were turned off, despite the fact that that would never, ever happen. So I paid the extra 155 or so pounds with the instruction to them to obtain the black version for me.
The roof isn't a big sheet of metal that does nothing but keep the rain off your head. The roof here is actually made of glass, so not only can it keep rain off your head, but it can also allow you to see the clear blue sky teeming with flocks of birds passing through
giant wisps of clouds. This is great for driving past glass bridges when you have that urge to look up, if there ever existed glass bridges to drive under. But on the bright side, if you have kids, they would definitely love it.
One of the main attractions of the car is the rear entry doors that seem to not have a handle. The front passenger and driver doors have these silver, angular handles to go with the edge-themed shape of the car. The rear handles however, are found along the side of the rear windows, making it appear as if it were a 3 door model. I like this, because it looks like I have sacrificed practicality for sportiness, when in fact the car is highly practical and is designed to fool those ill equipped to notice such cleverly designed door handles.
However, around the rear of the car is a massive spoiler going across the rear window. Now, most people will know that a spoiler is used to 'spoil' the airflow towards the rear of a car to provide down force on the rear wheels, improving traction and cornering for rear wheel powered cars. The spoiler here is an utter waste of space, as the power is going to the front wheels, making it a front wheel powered car, thus does absolutely nothing but add weight to the car and cost you more fuel. The rear view is also completely obscured by the spoiler, as you cannot see behind you at all when looking into the rear view mirror. It is like tying a string across your eyes so that you can only see above and below that piece of string. You can see of course, but most things appear in the centre of your peripheral vision. Who in Swindon thought that that was a good idea? Were they smoking crack up their ass? So the spoiler only serves to spoil rear vision, spoil fuel consumption, spoil everything.
The first thing I have to mention when you step inside this motorised passenger vehicle is the dashboard. Holy Father of the Lords of the Rings trilogy, it was definitely designed by some geeky person who loved crazy out-of-this-world concepts. The rev counter dial face is the largest dial and is right in the centre of the dashboard. There is a mysterious blue halo glow around it with the needles glowing white for ease of visibility. In the centre of the rev dial is a glowing trip computer screen letting you know how far you can go with how much petrol you have left in your tank, if passengers are in the car and if they have their seat belts fastened, the cabin temperature gauge and it alerts you if the road you are driving on is slippery. The speedometer is separate from the main dashboard and sits isolated on its own to the top left. It glows with white digital numbers indicating kph or mph against a glowing blue background. Can you spot the trend of glowing components being overused for this car? It is still very nice and I approve of it, although some may find it rather ostentatious.
The console of the car is a big sheet of high quality plastic, draped over everything to keep it concealed and seamless. The CD player, the buttons to operate the radio, all of it is hidden under this hood of plastic protection, and yet feels sturdy with no fear of the buttons disappearing into the control if and when pressed in an anger induced rage.
If you are the type of person who is rather lazy and sloths around in a car, leaving behind objects from various places inside said vehicle, you will find that this Honda has many places for you to stash your bits and bobs. The arm rest doubles as a storage box, the cup holders move back to form a storage box, the door in front of the gear stick opens to a storage box, the glove box opens up to become a giant storage box, the passenger seat has a tray that pulls out to become a storage box, the boot has a fake lid that opens up to, you've guessed it, a storage box when not used for the space saving spare tyre. The only car I know with more storage places is the Citroen Berlingo Multispace, but that car is as ugly as a crashed donkey that's fallen into a swamp.
The cabin is as roomy as an emptied out allotment shed. Sit in a MINI for a while, and then sit in the Honda Civic, and you will have an idea as to how much leg room you have in the car. I have not had the opportunity to sit in the passenger seats at the rear of the car yet, but some long legged friends of mine have commented on the vast room that they had for their legs, and that they didn't have to sit as if they were performing the frog kick. That's a rather undignified position to be caught in, especially if you're a girl, with a skirt.
The boot of this Honda is once again of an industry leading standard, because it is huge. It is of TARDIS space warping proportions. From the outside the boot looks big, but it does not prepare you for the scale of which the boot is once that rear hatch is opened. You can fit 2 people inside the boot, and still have room to stack planks of wood on top of them to hide them should someone hear a mumbled at the back and wish to take a look. If you don't have the space saving spare tyre inside, it gives you an extra 30-ish litres of space. The rear seats also fold completely flat, so if you have big flat pack boxes of furniture from IKEA, you can easily slide them into the back of this car. It can take on lengthy boxes, about 1.7 metres in length. Such are the wonders of interior design by Honda.
Starting the car is as simple as turning the key and pressing the big red button that says 'START' on it until the engine starts purring. The only problem with this step is that the car starts beeping at you the moment you turn the key, to let you know that you have yet to fasten your seatbelt. That, my friends, is the condescending tone of Honda telling you do it or face the consequences of crashing out of your windscreen via a head-on collision. It sometimes becomes an infuriating audible sound of annoyance, especially if you have a passenger besides you who vehemently refuses to wear their seatbelt so you cannot start driving, yet is willing to endure the never-ending wail of the seatbelt beep.
