2013 Honda Civic sedan - quick review

[Kaido]

OH! That is something else my wife and I discussed. If the car was sinking..I don't think a majority of Americans (me included) could fit through the front or back door windows!

It creeped us out as we talked about it. lol

Yeah, the windows are surprisingly small...I really miss the visibility in my old Saturn ION sedan, LOTS of glass. We were also looking into a Subaru Forester, partly because of the ridiculously great visibility (they call it the "Glass Hallway"), but the Honda worked out better this time around.

 

[Kaido]

Now you are getting into cars you EXPECT to hit your head in.

It makes me think of Shaq trying to tell me Buicks are roomy in their commercials when he cannot even fit his legs in the area with the pedals without sitting fetal.

Haha that is an awesome picture - I thought he looked like he fit fine in it until I looked at his legs

My buddy at work has a '92 or '94 Geo Metro, I believe a 5-speed with regular gas. Last time I checked, he was averaging 54 MPG highway - completely ridiculous. Nothing wrong with that :biggrin:

 

[crabbyman]

Haha that is an awesome picture - I thought he looked like he fit fine in it until I looked at his legs

My buddy at work has a '92 or '94 Geo Metro, I believe a 5-speed with regular gas. Last time I checked, he was averaging 54 MPG highway - completely ridiculous. Nothing wrong with that :biggrin:

Notice his seat is reclined quite a bit also. I assume this is for his fit also. They even call him a "size authority" on the commercial yet he is breaking the car he is advertising because of his size.

My 5 speed 97' Metro got 40 MPG in the city...flooring it. I miss that thing. Now I have to baby my cars to get 20 MPG.

 

[vshah]

UI'm still adjusting to the digital display, like the speedometer. I have to adjust the brightness dial for day/night driving - it's too dim in the daylight to see how fast I'm going, so I have to brighten it up, but at night, it becomes way too bright and I have to dial it down. I'll have to look through the manual and see if there is an auto-adjust feature for ambient lighting levels or time of day or something.

Turn headlights off. set to max brightness. turn headlights on. set to desired night brightness. it should switch between the two depending on whether your headlights are on or off.

 

[NutBucket]

I'm surprised that I actually use the auto setting. Occasionally I'll have to revert to manual if dusk is causing them to turn off and on a lot.

 

[Kaido]

Turn headlights off. set to max brightness. turn headlights on. set to desired night brightness. it should switch between the two depending on whether your headlights are on or off.

Ah, hmm. I have my headlights on all the time :|

 

[vshah]

Well there's your problem

 

[A5]

Ah, hmm. I have my headlights on all the time :|

On my Mazdas, you can press the speedo-light dial in to adjust between the light and dark modes at will. Don't know if Honda does that.

 

[vshah]

On my Mazdas, you can press the speedo-light dial in to adjust between the light and dark modes at will. Don't know if Honda does that.

on my 2007 civic the top level is day, and one down is dim for some stuff but bright for others (forget what the breakup is). one down from that is dim for everything, and then it gets dimmer from there. i often use my headlights during the day as well, and it's just a couple taps of plus or minus to get the dash where i want it to be.


OP, why do you use headlights during the day? so others can see you better?

 

[Kaido]

on my 2007 civic the top level is day, and one down is dim for some stuff but bright for others (forget what the breakup is). one down from that is dim for everything, and then it gets dimmer from there. i often use my headlights during the day as well, and it's just a couple taps of plus or minus to get the dash where i want it to be.


OP, why do you use headlights during the day? so others can see you better?

Habit. Same reason I use turn signals, even when no one is around

 

[Kaido]

Snow performance is good - got about half a foot yesterday. Traction control worked well. It has a front windshield defroster, which is nice - never seen that on a car before. The rear defroster is completely useless, didn't do squat. Guess I'll just have to scrape the rear window every time instead of letting it warm up.

Tweaked the speaker settings and got the sound decent. Aside from a significant lack of bass, the biggest downside is that the treble is extremely bright at higher volumes - vocals actually hurt my ears they're so sharp. Ah well, base model, crap speakers

 

[crabbyman]

Go ghetto...use your iPod with headphones while drive.

I did that a while in my Metro since it did not have a stereo. lol

 

[Kaido]

Go ghetto...use your iPod with headphones while drive.

I did that a while in my Metro since it did not have a stereo. lol

Eh, I mostly listen to podcasts & audiobooks since my commute is sometimes ~2 hours in traffic (>40 miles round trip though, bleh!), and the car is quiet enough I can turn the volume down.

Definitely miss the speaker system in the Fit! :biggrin:

 

[Kaido]

I did that a while in my Metro since it did not have a stereo. lol

Hah that reminds me of my early college days...I had a really old Saturn sedan with an AM/FM radio and nothing else, and I think FM transmitters weren't quite on the scene, so I took a cheap set of Logitech 5.1 speakers and a 12V adapter and hooked them up to my Minidisc player with the stereo adapter (sub in the rear passenger footwell, center in the console, left & right fronts wedged between the seat & the doors, and the 2 rears on the backseat shelf) . I had one of the best automative sound systems in school :awe:

 

[crabbyman]

Hah that reminds me of my early college days...I had a really old Saturn sedan with an AM/FM radio and nothing else, and I think FM transmitters weren't quite on the scene, so I took a cheap set of Logitech 5.1 speakers and a 12V adapter and hooked them up to my Minidisc player with the stereo adapter (sub in the rear passenger footwell, center in the console, left & right fronts wedged between the seat & the doors, and the 2 rears on the backseat shelf) . I had one of the best automative sound systems in school :awe:

Literally the car had a blank piece of plastic covering the hole where a stereo should be.

