Honda Civic Type R > Car Reviews > Give yourself a cheesy grin! :o)

Author's Car rating:   

Safety	Satisfactory
Comfort	Good
Road Handling	Excellent
Looks	Good
Features	Satisfactory

Advantages:	Performance, practicality, the cheesy grin it gives you
Disadvantages:	noise on long motorway journeys

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full car review

So, I've owned this car from new for 3 years, 2 weeks, 6 days, 1 hour and 17 minutes, and I can honestly say it has that affect on you. If someone asks "how long have you had your car?" would you be able to tell them the day you bought it? That's the effect this car has on 90% of it's owners - they can tell you exactly when they started driving to make them happy, not just get from A to B. In fact, getting from A to B is now a pleasure instead of a chore - this car has seriously made me think about being a cabbie for a living!

Production ended on this car a few months ago, and the new type-r isn't due until the autumn so I thought I'd write a long-term review for those thinking of getting one second-hand (although I've heard prices may be creeping up because of this!)

The car has very little in the way of added extras - I've opted for fog lights (which I'm glad I did, although I have only used them 3 or 4 times in three years, they proved a very helpful aid when it was snowing heavily and in heavy fog) and the a/c - if you get the nighthawk black one (like me) you'll be glad of this in summer! That's it. Other options you can get are leather seats, sat nav (although I've heard on the civic type-r forum that the honda supplied one isn't all that great), cd changer, and a few other bits and bobs such as window sills etc.

Driving/Comfort:

When I first got the car all I could feel was that it was itching for me to go faster. Before I new what I was doing I would be doing 60 in a 30 before the "wtf, how am i going this fast?!" thought kicks in. This feeling disappeared after a few months, not due to the car, but because I learnt more about it. Maybe this needs an explanation - my old car used to shake rattle and roll after 30mph, this one is quite - the only noises were the engine and the radio! The driving position is very comfortable (i'm around 5'8" slightly over weight) but the first thing that hit me was how low I sit to the ground compared to other cars of a similar type. In face, when you see someon driving these, often you can only see their head and maybe their shuolders above the window sill line, but this just adds to the "speed feel factor". My dad owns a renault kangoo, and 30mph in the feels like about 15 after being in the civic - the driving position really does make that much difference!!

The seats them selves aren't the recaro seats I was lead to believe in the brochure (unless you're lucky enough to get your hands on an anniversary edition - only 300 made, or the end of production premier version) but they are still very comfortable and have the back hugging side bits - essential for the fast cornering which the car is capable off!. For those in the back (and I have sat in the back whilst it was being drive - only once though and it was for all of about 400 yards!) there's no transmission tunnel due to the design of the gearbox (more in a minute) so the floor is completely flat giving it a much more spacious feel. In fact the back seats are quite big, I've had some short friends (around 5 foot) sit in the back and I can only just make out their heads in the rear view mirror!

Ok, I mentioned the gearbox before, and boy, what a gearbox....this is possibly the best thing on the car - and car enthusiast could probably drool over this all day long (not mine please, I like it working!). The first thing you notice about it is that it sits on the dash like in the fiat alien peple carrier thing (I've forgotten it's name!). Weird huh? Actually it's not - it takes about 20 seconds to get used to it, and it feels so much more natural - the gear stick is next to the steering wheel instead of being miles away, allowing for those quick gear changes that are needed to keep in the maximum power band when driving hard (sidenote: a month after I got this car I had to move my housemates' of the drive and I sat there for 10 seconds wondering why I couldn't reverse before I realised I was trying to use his gearstick as a handbrake!). The gearing (of which there are 6) are set up so that 3000rpm (when 90% of the power is available) you're doing (gear*10)mph e.g. 4 gear, at 3000rpm, you're doing 40 miles an hour. The engine redlines at 8000rpm, meaning that, IF you really wanted to, you could only ever use the first 3 (but where's the fun in that?!).

I mentioned that 90% of the power is available at 3000 rpm and it redlines at 8000rpm (ok, just under really, the limiter kicks in around there, the redline's at 7,800) - which means that there's nearly 5000rpm where there's a LOT of power/torque available...how does that work?! Some cars redline at 5000 rpm with a fluctuating power levles in between, so what have honda done? Well, this is the magic of the i-VTEC engine. I'm not going to give a techy explanantion 'cos I'm still trying to work it out for myself after 3 years, but the basic thing is, when you hit around 5000rpm the cam profile changes ()search on google videos - there's a video that explains this really well). To me this means tere's still more power to come from the engine when you hit ~5500rpm. Commonly this is referred to "hitting the vtec" "vtec-ing" and other phrases along that line. So, if you want to drive hard (and you don't have to go fast for this - find some twisty roads and you might find your never out of 1st/2nd but always above ~5500rpm) it's best to keep above this.

