2012 Honda Civic Hybrid loses Consumer Reports' Recommended rating

As we've stated before, there's truly no greater sin in the automotive world than replacing a worthy vehicle with an inferior machine. According to Consumer Reports, that's exactly what Honda has done... again.

With the 2012 redesign, the Honda Civic Hybrid has fallen off CR's Recommended list. Its score of 62 – one point above the 2012 Honda Civic but ten points below CR's rating for the 2006 Civic Hybrid – forced Consumer Reports to drop its Recommended tag from the gas-electric Civic. In CR's words:

The new Honda Civic Hybrid gets an impressive 40 miles per gallon overall, 3 mpg more than the previous Civic Hybrid and even better than Honda's smaller Insight and CR-Z. But the car has gone down hill overall, with sloppy handling, a choppy ride, long stopping distances and a cheap feeling interior. With its low test score, we no longer can recommend the Civic Hybrid, even though we expect above-average reliability.

And with the Honda Insight scoring only 54 points and the CR-Z grabbing just 57 points, Honda no longer has a single hybrid on CR's Recommended list. For reference, the Toyota Prius scored 80 points, landing it in second place in CR's "small hatchbacks" category.

The only "small sedans" to score below the 2012 Civic Hybrid in CR's evaluation were the Mitsubishi Lancer EX (62), Honda Civic LX (61) and Volkswagen Jetta SE (60).

Honda will most likely be none-too pleased with the Civic Hybrid's low score and we even expect the Japanese automaker to, once again, respond to CR's ranking of its redesigned Civic. That is, unless Consumer Reports' chronicling of Honda's decline has convinced the Japanese automaker that the Civic just ain't as good as it once was.