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2018 Honda Civic Hatchback

Honda

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2018 Honda Civic Hatchback

Honda

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2018 Honda Civic Hatchback

Honda

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2018 Honda Civic Hatchback

Honda

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2018 Honda Civic Hatchback

Honda

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2018 Honda Civic Hatchback

Honda

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2018 Honda Civic Hatchback

Honda

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2018 Honda Civic Hatchback

Honda

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2018 Honda Civic Hatchback

Honda

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After a long campaign season with Craig unsuccessfully putting in a bid for mayor of Springville, we decided to take a last minute trip to Los Angeles right after Thanksgiving. Spending some time in southern California and attending a couple of the press days at the LA Auto Show would prove to be the perfect way to re-energize.

Craig reached out to Davis Adams from Honda to see if there was a chance we could drive one of their vehicles while we were there, he agreed to let us take a 2018 Civic! We have found that when we are out of our normal driving zone like we were in California, we really get to know the vehicle well, and quite frankly, depend on it even more to get us around safely to the right destination.

We were thrilled that Adams had a Touring model available as it came with all the extras we needed to get around in the heavy traffic that comes with a trip to California. After landing at LAX and picking up the Civic, to our elation, we learned it had navigation included as part of the Touring trim level. Getting around just got way easier. After spending six days in the endless cities of SoCal, we wondered how anyone ever got along before the advent of on-board navigation.

This 10th version of the Civic comes equipped with a 1.5 liter 4 cylinder turbocharged engine, the only option available this year, that produces a very nice 180 horsepower. The Touring trim includes a center-mounted dual exhaust system. More power is available in the Si version of the Civic, which pushes HP to 205, but only comes with a manual transmission, like unto the Touring that comes only with a CVT automatic transmission. After our six days in the Civic, we were very glad it was an automatic considering all the times we had to slow down on the freeway. We were also able to get 33 mpg in all that driving.

Speaking of the freeways, as would be expected, we spent a lot of time on them getting around and were always able to get up to speed when needed and accelerate with traffic no matter what the traffic was doing. This was very important to us, considering all the startups and slowdowns we encountered in SoCal. The Civic never left us discouraged or worried about getting around.

On Saturday, we decided to take a day trip down to San Diego and spend some time in Old Town, with a detour to San Luis Obispo on the way. Honda makes a system called Honda Sensing that is included standard on the Touring trim level. It comes with all kinds of safety features, and this addition alone makes going to the Touring Trim worth the price.

We used pretty much all of them on the trip down the coast; setting the adaptive cruise control kept us at a safe distance from the vehicle in front of us, along with maintaining the speed flow of the traffic. It even includes a low-speed follow feature that allowed the Civic to keep going even when traffic slowed down as it always did. The collision mitigation braking even saved us once during the day by starting to brake the vehicle before Craig could get to the brake.

However, our very favorite feature of those included in the Honda Sensing system is the lane keep assist. In our humble opinion, the engineers have pretty much perfected this feature as it kept the Civic centered in the lane of travel, not bouncing from one side of lines to the other as we have seen in other vehicles. Add these all together, and this is one of the closest things you will find to autonomous driving in the marketplace. No, the Civic will not drive itself, but it will do much of the heavy lifting, especially in heavy traffic.

The body of the Civic is not only great looking, it is designed with the lowest co-efficient of drag possible along with reducing the co-efficient of lift keeping the vehicle as grounded as possible, even at higher speeds. The included 18-inch wheels also set the Touring trim apart from the pack.

Inside, the Civic continued to impress us with all kinds of extras we would never have expected to see at the price point, in fact we have only seen some of the included gadgets on vehicle that have been priced upwards of $70,000 plus.

The dashboard is completely digital with a really cool huge 7-inch LED screen front and center that kept track of speed and tachometer with a center that could be configured to show turbo boost, g-forces on the vehicle, a rev indicator, lap timer, throttle and brake control.

The seats were a black leather-trimmed material along with leather trims throughout the cabin, making other soft touch points very comfortable. The front and rear seats were heated, something we didn’t think we would need when the temperature hit 85 when we got off the plane. However, it dipped into the low 50’s with fog in San Diego that night, and we did enjoy having warm seating surfaces.

Dual zone climate control was also nice to have as Deanne always seemed to need a little extra heat to make some of the coastal nights more comfortable. The ambient LED lighting is always a nice touch and we enjoyed it so much more than the harsh lighting that can be had in some vehicles.

The main infotainment system is also a large 7-inch screen set high in the dashboard controlling all the radio and Bluetooth functions in the vehicle, along with climate control and the ever important navigation, which we got very good at using after just a couple of times using it.

About the only complaint we had was having to navigate to a different menu to change the climate control. With the humidity and temperature, it would sometimes fog up inside the vehicle quickly and we were stumbling through menus to get heat on the front windows.

We had a fantastic time, not only in Southern California for a short few days but with the Civic, with which we quickly fell in love. It was the perfect car to drive on our vacation.

See them today at Ken Garff Honda in Orem, 115 E. University Parkway, (801) 714-2200.

Base Price: $28,300

Price as Driven: $28,300