- Feb 14, 2004
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My 2010 Honda Fit was coming up on the lease end, so we traded it in early for another lease on a 2013 Honda Civic LX sedan. This is a quick review of the Civic, hopefully helpful to anyone looking into one!
Honda 101:
Honda has a really nice leasing program called Honda Advantage, which among other things includes a $1500 wear & tear waiver, GAP insurance, and no disposition (return fee):
http://automobiles.honda.com/hondaadvantage/
Since we were returning customers, we got a $350 credit towards any lease or purchase, and they had a March special of $500 off any car physically located at the dealership, so we came in with a total of $850 towards any add-ons we wanted, or could just roll it into the lease and use it to lower the monthly payment. Honda can also roll in the tax into your monthly bill, which is around $25 a month in my area (CT). The current offers are available here:
http://automobiles.honda.com/current-offers.aspx
The current Civic Sedan offers are here: (there's a really nice one for $0 down, $0 first month's payment, $240 a month for 35 months, and of course, no return fee)
http://automobiles.honda.com/curren...edan&offerid=68673&modelid=FB2F5DEW&sf=2&ft=1
The Civics come in both coupe and sedan flavors, each in 3 trims: LX, EX, and EX-L. All but the base LX model can also be equipped with optional in-dash navigation, if you don't like external GPS devices. The EX mainly adds a sunroof (plus slightly bigger/cooler rims & more speakers) and the EX-L adds leather. Comparison page is here:
http://automobiles.honda.com/civic-sedan/price.aspx
There is also the Civic Si model (201hp vs the stock 140hp) and the Civic Hybrid (110hp + 44 MPG city/highway, although the battery has had reliability issues).
Background:
My previous lease was the Fit Sport, which turned out to be a really great car. I needed something economical at the time with no down payment and it fit the bill nicely. It was zippy, tons of headroom, lots of configurable cargo space thanks to the "magic seats" (fold-up, fold-flat backseats), and great visibility. I averaged 32 MPG in it, so pretty decent gas mileage. We like compact cars, partly because they're really easy to park anywhere.
My lease on the Fit was coming up this summer and I was already over-mileage on my lease, so rather than paying for the extra miles, I did an early lease trade-in. My local dealership has really nice pull-ahead programs all the time, so I opted for that route. Basically just swapped keys and drove off with the Civic. Really easy, plus no car payment this month!
I had looked into the all-electric Nissan Leaf, but ultimately decided against it due to the range limitation. Other than that, I was pretty much looking for something under $300 a month, over 30 MPG, and with a 5-star safety rating. The Fit only got a 4-star safety rating, and although the newest version has Traction Control in the Sport model, it still only got 33 MPG, which isn't super great by today's standards (especially for such a small car). There's also something to be said about the safety of driving a larger car.
My wife and I both lease our cars. I have a Kia Soul and she had the Fit, although we swapped after we had our first baby in 2011 because the Hamstermobile was roomier for the carseat. So since this trade-in would end up going back to her, we were looking for something a bit larger. I checked out both the Nissan Altima and the Honda Accord. I really liked the Altima, but my wife wanted to keep a Honda in the family due to the awesome reliability we've had with them, and she also liked the compact size of the Civic more.
Car Review:
Today is Day 1 with the Civic, so I can't comment on long-term reliability or actual MPG yet, thus this is a quick review. I've pretty much settled on the Altima for when my Kia lease is up, so I went to check out the Honda Accord for my wife's car. Turns out the inside has shrunk compared to previous model years, and I found it too tight compared to the Altima. Especially coming from the Fit, which is amazingly roomy.
However, the Civic is another story. Honda redesigned it in 2012 (cheaped it out due to the bad economy) and it got terrible reviews. Not to be burned again, Honda redesigned the Civic for 2013 and loaded it up - even the base model comes with Bluetooth speakerphone & music streaming, a backup camera, Traction Control, USB/Aux jacks, and plenty of other stuff that makes it feel a lot nicer than a Civic should be. The next model up adds a sunroof (I love sunroofs), but it also tacked on $50 a month to the lease, and my wife didn't care one way or another. Neither of us like leather either, so we skipped that and used the $850 credit towards heated seats (they can install them on the cloth seats as an option) plus some money off each month.
