In my never-ending new car search I did test drive this car twice, as well as having grown up with this car being owned by my parents, for a time. So I feel pretty confident about reviewing it.

Of course the reliability is unquestionable. You don't need me to tell you that. I think it's something like always on the top ten of the most popular new cars being bought. The Civic has much prettier colors to choose from than the Corolla. I was attracted by that pretty blue-green that they offer. The outside body style is more attractive than Corolla, I felt. The handling around corners is top-notch. Always has been. Honda's double-wishbone suspension is a must for anyone who takes fast corners or lives in the Mountains with lots of swerves and curves.

But I live in the city. Don't like Mountains and am not planning to be going anytime soon. Still, this car is amazingly quiet! Big surprise there. Who'd of thought? I thought I was imagining it, but after test driving this car twice, I found that Civic is actually much quieter (even upon heavy acceleration) than Corolla! I could have easily bought this car immediately for the quiet ride alone.

But there were significant problems. The most unforgivable problem with Honda's Civic is the lack of Seat Belt Pretensioners. Don't take my word for it. Money Magazine's car issue last year said that if you were choosing between a Corolla and a Civic; in terms of safety, to go for the Corolla because the Pretensioners, which lock you into place via the seat belts during a crash are not in the Civic. ???????? Unforgivable. How can a company of the stature of Honda, with a top-ten car like the Civic not put Pretensioners into this car? This is a no-brainer folks. I know that Civic is set for a redesign with the 2001 model, supposedly; but, economy cars started adding Pretensioners way back in the early 90s. How can something so basic yet so essential be overlooked by the number #1 small car manufacturer? Unacceptable.

Also, how can a car with the power of a double-wishbone suspension only put something like 112 horsepower in their middle model trimline? Corolla puts something like 125 horse power in each model of Corolla you buy. Wasn't Honda the company that was derived from motorcycles and race cars? Yet you can only get the power of anything near 125 hpr by buying the most upper model. And believe me, you'll pay for the extra horsepower in the upper model. No deals whatsoever from any of the Honda Dealerships I went to. I found Toyota to be anxious to move merchandise off their lots no matter what they had to do (or discount) to do it. No such philosophy at Honda. No, Honda expected full MSRP for anything they'd sell to me. Incredible.

Little things bothered me about the Civic too. Like the fact that the gas tank holds fewer gallons of gas than Corolla's. Yes, you'll get great mileage, but because of the small Civic tank, you'll still be at the gas station frequently. The interior plastic of the Civic seemed cheaper, with those dark colors, than Corolla's brighter and somewhat more plush interior. I like to nestle into a drivers seat, but the Civic's seat seemed cold and hard and didn't seem to allow for settling in the way I'd want to. The Civic ride, although fabulously quiet and with great handling, does tend to be bumpy. Whereas Toyota emphasizes smoothness of ride over handling. It seems to me, that if you are going to be driving on straight roads with not a lot of curves (like me) you probably wouldn't care that much about handling.

Still, this car has one of the best resale values than anything else on the market. The fact that you would easily get back all that you paid for the Civic, if you ever wanted to sell it; well, that alone might justify purchasing one.





Recommended: Yes

Condition: New
Model Year: 2000