2022 Honda Civic review It's expensive, but is it good
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TechTranscript
00:00G'day, I'm Paul. It has been a while between drinks for Honda. They finally have a new Civic,
00:04and it is finally here in Australia. Controversially though, it's only available
00:09in one specification in Australia, and it's this one here, the top specification VTi LX.
00:15It's priced at just under $50,000. This competes with things like the Toyota Corolla,
00:20the Mazda 3, the Hyundai i30 sedan. So it is a busy segment, but all of the cars in the segment
00:27have moved up in price, so it doesn't really surprise me they've gone upmarket with this.
00:32Today we're going to do a detailed review of this car. If you do want to skip ahead to other parts
00:36of the review, you can use the time codes up on the screen, or if you're on YouTube,
00:40scroll down and use the chapters below. And if you haven't done so already, subscribe to our
00:44channel and press the bell icon. It's going to tell you every single time we drive a red car.
00:50So let's talk exterior. I don't, you know, normally I tell you here how many colours
00:54there are. I don't know exactly how many there are. I will update the video with a sticky once
00:57I do find out. But I do like this. Red really suits the car, especially with all the offset
01:03black bits. And if you come down to the front here, they've just done a really nice job of
01:08tidying the Civic up. The Civic never looked that bad, and Honda, I mean, to their credit,
01:12they have been producing some pretty good-looking cars recently. Maybe Odyssey is an exception to
01:16that rule, but the rest of the cars look pretty decent, and I think this definitely fits into
01:20that category. So big Honda logo here. You've got these open sections in the grille for cooling,
01:25and same story down the bottom. Enormous registration plate holder. I don't know
01:30why it's that big, but anyway, it's there. LED headlights with LED daytime running lights. This
01:35is an interesting design, how your running beam is on the outside. It kind of leaves this centre
01:40section blank, but I think it actually looks pretty cool. And I like the old-school layout of
01:45the projector sort of housing in the back there. I think that looks fantastic. You've got fog lights
01:49down the bottom here, and then we'll whip around to the wheel. So 18-inch alloy wheels. It's kind of
01:55a bit of a boy racer design with a low-profile tyre, but I think it suits the car. Certainly
01:59here with the red, the black offsets it nicely. I don't know much about style, but I know that black
02:04and red generally go together. It's got that piano black finish on it, and tiny little brakes in the
02:09background there, but I think that looks pretty cool. Up here, you've got an LED indicator built
02:14into that wing mirror. Privacy glass, and then around the back here, you have another styling
02:18change. This is in hatch form. LED tail light, and then incandescent globes in here, which I just
02:26find completely bizarre. Let's just go full LED and not have to change these globes every time
02:31they go out, because you use your indicators a lot. So anyway, so down the back here, I quite
02:36like the way this slopes down. You've got that shark fin aerial up the top there, and it's such
02:40a clean finish up here. I like that they've mounted the wiper down the bottom here, because it really
02:44just gives you that clean finish all the way up to the roof there. So let me know what you think
02:47about the design of the new Honda Civic. Are you as impressed with it as I am? Let me know what you
02:52think down in the comments section. Righto, so we're inside the Civic. Here's the key. Nothing
02:57too revolutionary. You've got lock and unlock, and on the back, the Honda logo. It's a proximity
03:02sensing key, so you leave that in your pocket, then once you're inside the car, you have a push
03:06button start. Okay, so styling. Look, generally Hondas, I don't know, they don't really set the
03:12world on fire in terms of styling, but you can see here that Honda's been a little bit adventurous
03:17with the Civic, and I reckon it's paid off, because they've got with the sort of softer
03:20touch materials up the top here, that dash mounted screen, but have a look at this. You've got like
03:25this sort of, it looks like a metal grate, but it's not. I suspect that's plastic, and it integrates
03:30some of the air vent controls, and I think that it just looks really classy. There are lashings of
03:35piano black, but they haven't gone absolutely, you know, piano black crazy. Thankfully, it's just sort
03:40of restricted to that area there, so it is a pretty nice looking cabin. Not sure I love this stuff in
03:45the centre here. I don't even know what they've tried to achieve with that. This probably would
03:48have been better as maybe a wood grain or something like that, but yeah, for the most part, I actually
03:53think it looks pretty good. In terms of your touch points, so that is really nice and soft, and this
03:58is a little bit firmer on the door here, but still not too bad. How soft are they? Well, we've got our
04:03durometer. We've tested the main surfaces in this cabin. If you want to see how this car compares to
04:07others that we've tested before, have a look at the link in the description. Now, build quality.
04:12Not too bad. Sort of moves around a little bit there in the centre, but for the most part, this
04:19all feels okay, and then our door test. Sounds really nice and solid. Let's talk about infotainment.
04:28So, top of the dashboard here, you've got a 9-inch infotainment system. Thankfully, this is just
04:34about 10 million times better than anything I've seen in a Honda before. Last car I drove was the
04:39HR-V, and that is possibly one of the worst infotainment systems in a car today. So, this is a
04:44huge step forward. It's really easy to use. It's a very sharp screen, and it comes with all the
04:49features that you need. So, you have inbuilt satellite navigation just natively to the car.