The Bluetooth system is amazing. For starters, the system voice is a recording of a real person, not a text-to-speech robot system, so it sounds really nice (at least when doing setup, haha). Bluetooth call quality is excellent. To my surprise, Bluetooth audio streaming worked flawlessly with my iPhone 4S. I was able to use the iPod function as well as the MOG app with it, and the MOG app started playing again when I got back in the later, which was wicked cool. There is an aux jack in front of the shifter, and a USB port/charger inside the armrest console. The i-MID system (sort of like a cheapo Ford Sync system) also has the ability to handle SMS. There's no Siri button in the car for doing voice-to-text type of stuff, but I don't use that while driving anyway (or ever, haha). So anyway, quite happy with the Bluetooth system.
The audio system has what I'll call accurate sound. There's hardly any bass, but the treble is very clear, on the reference side of clarity. Probably great for podcasts, and my wife doesn't jam the speakers anyway with our kiddo in the car. Coming from the Fit, however, I was disappointed - the Fit Sport had a lot more vertical room in the car, which contributed to the stock audio sounding great, and had a way better sound system, enough to the point where if I had bought the car, I probably wouldn't have changed out the speakers (the Kia Soul is a different story, on the other hand - I have the upgraded stereo in mine and it's total garbage haha).
The car is extremely quiet inside. You can drive at freeway speeds and whisper and people can hear you (I know because I tried it lol). That helps out the audio system, because you get good, clear sound even on the highway. I also like not having a CVT in there (they kind of drive me nuts, even though the "gen 2" ones in the Nissans are much quieter now). Very quiet around town as well. I'm very pleased with how dampened the interior is against noise, much better than I would have thought for this type of car.
Driving is okay, as far as acceleration goes. The Fit was only 117hp, but it was a very zippy ride - fast off the line and the i-VTEC was really nice on the highway when you needed to get around somebody. Because the Civic is so smooth, you don't really notice the speed until you're already going too fast, and the VTEC still works pretty well on the highway. Steering is great - very smooth turning, and the perfect amount of roll - not a granny ride, but not a really stiff ride either. On flat stretches, the car feels like it's floating. You can tell it's a compact car when you hit potholes and stuff, however, but it's still got a decent suspension.
Style-wise, it's pretty boring. The upgraded models have nicer rims, which really helps the appearance, but ours is the base model with strange swirly hubcaps, so whatever. I prefer smaller rims because you get fatter tires, which gives a slightly smoother ride, and supposedly smaller tires give you a bit better gas mileage as well (as far as reading up on hypermileing and Pruis talk and stuff). The paintjob is pretty and it has the potential to be cool-looking with better rims and a spoiler, but eh. It's sort of gone towards a Saturn type of styling:
http://i.imgur.com/f3fho6R.jpg
The interior is really interesting. It's very driver-oriented and looks fairly techie. The speedometer is digital and the tach is analog, behind the steering wheel. All of the controls are curved toward the driver, which is kind of cool, but also kind of annoying if the passenger is controlling the music because they have to lean in to see the small color screen next to the speedometer. Her'es an inside shot - everything is kind of layered:
http://i.imgur.com/5a5LTTs.jpg
The steering wheel is surprisingly small. I like larger ones that fill up the space more. There is a significant lack of cupholders...I think the Fit had like 10 cupholders and the Civic seems to only have a pair in the center console. Not many little nooks & crannies to store stuff in this car. I did like the interior stitching...it's kind of a stitching around the hard plastic, which looks a bit nicer than just plastic. Build quality is great, everything feels rock-solid in the typical Honda fashion.
The trunk is spacious - actually very roomy given the smaller size of the car. One annoyance is that there is no trunk button - you have to hold down the trunk pop button on the key for a few seconds to get it to spring open. Handy, but I'm just not used to that yet I guess.
I'd rate visibility as fair to good. The Fit had great visibility, partly due to having a ridiculous amount of headroom. The Civic is more slopey and has less glass, and the B-pillar is like two or three times as thick as I've seen it on other cars, so it's a bit annoying to bounce your head around it when looking over to merge. The sideview mirrors are strangely small as well. So not totally horrible, but I think the visibility could definitely be better. Still, way way better than my Kia Soul, which has terrible blind spots
The headroom issue is interesting. It's got a sportier design (very sloped front windshield) and it seems like you don't have much headroom, but you actually do - I'm 6' 1" and I had about 6" from my forehead to the roof lining. It feels cozier than it actually is, especially coming from a Fit, which was extremely tall inside.
