Smug and offensive is how Honda's web site comes off to me these days, what with the way they are currently hyping their 2005 Civics. "Are Civic drivers the smartest people on Earth?" it asks.
How obnoxious is
THAT?
Very.
Unfortunately for those of us who drive every other kind of car on the market, it is also probably true. Of all the cars in all car types on the market today, the Civic is probably the ultimate "smart buy".
I can think of dozens, if not hundreds, of cars that are better looking than the Civic. I can think of hundreds that are more spacious. I can think of hundreds that have faster acceleration times, and that can turn a 1/4 mile in fewer seconds (or is that minutes, in the case of the Civic?) I can think of hundreds that are more opulent and comfy inside.
The thing is that most of us (me included, if not me especially) buy cars that are
not the smartest choices for us. We make trade offs. All of us seem to base our car buying decisions on often very stupid factors, like how stylish it looks, or how "cool" their commercials make us feel. I have one friend who bought a huge Ford Expedition "for the space" (she is single with no kids, works in an office, and has no family in the local area). We buy cars with 200 or 300 horsepower so that we can drive alone to work on a highway with a 55 mile per hour speed limit, but on which traffic never moves faster than about 20 during "rush" hour. We buy SUVs with 4-wheel drive so that we can drive on paved roads in good weather in our suburban neighborhoods.
If we were all very,
very smart people, we'd buy
practical cars --- only paying for the amount of car that we really
needed. We would buy based on how much real bang for the buck we got. We would want safety, we would want reliability, we would want fuel economy, we would want affordable payments, and we would want low total cost of ownership.
In short, we would
all be buying Honda Civics.
Truth be told, I know that I'm just as much an idiot as the next guy on the road, so there's a pretty good chance that I will buy something
other than a Civic this time around. But at least I know I'm not being entirely rational about it all, because after poking around bit, crunching some numbers, driving a few cars, I pretty much realize that Honda is on to something. Their Civic is the
wisest car choice an American consumer can make.
And so, even though I'm currently in the mindset to favor larger, more luxurious vehicles (I
am still an American, after all), this weekend, I'm driving a 2005 Honda Civic Sedan, thinking very seriously that this
might be the next car purchase in the mrkstvns household. Come take a ride with me...you take "shotgun".
Looking at the Civic: Exterior Styling...
Buy any Porsche (well, any of 'em except the butt-ugly Cayenne), and there's a very good chance that women will want to have sex with you. Often. In the car. On the car. Under the car. Using the keys as a toy, perhaps. Maybe even merely dreaming of the car. Porsches are wonderful cars.
Buy a Honda Civic, though, and there's a very good chance that women will walk right past you like you're a fire hydrant with a dog standing nearby.
As aerodynamic as the new Civics may be (and their lines are quite sleek these days), they're still ordinary little econo-box cars that look kind of like an overweight cockroach. The only discernible difference being that cockroaches tend to come in black or brown, whereas Civics are also available in red, silver, or blue, and with metallic paint jobs for your option buying pleasure.
There are three basic "trim lines" on the Civic: DX, LX, and EX (in that order). DX is the most basic, EX the most expensive. The "Value Package" Civic is a DX with perks. The "Hybrid" is an LX with radically different technology under the hood.
From the curb, the trim lines are almost impossible to tell apart. The most reliable way to tell one from the other is to look at the back end under the tail light and see what it says. Otherwise, the wheels will be about the only differentiating factor: you get 14-inch wheels on the DX, 15-inch on the LX, and 15-inch alloy wheels on the EX. Buy a Value Package DX and slap after-market custom wheels on it, and nobody but you will know what you have.
Inside the Civic: Interior Comfort...
I feel like I'm stooping down a bit to get into the Civic drivers' seat, but once I'm in, it's a surprisingly comfortable place to be. I love the very firm sides that nestle me snugly into place, and I love the simple, straightforward, intuitively placed controls. I'm a tall guy, and when I push the seat into its furthest back position, I really have almost
too much leg room. I am not in the
least bit cramped (and that's 6 feet worth of height talking). When I push the seat back into its recline position, it goes wayyyyyy back --- practically to a full horizontal position. It really is too bad that nobody ever got laid because they were driving a Civic --- with the way these puppies recline, I'll bet an adventurously amorous couple could have
quite a good time in the front seat of this little machine.
Now in the back seat, well, that's a different matter. The car ostensibly seats 5, but I think that Honda just hires very imaginitive ad writers. Mexicans could probably squeeze 7 or 8 into this car. Pygmy midgets too. But 5 big strapping American boys. No way. Three adults comfortable, four with some cramping, five only in your dreams (preferably involving four Victoria Secret underwear models).
The rear seat has a 60-40 split, so you can open up part of it and reach in the trunk as you're tooling down the road (assuming you don't actually
have five people in the car, otherwise somebody is gonna get pretty grouchy when you try folding down the seat.
For the practical Dad-Man kind of guy, this is also an easy car to navigate with young kids. I had no problem snapping in the child safety seat, and the drink holders are just the right size for a Spiderman Web Generator Ball (or a drink). The kids also appreciate that when Dad pushes his seat back to a comfortable driving position, the seat back is in perfect "kick me repeatedly" position. The kids give the back seat a thumbs up rating. The adults use a different digit.