04:53You then also have AM, FM, and DAB plus digital radio. In addition to that, you have smartphone
05:00mirroring in the form of Android Auto and Apple CarPlay. Apple CarPlay is wireless. Android Auto
05:06is wired. I'll show you what Apple CarPlay looks like first. So, there you go, full screen integration,
05:11and it is nice and fast. Tiny bit laggy, but it's passable. It's not an issue at all, and this is
05:18what Android Auto looks like. Same story, pretty quick, just a tiny bit laggy as you scroll through,
05:23but all looks good for the most part. This also comes standard with a 12-speaker Bose-branded
05:28sound system. It is good that it has a decent enough sound system to keep you entertained.
05:32Now, ahead of the driver is another digital display. Well, it's half digital, half
05:36analog, but, you know, nothing too special there. It just gives you your trip computer and safety
05:41information on the left-hand side. Moving on to safety technology, you've got autonomous emergency
05:46braking with pedestrian detection. You have an auto-dimming rear vision mirror, lane departure
05:51warning with a lane-keeping assistant. You've got radar cruise control, a semi-autonomous steering
05:56function. Generally works pretty well when you're using that on the freeway. You've got blind spot
06:00monitoring on the wing mirror just there, a driver attention alert. On the parking front, you've got
06:05no front or rear parking sensors and also no 360 camera. You only have a reverse view camera. I'll
06:11show you what that looks like. Put that into reverse. The quality of that is actually really
06:16impressive. Then you've got several different views you can have access to there for the
06:20rear view camera. So, yeah, really nice setup and very clear screen. Righto, let's talk about
06:26practicality and we'll start with your connectivity. So, two USB ports down the front here. They're
06:30both USB-A. You have a 12-volt charging outlet. You have a wireless phone charger. I quite like
06:36the way that's set up. It's very colourful and interesting. You can also switch it off if you
06:39need to. I really like that because sometimes you might just want to pop your phone down but you
06:42don't want it charging. That gives you the ability to just have it sitting there. In terms of storage
06:47for your phone, let's get rid of this for a second. Where are you going to put it? So, you can stick it
06:51down there on the wireless charging pad or it can live here in the cup holders. That's pretty
06:55straightforward. So, I have a man-sized coffee cup today. See how that fits. Not a problem at all.
07:02Plenty of room on the sides there. You have teeth as well. What about our normal bottle?
07:07Yeah, easy done. And then see if that fits inside the door. Yep, no dramas. Let's try our big one as well.
07:14Not in there. Not in there either. So, you don't really have storage for a big bottle. Other storage
07:21items. You've got this centre console, nice and deep. You have a little coin tray tucked into
07:26there as well. You also have a glove box which is, that's kind of tiny once you have the manual in
07:33there unfortunately. Now, what about your comfort? Well, you've got dual zone automatic climate
07:37control with ionisation which is fancy. Heated seats for the first row. Seats themselves Alcantara
07:44finish in the centre there with some leather and then red stitching within the seat. The seats for
07:49the front row are electrically adjustable. So, forwards backwards and then backrest forwards
07:54backwards. Seat up and down and then front up and down as well. Seats are pretty comfy. It's a good
08:00place to be seated. Steering wheel offers both tilt and reach adjustment and then on our reach
08:06test, yes, all easy to reach. Okay, second row. What's it like? He will start with room. Knee room
08:13is pretty good. Toe room not great. My toes are kind of wedged under that seat and headroom not
08:19great as well. My head is sort of into the roof there but I do kind of have a decent amount of
08:25space here if you sort of take all of that into account which I didn't think I would. I thought
08:28this would be really cramped back here. Critch comfort. So, you got air vents down here. No USB
08:34charging which is a little bit disappointing and only one map pocket. You do have a centre armrest
08:39here which has two cup holders. So, a little one and then a bigger one. You can also then fit your
08:44bottle inside the door as well if you need to. In terms of children, I know some of you have those.
08:50You've got two ISOFIX points on the outboard seats and three top tether points and then our window
08:55test. Here we go. It doesn't go all the way down. So, if you want to go sort of with your hand out
09:02the window, actually you can, I think. If you want to put your hand out the window, you can fit it
09:05into that gap. So, I don't encourage you to do that because I think it's illegal but there you go.
09:10So, cargo space. Let's have a little sticky beak here. It's actually pretty decent. So, it comes in
09:17at just under 450 litres but it's quite a clever setup. So, you've got your cargo blind here but
09:22instead of having to fold it out and get rid of it and all that sort of stuff, what you need to do is
09:26just flick it out of the way and then all of a sudden you've got room. Beneath the cargo floor,
09:30you have storage space as well. So, it's a really good boot there in terms of what you can do with
09:35it. What does it look like with our bags in there? Well, there's our laptop bag. We'll pop our
09:40suitcase in. There we go. It all fits in nicely. Then, what you can also do to add a little bit more
09:47space is drop the second row and then once that's down, you have almost a flat load space with the
09:54exception of this but it's a pretty decent slot there if you do need to pack your car full of gear.