This car's top speed is 127 mph. It can reach 60 in under 9 seconds, has 138 bhp and 128 lb-ft of torque. This car is no slouch at all, and although it doesn't have as strong a pulling force, as say, a tractor on a grassy mound, it is still more than capable of towing a hefty van up a tarmac christened hill. The turning circle of the car is very good, just short of black cab narrow road capabilities, and on normal roads it is a joy to drive. The only issues are with parking since I cannot l see behind me due to the spoiler mentioned earlier on. But other than that, on normal roads this is a car that is quite comfortable and has 6 gears for good fuel economy, 44 miles to the gallon with normal driving in fact.
The cabin noise is excruciatingly loud; it causes my tympanic membrane to suffer wave after wave of unmerciful torturous sound as I trollop along at motorway cruising speeds. Honda knew about this flaw, because the CD player automatically turns up the volume, no matter what you've set it at. If you listen carefully, when the cabin noise increases, the volume automatically increases along with the noise. The volume indicator doesn't alter of course, giving to the illusion that there isn't much cabin noise. It is just a backend, carefully discreet sound control mechanism installed by Honda to fool us all. The tyre roar is just as bad, you can hear the tyres screaming at you during the entire journey, "AHH! You're too heavy and pushing me further into the road with your ass! AHH!" This, coupled with the cabin noise, is a double whammy to the ears. Let the bleeding commence.
The ride comfort was ok on normal roads, but on the motorway it is surprisingly disappointing. The chair you sit on becomes buttock and leg numbingly bad. The suspension is so stiff that you can feel every bump and knock encountered on the road at high speed, such as cats' eyes, chevrons and dead squirrels. The car sends shockwaves up your ass and spine, causing nerve damage so severe you can actually feel your fingers and toes becoming numb in the process. This is a car that was meant for a person with a high level of physical fitness, because they will need to fight and endure their way through the endless onslaughts coming from below. It was as if when Honda were making this car with the requirement to repel the older customers, they purposely made the ride comfort intolerable for those with jaws that could be dislocated via a moderately strong sneeze, or hips that could fracture with a well placed fart. Put an old person behind the wheel and take them on a test drive along the M25, and be assured that they will express their disdain via the constant demand to be taken to a hospital in a bus.
Despite the comfort of sleeping on a bed of nails whilst in a caravan being driven over a road of stony pastries, the handling is good. The stiff suspension coupled with the VSA traction system (Vehicle Stability Assist) keeps the car planted on the road, even in turns that other cars have no choice but to slow down. The Honda stays fixed to the road between the white lines at motorway speeds without having to reduce its speed. It feels so planted that you have to confidence to maintain speed without need of releasing the foot pedal, it is a manly feeling, but in no way can it match a car with a good limited slip differential installed like the Mazda RX8. This car instead has a metal bar connecting the rear wheels, which is something you would find on a toy car, yet still provides a great experience.
This car is the ES trim, ES standing possibly for 'Extra Stuff' because it is packed with gadgets and gizmos. For instance, in the boot there is an extra cigarette lighter, just in case the person you lock in the boot wants to have a smoke. There is dual zone climate control, so the driver can have a cool winter breeze to sooth away their sweaty brow, whereas the passenger can have a summer - heat stroke inducing - 30 degrees of fuming heat. There is cruise control 'drive by wire' built into the steering wheel to assist in those long journeys requiring maintenance of a steady foot; this comes in handy since you'll be requiring most of your attention on trying to make yourself comfortable. There are side window and wing mirror heaters so that no matter the temperature or level of condensation, you would still have the capabilities of overtaking, or looking over your shoulder. There are two triangular exhaust ports at the rear othe car, just in case one of them gets clogged up or something. The car comes with powerful xeon headlights to illuminate the darkest night and a secondary pair of headlights to illuminate the road should the top pair be required for full beam fog lighting. The only thing not standard that I can think of is satnav, which in this day and age should be compulsory with every modern car you buy. The satnav should be built into the console and slide out like a Star Trek sliding door, with sound effect, to complete the overall feel for the car.
Overall, I adore this car. Despite its various flaws, I still like it for its risk taking decisions with the design and functionality. I am not a super fit sportsman trained in the arts of taking on bumps up the ass by any means but I can handle it because it is my car and as my car I have cushions on my chair to help ease the pain. I also have a pair of expensive Shure - noise cancellation - earphones for the cabin noise and tyre roar. Some may find this car detestable, such as the elderly after a test drive, but I like this car as I rarely take it out on a long road trip. It is like the third child, seeking attention, talented in its own right whilst doing little things to shoo away those that annoy it. You would love and hate it, but in the end it is still something I would not abandon due to some flaws. If you are looking for a practical family hatchback with a difference, if you have the right seat cushion and a good enough pair of earphones; why not give this car a go?
Other things to consider: Insurance group 9 Road tax band D Price varies. Brand new would be around £15,000, but haggle hard.
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
Advantages: Genuinely Different. Economical. Spacious. Very Well Equipped. Great to Drive. Feel Good Factor. Disadvantages: Visibility is Compromised. Some Just Will Not Like it!
RICHADA 24.09.2006 (24.09.2006)
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: exceptional
Review of Honda Civic 1.8
Advantages: Stylish. Good Value For Money. Great Ride and Handling. Disadvantages: Jerky Drive. Dreadful Gearbox. Very Poor Rear Visibility. No Spare Wheel.
Jan 29th, 2009
exceptional by (20%):
very helpful by (80%):
