We should have bought a Civic. A year ago, when my wife and I were hunting for a cheap, hatchback family hauler with a pulse, our options came down to a Honda Civic Sport Touring and a Volkswagen GTI. We went with the VW, and while we’ve had 12,000 trouble-free miles from the people’s hatch, a week with Honda’s unflappable commuter made me think we might have bought the wrong car. The Civic offers plenty of power, fuel economy that handily embarrasses our German hatch, and acres of room inside. So why am I still glad the GTI is ours to have and to hold?
Honda has always been a master of the Jekyll and Hyde, building unassuming little cars that are also happy to tear up your favorite mountain pass. That hasn’t changed with this Civic. Sport Touring trim nets you a turbocharged 1.5-liter four-cylinder engine with 180 horsepower and 177 lb-ft of torque, a bit more than what you’ll find in LX or EX models. And while those numbers are well shy of what the GTI produces, it doesn’t really matter in our day-to-day life. Amid the gray grind of preschool drop off and workday traffic, the Civic is punchy enough. And, it will sip regular unleaded fuel all the way to 35 mpg highway, a figure the Volkswagen couldn’t match if we dropped it from space.
And the Honda drives well. All Civics get the same MacPherson strut front suspension and multi-link rear, and they all wear the same sway bars: tubular 25.5 mm front and a solid 16.5 mm out back. But Sport Touring kit nets you larger 18-inch diameter wheels and all-season rubber. The biggest change is a slightly quicker steering rack, 11.12:1. LX, EX, and EX-L trims all get 10.94:1 racks. All are variable ratio, EPS units, and while the steering can feel a numb and synthetic, everything’s predictable, and the quicker rack makes the car seem more athletic than its horsepower numbers would suggest. There’s also very little understeer, at least up to the limit.
Our tester was hamstrung by a continuously variable transmission. Adequate enough for slogging through a fast-food line, but a curse on any road worth driving. Honda supplies paddles for “shifting” through various gear ratios, but the car would be better off without them. The illusion of control is always worse than no control at all. The transmission logic does well enough if left to its own devices, though you’re still left with the rubber-band sensation of being slung through torque curve.
Still, Honda builds this car with a great manual transmission. Or so I’m told. Despite my efforts, I wasn’t able to find a single dealer within driving distance that had a manual Civic on the lot. The local Volkswagen shop had six manual GTIs.
Honda’s traditional packaging prowess shines inside, though. The GTI will accommodate a kid’s booster seat in the back, but expect the front passenger to have to scoot forward a bit. The Civic requires no such concession. But as nice as that is, there’s a bigger problem: the infotainment system. Like most modern equipment, the Civic largely relies on a touch-screen interface, with just one knob for controlling the volume. That would be fine if the screen was quick and responsive, but it’s not. I could start the car, leave my driveway, and be to the first intersection before the Civic’s display woke up. Combine that with no knob or button for flipping through stations, and you’re left to slowly, furiously mash the screen, waiting for it to catch up. The strange part is how desperately unsafe this is. The system sucks up your attention while you should be watching the road.
Which is strange because Honda very much wants to convince you that the Civic is concerned about your safety. The car’s laden with every predictive crash avoidance system you could want, most of them sensitive enough to spook you in traffic for no reason. Better than the alternative, right?
Maybe not. On paper, this Civic is a better family car than the one sitting in our garage, with one glaring exception. When you need it to, the Honda does not vanish beneath you the way the GTI can. It’s always a bit under foot, adding to your mental burden rather than taking something off your plate. Yes, we need a family car with plenty of room, stellar fuel economy, and safety tech, but we want a car that feels like a willing a partner. Something to love. Should we have bought the Honda? Probably, but I’m glad there’s a set of Volkswagen keys in my pocket.