09:59So, I've just hit the road in the Civic and let's start off with the engine. So,
10:06if you have driven a Civic before, this is probably going to seem very familiar to you. So,
10:10it's a 1.5-litre turbocharged four-cylinder petrol engine. It makes 131 kilowatts of power and 240
10:18newton metres of torque and that's all mated to a CVT, a continuously variable transmission.
10:24Now, the reason why that's not the end of the world is because the Civic doesn't actually
10:29weigh that much. It only sort of tips the scales at around that 1400 kilo mark. So,
10:33when you are behind the wheel and you sort of get stuck into it, it actually feels good. I never
10:40thought I'd be saying that about a 1.5-litre four-cylinder but it actually feels pretty good.
10:45So, as you do sort of roll into the throttle, the CVT really responds nicely to the engine and it
10:50gets up and moves and really is just quite fuss-free. It has a stop-start system. The
10:54stop-start system isn't linked to a mild hybrid setup. So, it means when we come to a stop,
11:00I'll show you what I mean, the car will switch off but then when it restarts,
11:05it's not entirely smooth. So, mild hybrid systems use an integrated starter generator
11:09and that allows them to take off really smoothly and restart the engine imperceptibly.
11:14This doesn't quite fall into that category. In terms of fuel economy, Honda claims 6.3 litres
11:18per 100km. It's a little sticky beak at what we're doing here. 7.3, so near enough to that
11:25figure which is pretty good considering we've done a bit of spirited driving this morning as well. So,
11:30yeah, not bad there. Now, let's talk about drive modes. So, you've only got three to choose from,
11:35Normal, Econ, Economy, which kind of dulls everything, and then Sport. So, I'll pop it
11:41into Sport. So, I can see the CVT there is giving me a few more revs. We've got our corners coming
11:46up here, tip it in through here. It's actually not too bad. Tell you what, there is a lot of
11:56traction out of those tyres. This is getting along really nicely. So, I wasn't expecting
12:03this to be as sporty as it is. The fact that it weighs so little means that it can be nice
12:09and agile and with decent tyres like this has, it's actually sticking to the road beautifully.
12:14Communication through the steering is good as well. So, as I feed it in through this corner,
12:18there's more than enough feel through the wheel there. We've got our tram tracks coming up here.
12:23Yeah, look, this actually feels really, really nice and resolved. And that's the thing,
12:27Honda needs to have a USP, and I think if their USP is sporty feel behind the wheel, then,
12:33I mean, that puts a big smile on my face. Really, I think of something like an i30 N-Line sedan as
12:38a competitor to this. And sure, the i30 N-Line sedan might have a more powerful engine, but
12:42this definitely feels more sporty in comparison.
12:45Honda claims a 0-100 time of 7.5 seconds. This is how it went up against our stopwatch.
13:02Now, let's talk about road noise. So, we're out here on what is simulating a country road,
13:07a course-shift country road. There is a fair bit of tyre noise coming into the cabin,
13:11and I think that is thanks to those low profile tyres. It's not the end of the world,
13:14it's just you're going to have to turn up the radio if you are doing a highway drive.
13:19Now, what about your ride quality as the speed picks up? So, we've got our undulations here on
13:24our country roads. We'll just dial up the speed a little bit to the legal highway speed here in
13:30Australia, see what it's like. Wow, that is remarkably good. I'll tell you what, you know,
13:38this may be a pricey option in the segment given it is only, you know, a one model range,
13:44but yeah, the ride is fantastic. There is excellent body control over those undulations.
13:48It doesn't do what a lot of cheaper vehicles do or vehicles that haven't been tuned correctly,
13:53which is sort of bouncing up and down and making you seasick. This actually feels quite impressive
13:57there as the speeds pick up. One thing I did notice just while we've been driving,
14:02this centre console lid, if you tap it with your elbow, it's sort of, it's not quite fixed
14:08correctly and that is getting quite annoying. So, I don't know if that's a build thing or
14:12something, but yeah, that's a little bit frustrating. Now, what about visibility?
14:16So, down the front of the car there, it's great. I can see the edges of that bonnet.
14:20The wing mirrors are good. They could potentially be a little bit bigger, but you do have blind spot
14:24monitors built into those. You don't have the lane watch system, which is that camera that
14:28comes up on some of the Honda vehicles, which I would have liked to see here as we go over some
14:32bumps there and visibility out the back is okay. It's quite a narrow envelope, but it's not the
14:37end of the world. So, the Honda Civic, this caused a bit of controversy in Australia because they
14:43launched it with one price point, which was right up the top and everyone was like, oh, it's so
14:47expensive. But when you actually have a look at what you get here compared to its peers, it is
14:52actually a really impressive car. It's sporty. It's got all the latest tech and features. It's
14:57got plenty of room inside as well. It really is just quite hard to fault. So, yeah, that's my take
15:02on it. I like it. Let me know, are you going to buy one or are you going to wait for the Type R
15:05potentially? I think that thing's going to be pretty awesome. So, let me know in the comments
15:09section below, what do you think of the Honda Civic and is it on your shopping list? If it's not,
15:14what are you buying instead? Let me know down there. Now, if you did enjoy this video, please
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