I did something similar to you but yours sounds more advanced. I had a cheap $5 pair of computer speakers connected to a cigarette power converter and connected it to my Walkman CD player and iPod. Eventually I got a CD player with iPod control and put 2 - 12" subs in the back of the Metro. The bass made my rear view mirror unusable it shook it down so much.

 

[crabbyman]

Snow performance is good - got about half a foot yesterday. Traction control worked well. It has a front windshield defroster, which is nice - never seen that on a car before. The rear defroster is completely useless, didn't do squat. Guess I'll just have to scrape the rear window every time instead of letting it warm up.

Tweaked the speaker settings and got the sound decent. Aside from a significant lack of bass, the biggest downside is that the treble is extremely bright at higher volumes - vocals actually hurt my ears they're so sharp. Ah well, base model, crap speakers

Also..Hondas are notorious for terrible speakers and audio systems in general. They have always had crisp highs but muddy mids and lows.

 

[Kaido]

Literally the car had a blank piece of plastic covering the hole where a stereo should be.

I think this pretty much says it all:

http://i.imgur.com/NGcUN.jpg

 

[NutBucket]

I disagree. I like having a nice car stereo that sounds good. Too bad Eclipse pulled out of the US market. Love the way their stuff sounds.

I've had AUX inputs for over 10 years and hardly ever use them.

 

[Kaido]

I disagree. I like having a nice car stereo that sounds good. Too bad Eclipse pulled out of the US market. Love the way their stuff sounds.

I've had AUX inputs for over 10 years and hardly ever use them.

I used the AUX inputs a lot in my other cars, but in the Civic, Bluetooth does it all! I am considering throwing in some better speakers, but since it's my wife's car (borrowing it for now since my Kia lease miles are limited for the last few months), I'll see if she cares before replacing them.

Not really happy with the mileage so far...averaging 31 MPG, halfway through my second tank of gas, mostly highway miles. It's been cold here, but that's 8 MPG off advertised. My last Honda Fit got 32 MPG everywhere we went. Hmm.

Really enjoying the car so far. Quiet, responsive, smooth. Extremely nice to drive. Just a really really great car!

 

[CA19100]

Ah, hmm. I have my headlights on all the time :|

Keep in mind it has Daytime Running Lights that come on automatically.

 

[Kaido]

Keep in mind it has Daytime Running Lights that come on automatically.

Yah, it's just habit

 

[Arkaign]

Sounds decent. I drove a 2012 Civic and it was really terrible. I looked at several compacts and settled on the 2012 TC 6MT. It's not perfect, but it'll do for now. The worst thing about it is the horrendous fuel economy, best things are decent power and very good sound system/road manners. In a lot of ways I miss my 08 Focus 5MT Coupe though, I almost never had a tank where I didn't get at least 34mpg mixed, and road trips guaranteed 40+.

 

[Kaido]

Sounds decent. I drove a 2012 Civic and it was really terrible. I looked at several compacts and settled on the 2012 TC 6MT. It's not perfect, but it'll do for now. The worst thing about it is the horrendous fuel economy, best things are decent power and very good sound system/road manners. In a lot of ways I miss my 08 Focus 5MT Coupe though, I almost never had a tank where I didn't get at least 34mpg mixed, and road trips guaranteed 40+.

Wow, that's pretty great mileage! Been hearing a lot of good things about the Fusion & Focus. I tried out a Fiesta but I had to angle my left leg in, a little *too* compact for my tastes :biggrin:

 

[Kaido]

On my third or fourth tank of gas. Averaging 30/31 MPG, almost entirely highway. Nowhere near the advertised "39 MPG". Using the Eco button seems to make the mileage worse - I was doing like 31.4 MPG on normal and 30.1 MPG on Eco. Maybe it just hasn't "broken in" yet, but it's stayed pretty consistent so far.

MPG lies aside :biggrin: It's a great car, I really like it. I just picked up a used 2001 Volvo T80 S6 (extremely well maintained), which was a $40K luxury car new (got it for 10% the original cost, woot!), and I would give it a 9 and the 2013 Civic a 10. Last decade's luxury car is today's base sedan. The Civic is smooth, quiet, easy to drive, has good gas mileage (relatively), & has lots of technology features. The Volvo is an amazing car, and gets points in the leather seat department & nifty interior fit and finish, but I think the new Civic is a better car...but then, I haven't tried a 2013 S80, haha. My wife fell in love with the S80 and is stealing the Volvo from me, so it looks like the Civic & I will be good buddies for the next 3 years - I drive a lot more, and mostly highway, so the better MPG will be beneficial for the monthly gas bill. So maybe I'll throw some speakers in...

 

[crabbyman]

They make it difficult to replace the stock stereo. But at least speakers would help a little.