The seats slope back quite a bit. You're kind of like a bro cruising around in it. The seats have a nice little grip and are comfortable. I'm used to sitting almost straight up in the Fit though, so the seating style is a pretty big change for me. Coupled with the small steering wheel, I'm still working on finding my optimal driving position. The left armrest on the door also is at perfect knee-whacking height for me (most cars are, although the Altima's didn't bother me), so I found that a little bit annoying too, although I adjusted after driving it for awhile. So you're kind of leaning back in the seat, and have a large B-pillar, and smallish sideview mirrors, so you have to kind of adapt to that for driving safely. Easy to get you used to tho, and a fair bit better than the Kia Soul's visibility issues.
I'm anxious to see the actual MPG as I go through a few tanks of gas. Honda advertises 28 city, 39 highway - my Soul gets 27 highway in practice, so even the city MPG is better! It has a 13.2-gallon tank, so in theory it has a city range of about 370 miles and a highway range of roughly 515 miles. I'd like it to be even longer for convenience (the Altima gets over 680 highway miles per tank, based on 38 MPG advertised), but either way it should beat both the Soul and the Fit, which both got around 300 miles before needing a fill-up.
The safety features are nice. One of the things we wanted was a 5-star safety rating, primarily because we have a baby now and are thinking about a second one, but didn't want to go with a large van or SUV. Apparently the 2013 Civic is the first compact car to get an IHS top safety pick, which is great because we can get the MPG & parking benefits of a smaller car, but still be fairly safe:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money...s-crash-test-honda-civic-lincoln-mkz/1969873/
Overall, great little machine. Much more car than I would have expected in the class (compact) and especially for the price. I also got a really nice deal on it and have a great local dealership (very rare in the car world, in my experience) - second time leasing with them and it probably won't be the last. I was 4,000 miles over on my Fit lease (40k on a 36k plan) with 4 months left to go, so I wanted to get out of it early to avoid getting dinged with the over-mileage fees; they ignored the miles and swapped me out without any penalty (iirc they assessed it at above KBB value, so it worked out in my favor this time!). Very pleased with that, plus no return fee, so I basically got a new car and skipped this month's lease payment, excellent!
Fire away if you have any questions. I'll try to remember to post some updates down the road, especially on the actual MPG I'm getting. There's an "Eco" button now which turns the engine into slug mode and lets you get better mileage - the dealership mentioned that some customers are getting into the 40-42. So driving in wuss mode (I think it basically cuts down your engine power/shifting/climate control) will give you a little boost MPG-wise - I'll try the two and compare, since I'll be driving the car initially and my daily commute is almost entirely highway. Downside is you have to remember to turn it on every time; it doesn't have a memory feature. Neat to have it though.
Honda 101:
Honda has a really nice leasing program called Honda Advantage, which among other things includes a $1500 wear & tear waiver, GAP insurance, and no disposition (return fee):
http://automobiles.honda.com/hondaadvantage/
Since we were returning customers, we got a $350 credit towards any lease or purchase, and they had a March special of $500 off any car physically located at the dealership, so we came in with a total of $850 towards any add-ons we wanted, or could just roll it into the lease and use it to lower the monthly payment. Honda can also roll in the tax into your monthly bill, which is around $25 a month in my area (CT). The current offers are available here:
http://automobiles.honda.com/current-offers.aspx
The current Civic Sedan offers are here: (there's a really nice one for $0 down, $0 first month's payment, $240 a month for 35 months, and of course, no return fee)
http://automobiles.honda.com/curren...edan&offerid=68673&modelid=FB2F5DEW&sf=2&ft=1
The Civics come in both coupe and sedan flavors, each in 3 trims: LX, EX, and EX-L. All but the base LX model can also be equipped with optional in-dash navigation, if you don't like external GPS devices. The EX mainly adds a sunroof (plus slightly bigger/cooler rims & more speakers) and the EX-L adds leather. Comparison page is here:
http://automobiles.honda.com/civic-sedan/price.aspx
There is also the Civic Si model (201hp vs the stock 140hp) and the Civic Hybrid (110hp + 44 MPG city/highway, although the battery has had reliability issues).
Background:
My previous lease was the Fit Sport, which turned out to be a really great car. I needed something economical at the time with no down payment and it fit the bill nicely. It was zippy, tons of headroom, lots of configurable cargo space thanks to the "magic seats" (fold-up, fold-flat backseats), and great visibility. I averaged 32 MPG in it, so pretty decent gas mileage. We like compact cars, partly because they're really easy to park anywhere.
My lease on the Fit was coming up this summer and I was already over-mileage on my lease, so rather than paying for the extra miles, I did an early lease trade-in. My local dealership has really nice pull-ahead programs all the time, so I opted for that route. Basically just swapped keys and drove off with the Civic. Really easy, plus no car payment this month!
