Honda Civic Review

Honda Civic

How It Looks - Interior

The interior styling is as you would expect of Honda stylish, functional and uncluttered with chunky and tactile switchgear.

The instrument cluster may not appeal to the older driver, although it is easy to read and understand. Your speed is indicated by a three digit LED read out in top of the dash, centered on the steering wheel. The rev counter is a convential clock, albeit back lit, with a floating trip computer centred on it. All very hi-tech but extremely easy to read. You can switch between mph and kph and should the display be too bright you can control the brightness.

The Honda Civic's sport fabric seat upholstery was a black velour type and both the seat fabric and carpets were of a good quality and should prove durable in the long term.

In Car Entertainment and Satellite Navigation

The optional Satellite Navigation system had DVD mapping which covered most of Europe and the UK - with six position Post Code search or you can navigate to house numbers / street. The system was very easy to use and I didn't have to resort to the manual. 

You can control both the audio and navigation commands using natural speech, which worked well most of time. For example if you have previously set you home location - you can say "navigate", "home" and then "set as destination" all without taking your hands away from the steering wheel or eyes from the road - very clever.

I couldn't get my Bluetooth PDA/phone to pair with the hands free phone kit combined with the Satellite Navigation. I think that was more down to my incompetence than Honda's.

The Civic 2.2 CDTi SE was equipped with a stereo single slot CD tuner with RDS, four speakers, tweeters, steering wheel mounted audio controls and speed adjusting audio volume.

Rivals

• Audi A3, Citroen C4, Ford Focus, Mazda3, Renault Megane, SEAT Leon, Vauxhall Astra & Volkswagen Golf

What We Liked

• Exterior & interior styling
• Diesel engine
• Performance
• Handling
• Fuel economy
• Optional Satellite Navigation and HFT system

What We Disliked

• The view of the spoiler in the rear-view mirror
• The seat recline is lever adjusted making fine adjustment impossible

Honda Civic