Several years ago, I was a Civic driving kind of guy --- had me an '89 Civic Sedan. Surprisingly, sitting in the drivers seat of this 2005 model is not all that much different than sitting in the '89. That's not a bad thing. Not bad at all, because Honda already
had most of the ergonomics right back in the 80s, and you don't change things if you can't make them better (well, you don't unless you're GM, who have, over the years, done some amazingly stupid things with overly buttonized and electronicized gizmoized dashboards, or Toyota, who have done some eerily bizarre, but sometimes almost functional, things with dashboards closer to the "shotgun" passenger than the driver).
The dash on this Civic is an exercise in functional usability. It's a bit sparse without light-up gizmos that beep and blink but serve no evident function. There's a simple cluster of analog gauges in plain, easy to use sight. The speedometer is big and center --- right where it belongs on any car designed by somebody with a brain in their head. The climate controls look almost
too simple --- you almost feel like something is missing --- but it
does everything you need (turns on, or off, blows at different speeds, changes temperatures)
Clean simple analog gauges, easily visible at a glance and instantly understandable. Not a tough concept. Volkswagen got it right at least 50 years ago. Unfortunately, gee-whiz car makers toy with dashboards all the time. Drive a Honda Civic and see how a
smart engineer designs a dashboard. It isn't sexy, but it is done
right.
Driving the Civic: Performance...
Doing things right is the whole ball of wax when it comes to the Honda's underpinnings. The whole car reeks of "just right" engineering. The engine is a 1.7 litre, 16-valve SOHC, 4-cylinder. Honda's web site specs it at 115hp at 6100 rpm.
Somehow, I doubt that Mario Andretti is going to have a wet dream over a 115 horsepower engine. Heck, these days, you get over 200 horses on a lot of little dinky sedans. I don't know why, it's sheer overkill. I guess because people buy into a "bigger is better" mentality.
Honestly, even 115 horses is more than enough for a car of this size and weight. With its 115 horses, this car will not win a street races (unless you're racing against Scion xBs). Yet, driving the car, I never felt like it was underpowered. It was
more than adequate acceleration from stop lights or getting onto a freeway. Oh sure, you can fool yourself into thinking that "you get what you pay for" and buying a car with a bigger engine and more horses makes sense --- you might even be able to fool your spouse into that mindset. I did a statistical survey though (very scientific) and found that exactly 0.00000% of drivers ever truly
need more than 115 horsepower in a basic 5-passenger sedan. Smart people will know what I'm saying here, the rest of y'all can go buy those Chrysler 300s or Ford Mustangs (sleek lookin' machines this year, ain't they? Maybe I'll go test drive one of them next weekend.)
If you had a 34-foot wide dime, the Civic could turn on a dime. As it is, 34 feet is a pretty tight turning radius, and that's kind of in keeping with one of the Civic's traditional strongpoints. This is a great little car for an urban driver. It can zip around easily in city traffic, and it can get into tight parking spaces (its just 175.4 inches, bumper to bumper --- heck, call it 15 feet). With the standard power steering, its also an effortless car to steer.
Just the Facts Ma'am....
NHTSA Safety Ratings: 5-star crash test rating (highest possible), 4-star rollover
J.D. Power Initial Quality: 4 circle overall (better than most), with below-average ratings in style, comfort, and "appeal", but better-than-average ratings in all quality measures, 5-circle for retained value (best)
MSRP: $13,500 for the base DX, $14,410 for the "value package" (equipped with A/C and Automatic)
Owning the Civic: The Family Value Proposition...
People don't buy Civics for their space, their performance, or their styling. Well, some might, but I don't think those are the ones Honda is talking about when they say that "Civic drivers are the smartest people on Earth."
The smart people who buy Civics are the people who look for "bang for the buck". The smart people are those who want safety, reliability, long-term durability, low maintenance costs, low insurance costs, and low fuel costs --- all of which team up to make Honda Civic one of the world's cheapest cars to own in terms of total cost of ownership.
Civics aren't usually the cheapest small cars to buy. You can always snag Kias and Hyundais at much lower prices, and these days Ford, Chevy, and Dodge all have new cars on the market for as much as $5,000 less than the price of a new Civic.
To understand how a Civic becomes the "smartest" car to buy, you have to look long term. First of all, Civics are
far more dependable and durable than those cars. The best way to gauge a car's life expectancy is to look at the manufacturer's and the specific model's reliability history over time. A good way to do this is to go down to your local library and snag the car buying issues of
Consumer Reports magazine over the last several years.
Consumer Reports has the BEST set of data on maintenance reliability (they've been doing it for eons and their data are non-commercial). What you'll find is that Honda beats
every manufacturer for total reliability (including Toyota, including Lexus, including high-dollar German brands) and that Civic is their most reliable model.
Another interesting source of data is Edmunds (www.edmunds.com). Their new-car buying tools include a Total Cost of Ownership estimator. Use it and you'll see that, while you might pay a little more now to buy into a Civic, you'll pay less over 5 years because the Honda will have lower depreciation, lower maintenance, lower repair bills, and lower fuel costs (although the individual strengths will vary depending on what cars you directly compare to Civic).
The fact is that over 5 years, the Civic will cost you less to own than a Toyota Corolla. Less than a Chevy Cavalier. Less than a Ford Focus. Less than a Hyundai Elantra. Less than a Mercedes CLK 430 (hey! I just couldn't resist comparing a few apples to oranges!)
The bottom line is that we all have our priorities when we're out shopping for cars. Sometimes we
want opulence. Sometimes we
want power. Sometimes we
want styling. But when we stop and think about what we
need and what makes the most
common sense, we look at cars like the Honda Civic. The most economical, dependable, and durable car money can buy --- in
any price category.
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