I had looked into the all-electric Nissan Leaf, but ultimately decided against it due to the range limitation. Other than that, I was pretty much looking for something under $300 a month, over 30 MPG, and with a 5-star safety rating. The Fit only got a 4-star safety rating, and although the newest version has Traction Control in the Sport model, it still only got 33 MPG, which isn't super great by today's standards (especially for such a small car). There's also something to be said about the safety of driving a larger car.
My wife and I both lease our cars. I have a Kia Soul and she had the Fit, although we swapped after we had our first baby in 2011 because the Hamstermobile was roomier for the carseat. So since this trade-in would end up going back to her, we were looking for something a bit larger. I checked out both the Nissan Altima and the Honda Accord. I really liked the Altima, but my wife wanted to keep a Honda in the family due to the awesome reliability we've had with them, and she also liked the compact size of the Civic more.
Car Review:
Today is Day 1 with the Civic, so I can't comment on long-term reliability or actual MPG yet, thus this is a quick review. I've pretty much settled on the Altima for when my Kia lease is up, so I went to check out the Honda Accord for my wife's car. Turns out the inside has shrunk compared to previous model years, and I found it too tight compared to the Altima. Especially coming from the Fit, which is amazingly roomy.
However, the Civic is another story. Honda redesigned it in 2012 (cheaped it out due to the bad economy) and it got terrible reviews. Not to be burned again, Honda redesigned the Civic for 2013 and loaded it up - even the base model comes with Bluetooth speakerphone & music streaming, a backup camera, Traction Control, USB/Aux jacks, and plenty of other stuff that makes it feel a lot nicer than a Civic should be. The next model up adds a sunroof (I love sunroofs), but it also tacked on $50 a month to the lease, and my wife didn't care one way or another. Neither of us like leather either, so we skipped that and used the $850 credit towards heated seats (they can install them on the cloth seats as an option) plus some money off each month.
The Bluetooth system is amazing. For starters, the system voice is a recording of a real person, not a text-to-speech robot system, so it sounds really nice (at least when doing setup, haha). Bluetooth call quality is excellent. To my surprise, Bluetooth audio streaming worked flawlessly with my iPhone 4S. I was able to use the iPod function as well as the MOG app with it, and the MOG app started playing again when I got back in the later, which was wicked cool. There is an aux jack in front of the shifter, and a USB port/charger inside the armrest console. The i-MID system (sort of like a cheapo Ford Sync system) also has the ability to handle SMS. There's no Siri button in the car for doing voice-to-text type of stuff, but I don't use that while driving anyway (or ever, haha). So anyway, quite happy with the Bluetooth system.
The audio system has what I'll call accurate sound. There's hardly any bass, but the treble is very clear, on the reference side of clarity. Probably great for podcasts, and my wife doesn't jam the speakers anyway with our kiddo in the car. Coming from the Fit, however, I was disappointed - the Fit Sport had a lot more vertical room in the car, which contributed to the stock audio sounding great, and had a way better sound system, enough to the point where if I had bought the car, I probably wouldn't have changed out the speakers (the Kia Soul is a different story, on the other hand - I have the upgraded stereo in mine and it's total garbage haha).
The car is extremely quiet inside. You can drive at freeway speeds and whisper and people can hear you (I know because I tried it lol). That helps out the audio system, because you get good, clear sound even on the highway. I also like not having a CVT in there (they kind of drive me nuts, even though the "gen 2" ones in the Nissans are much quieter now). Very quiet around town as well. I'm very pleased with how dampened the interior is against noise, much better than I would have thought for this type of car.
Driving is okay, as far as acceleration goes. The Fit was only 117hp, but it was a very zippy ride - fast off the line and the i-VTEC was really nice on the highway when you needed to get around somebody. Because the Civic is so smooth, you don't really notice the speed until you're already going too fast, and the VTEC still works pretty well on the highway. Steering is great - very smooth turning, and the perfect amount of roll - not a granny ride, but not a really stiff ride either. On flat stretches, the car feels like it's floating. You can tell it's a compact car when you hit potholes and stuff, however, but it's still got a decent suspension.