The downside to this is, because of how the engine works, when you first drive the car you think you need to change gears at 3000 rpm because of the noise it makes. Thats because the valves aren't fully open to aid fuel efficiency - the engine only sicks in as much air as it needs - when you hit ~5500rpm they're fully open (I think!) and that's when the engine really screams (and when your faces goes from :o) to :oD !). I said that this was a downside - it's not because of the engine (unless you like nice quiet refined cars) but because some passangers (sisters and parents in my case) go "you need to change gear. change gear. can't you hear the engine straining?". my reply "No, you're wrong. this is a performance car. it's meant to do this". Apparently I'm wrong. It makes my blood boil! (I'm getting irritated just writing about them saying that!!!)

So the most power comes above ~55000rpm, but that's not to say it's slow and sluggish below this. I've pulled away in 5th, and still had more power than when my old 1.8 nissan praire pulled away in first!

I'm only just starting to appreciate how the car grips (in good weather of course - too scared to risk it otherwise) as I'm not the most confident driver and want to stay within my ability (what good's the car if I'm too injured to drive it, and If i did crash and injure someone else, would I want to drive it?! I should probably, at this point say, ALWAYS drive within your ability, Don't drive an idiot, always obey the highway code, and alway adjust your speed according to the conditions.

One thing I have noticed is that, even thouh it has really stiff suspension (reminds me, I forgot to say, bumpy roads are a pain in the car. If you're going above 30 they're not to bad, but below this you WILL feel every crack, pot hole, bump and even the bits were they seal the tramac to the rest of the road around an area that's been dug up for maintenace work), I'm now finding that there's too much roll when I'm going around corners. Not that there'a a lot - it's probably around (possibly less than), say, your average fiesta going around a 90 degree bend at 5 mph, but this due to the amazing levels of grip this car has with the tyres (lots of people say they're really bad when it's wet, but I've never had a problem except the odd wheelspin when it's wet and It's around time to change them) meaning that it can go round corners pretty quickly.

Now for pacticalty and everything else.

Fuel efficiency's pretty good with a car this type. My MAC instrucor (If bought from new you get a free driving day wth an ex-police driver training instructor) said he got around 400 miles to a tank (around 50 litres, I think t's 45). I've had no luck repeating this, but he does drive in such a way that he rarley touches the breeak pedal (something I've tried to replicate which is why I think in 30000 miles I've not had to change my break pads and am only on my second set of tyres). Depeneding on the type of driving I'm doding I can get up to 300 miles to a tank, but it's typically around 250.

Servicing's not too bad, I've had 3 and the most I've paid was around 200 for the second service (every other service is the expensive one, and it's yearly or after 12,500 miles). I've had a few faults - the alarm kept going off when I first got it (happened to a few of them - they changed the alarm on them when I got mine and the were too sensitive), and air conditioning valve, and the heat shead rattles on the engin giving a nice vibration at 3,400 rpm (common fault, and they still haven't done what I asked - stick another washer in there to raise it up slightly).

There's loads of space in there for your average family (oh, it's only a 4 seater by law - there's no middle seatbelt, and I think our insurance wouldn't be valid if you did fit one), shoppings never been a problem, and when I move it only takes a couple of trips to move all my stuff (as long as you don't have anything to big that is!).

I bought the car in oxford, and all I can say about the honda dealer there was the bloke in the service team who used to pick up my car when it had a problem (nothing major luckily) was he was a great bloke. Since then I've moved up north and found the dealer here really helpful and friendly, and If I'm going to buy the next type-r I'd get it from them just because I like them!

Safety wise, all you get are 2 air bags and esp which tries to adjust the power going to the wheels if it things, e.g., one;s on ice and the other's on tarmac. There's also ABS but I think that's about it (pretty much a true drivers car then ;o)

My only complaint is that the noise can be quite tiring on long journeys, but I guess that's something you expect with a car like this. I've heard changing the tyres makes a big difference, but if honda had tyres specifically designed for the type-r then they're good enough for me!

Securtiy wise you get a thatcham alarm and immobiliser.