Greetings! This is my first post on this forum.....and I hope to learn a lot about the Honda Civic, or perhaps other models sold here in the USA. I have never owned a Honda - although I have friends & family members who have been very pleased with them. I've been through a few Toyota and Nissan vehicles, however, and even once had a Mitsubishi branded as a Plymouth!

I am in the early stages of considering the purchase or lease of a new (2014 models will be out by the time I am ready) Honda Civic LX. I test-drove one this afternoon and was pretty impressed by it in many ways. A co-worker has a 2012 Civic LX and really enjoys driving it. My brother has a 1999 Odyssey minivan with nearly 170,000 miles on it!

There are a lot of cars out there right now that are worthy of a look. I drove a 2013 Nissan Sentra rental car for several hundred miles - not a bad car, but I did not care for the CVT and it felt "mushy" with the handling. Fuel economy was excellent, though.

The Hyundai Elantra REALLY impressed me. That company has come a long, long way and they offer a 100k warranty on the powertrain. The GLS with the "preferred package" seems like a great deal. I enjoyed the test-drive very much.

The Civic LX seems to fall between the Elantra GLS and the GLS w/ the Preferred Equipment Package -- while the Civic EX just underneath the Elantra Limited. Both cars are pretty good in many ways.

Anyone have any comments for or against either car? Thanks for any replies!

P.S. I am leaning a bit towards the Civic right now - but only by a very thin margin that may be decided on price/payment or the residual value of a lease.

 

Hi. I'll share some recent experience which might help.

We're in southern CA and have been taking our time over the last 3 months to find a new car - driving dealers nuts in the process. We've been looking at the Civic Hybrid and standard EX, Elantra, Prius (and Prius C), Mazda-3, Corolla, and a few other sedans. The Insight, Fit, Yarris, and similar vehicles are too small. Accord, Camry, Sonata, and Altima are too large. So that gives you an idea of our scope.

We absolutely loved the Elantra Limited, and as a happy owner of another Elantra for about 15 years (RIP) I was pleased with the product. However, Google for "Elantra steering" or "elantra problems steering" and similar keywords and you'll find the 2013's have been plagued with problems with their EPS. Dealerships claim they haven't heard anything and when I provided them a list of websites with owner issues the problem was ignored. Sorry Hyundai, you blew it.

Prius was way up on our list because mileage is big on our priority list. But the price for a standard Prius was outside our range and the Prius C just never seemed sexy enough for us. We were also super turned off that software updates for navigation and other systems are only scheduled once every couple years, and they're for-fee, and most people say there are never updates. Sorry Toyota but popular high-tech vehicles can't have stale software or data.

We rented a Mazda 3 and liked it so much that we drove it for a couple weeks. The only thing we didn't like was that the safety ratings were really bad. On the scale of 1 to 5 stars, 3 stars is still pretty bad and the Mazda 3 had a few 3's. Other than this I might have bought one.

We also looked at Ford Focus, trying to give American cars another chance after over a decade of bad history. Gotta say this is a nice vehicle. However, 2013's too are plagued with transmission issues. Sorry Ford, but when you insist that you never heard of that issue despite websites full of complaints, you lost the sale.

Corolla was a nice car but I didn't feel like it had enough horses or comfort. It just wasn't there for us.

On to Honda where we struggled between a hybrid and
traditional gas versions. We did buy a 2013 EX-L rather than the hybrid. The dealer wasn't aware enough of hybrids and we felt uncomfortable with that purchase. Prior hybrids had issues, and while we felt the 13's were better we just didn't feel the warm-fuzzies like we get over at Toyota when looking at the Prii (plural or Prius).

So we got the EX-L less than 2 weeks ago and we're real happy so far. It's an attractive and comfortable vehicle at a reasonable price.

- The heated leather seats are a special treat even with the air conditioning on. I know, weird, but try it.
- The on-board phone interface doesn't work with my Android phone and some functionality is only available for iPhone. I'm rather ticked that this info didn't come out until after the purchase but I'll survive. I would have hoped that Honda would have offered me a new phone, as a sort of thank you for spending over 20-grand on their vehicle, but once the deal is done, it's done and you can't post-negotiate. Be wary of such things.
- The backup camera is growing on us for fine-tuning backups but we usually turn around anyway for course backward movement.
- We kinda don't care about a sun-roof but we got one anyway, and we got tinted windows too, mostly to reduce heat from the leather.
- We didn't get navigation, mostly for the cost because my Android has maps that are always current, and for about a hundred bucks we can get a nice Garmin or TomTom compared to the huge cost of the navi/electronics in the Civic. I kinda miss the big modern screen in the dash but Civic has a nice driver-side info screen in the dash, so I'm happy with the toys I have.
- As I said, mileage is a big deal for us. The car is rated 28-32 or so but in practical neighborhood driving we're getting about 25+, and up to about 27.5 max with freeway/highway driving. We're not pleased with that, but we figure we're in an area with a lot of hills, and that's not the terrain they use to get their ratings. I'm driving like someone's grandma, trying not to punch the horses so that we can get that MPG number up. Over time I'll be looking for other ways to improve on this.

Honestly, when we first started looking, I thought Civic was a boring vehicle. The 2013's (any edition) changed my mind. It's a mature car with good engineering and support from a reputable manufacturer, without the feeling of cheap plastic on one end or over-priced conveniences on the other. I dunno if I'd call it "fun" but I feel very good with its look and feel. I know 2012's had a bunch of issues but we're comfortable that Honda addressed them. We haven't found websites full of consumer issues like a few competitors, and that's important because we value stability higher than just about anything. I don't care how many features a car has if it's going to be in the shop a lot. Now after months of research, I'm trusting my Civic will be a stable ride. (I know that doesn't mean much to someone who just had their Accent recalled but that's another situation... )

HTH

 

That's a really nice post you've got there me StarBuck, really wanna make me buy a new civic if i had the money too. Well may it be old or new, you will not have bad surprises with Honda. Yesterday a friend of Mine looked at my Civic 2001 for the first time and said "oooohhhhhh EPS, that cost a lot if it had to be replaced" yes OK but if you are not doing rodeo or racing with the vehicle it will surely last a lot. on a general inspection he found that most of everything in my car was still in good/perfect condition for a 2001. So you buy a honda you get a honda. and it stays a honda for a lot of time. In Mauritius, resale value is quite an important factor so at the current market rate a 2001 honda in mauritius cost 9200 dollars, and in one or two years when I'd sell it it would probably still be worth not less that 8k so investment wise that's pretty much ok. So my dear friend, look at the forums, find problems related to each machine, consider something I have a 2001 and sometimes I see Mercedes, BMW and Audi of 2013 being towed with no sign of accident, which means that they broke down, so any car can break down at any time. so be prepare for same. Good purchase and see you back if ever you come back with a Honda.