Style-wise, it's pretty boring. The upgraded models have nicer rims, which really helps the appearance, but ours is the base model with strange swirly hubcaps, so whatever. I prefer smaller rims because you get fatter tires, which gives a slightly smoother ride, and supposedly smaller tires give you a bit better gas mileage as well (as far as reading up on hypermileing and Pruis talk and stuff). The paintjob is pretty and it has the potential to be cool-looking with better rims and a spoiler, but eh. It's sort of gone towards a Saturn type of styling:
http://i.imgur.com/f3fho6R.jpg
The interior is really interesting. It's very driver-oriented and looks fairly techie. The speedometer is digital and the tach is analog, behind the steering wheel. All of the controls are curved toward the driver, which is kind of cool, but also kind of annoying if the passenger is controlling the music because they have to lean in to see the small color screen next to the speedometer. Her'es an inside shot - everything is kind of layered:
http://i.imgur.com/5a5LTTs.jpg
The steering wheel is surprisingly small. I like larger ones that fill up the space more. There is a significant lack of cupholders...I think the Fit had like 10 cupholders and the Civic seems to only have a pair in the center console. Not many little nooks & crannies to store stuff in this car. I did like the interior stitching...it's kind of a stitching around the hard plastic, which looks a bit nicer than just plastic. Build quality is great, everything feels rock-solid in the typical Honda fashion.
The trunk is spacious - actually very roomy given the smaller size of the car. One annoyance is that there is no trunk button - you have to hold down the trunk pop button on the key for a few seconds to get it to spring open. Handy, but I'm just not used to that yet I guess.
I'd rate visibility as fair to good. The Fit had great visibility, partly due to having a ridiculous amount of headroom. The Civic is more slopey and has less glass, and the B-pillar is like two or three times as thick as I've seen it on other cars, so it's a bit annoying to bounce your head around it when looking over to merge. The sideview mirrors are strangely small as well. So not totally horrible, but I think the visibility could definitely be better. Still, way way better than my Kia Soul, which has terrible blind spots
The headroom issue is interesting. It's got a sportier design (very sloped front windshield) and it seems like you don't have much headroom, but you actually do - I'm 6' 1" and I had about 6" from my forehead to the roof lining. It feels cozier than it actually is, especially coming from a Fit, which was extremely tall inside.
The seats slope back quite a bit. You're kind of like a bro cruising around in it. The seats have a nice little grip and are comfortable. I'm used to sitting almost straight up in the Fit though, so the seating style is a pretty big change for me. Coupled with the small steering wheel, I'm still working on finding my optimal driving position. The left armrest on the door also is at perfect knee-whacking height for me (most cars are, although the Altima's didn't bother me), so I found that a little bit annoying too, although I adjusted after driving it for awhile. So you're kind of leaning back in the seat, and have a large B-pillar, and smallish sideview mirrors, so you have to kind of adapt to that for driving safely. Easy to get you used to tho, and a fair bit better than the Kia Soul's visibility issues.
I'm anxious to see the actual MPG as I go through a few tanks of gas. Honda advertises 28 city, 39 highway - my Soul gets 27 highway in practice, so even the city MPG is better! It has a 13.2-gallon tank, so in theory it has a city range of about 370 miles and a highway range of roughly 515 miles. I'd like it to be even longer for convenience (the Altima gets over 680 highway miles per tank, based on 38 MPG advertised), but either way it should beat both the Soul and the Fit, which both got around 300 miles before needing a fill-up.
The safety features are nice. One of the things we wanted was a 5-star safety rating, primarily because we have a baby now and are thinking about a second one, but didn't want to go with a large van or SUV. Apparently the 2013 Civic is the first compact car to get an IHS top safety pick, which is great because we can get the MPG & parking benefits of a smaller car, but still be fairly safe:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money...s-crash-test-honda-civic-lincoln-mkz/1969873/
Overall, great little machine. Much more car than I would have expected in the class (compact) and especially for the price. I also got a really nice deal on it and have a great local dealership (very rare in the car world, in my experience) - second time leasing with them and it probably won't be the last. I was 4,000 miles over on my Fit lease (40k on a 36k plan) with 4 months left to go, so I wanted to get out of it early to avoid getting dinged with the over-mileage fees; they ignored the miles and swapped me out without any penalty (iirc they assessed it at above KBB value, so it worked out in my favor this time!). Very pleased with that, plus no return fee, so I basically got a new car and skipped this month's lease payment, excellent!
Fire away if you have any questions. I'll try to remember to post some updates down the road, especially on the actual MPG I'm getting. There's an "Eco" button now which turns the engine into slug mode and lets you get better mileage - the dealership mentioned that some customers are getting into the 40-42. So driving in wuss mode (I think it basically cuts down your engine power/shifting/climate control) will give you a little boost MPG-wise - I'll try the two and compare, since I'll be driving the car initially and my daily commute is almost entirely highway. Downside is you have to remember to turn it on every time; it doesn't have a memory feature. Neat to have it though.
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