Associate Editor Brandon Turkus takes us for a ride along Woodward Avenue in the new Honda Civic.
TranscriptBRANDON TURKUS: Hey, Autoblog, we are currently cruising up Woodward Avenue in the 2016 Honda Civic with its new turbocharge engine and continuously variable transmission. And it's all really, really, really good. I wanted to, you know, try and give you a taste of how smooth and quiet and generally, like, unobtrusive this powertrain is. It's really-- it's really a gem of the car and arguably one of the best in the segment.
So I'm driving along right now. I have the car in drive, and I have the economy mode on. And according to this over the course of cycle through here-- let's see-- over the course of 165 miles I've been in this car, I have covered-- I've averaged about 28 miles per gallon.
I start with a full tank. I'm at about a half a tank right now. It says I have about 155 miles to empty. And I've done the drive almost exclusively in the economy mode because you really don't need to dip out of. It's very, very good. It adapts all of your driving situations. So if you need more power, it's just a matter of stepping down on the gas, and it gives it to you.
It does soften up throttle response so that you can be a little bit more delicate with it off the line. And whoops-- not going that way. And it just feels very, very nice. It feels easy to get this kind of, you know, decent fuel economy. This has been very, very mixed driving. This has not been, you know, constant city driving or constant freeway cruise.
I've split it almost perfectly 50/50. So, you know, the fact that I'm returning 28 is not bad. I don't remember the Civic's exact mileage figures off the top of my head. But I didn't anticipate that, you know, we're right in the meat of what the-- you know, on the lower end of what they expect the car to return.
But people that hear that, you know, there's a turbocharged Honda Civic now, they kind of want to know what it's like when you have some fun. So for that, we're going to take it out of economy mode. And as you tell, the CVT is much quicker to respond to throttle inputs there. But it drops the revs really quickly. It doesn't hold it up there.
To be entirely honest, it doesn't feel a lot like a CVT. It feels like an automatic. It just kind of-- you know, it cues up when you need it. And it very quickly downshifts as soon as you step off the gas. All right, upshifts one shift, step off the gas. So it's nice. But there's plenty of power. I mean--
[ENGINE REVVING]
You can see me. There's-- you know, I can pass cars really easily. I'm never short on power. That was about 55 to 60 right-- or 45 to 60 right there. So you're never going to feel flatfooted in this car. I've been driving it for almost a week now. And I've never really been in a situation where, like, no, I really need more power.
And keep in mind, I've been doing most of the drive in economy. So sort of feel that way, it speaks very highly about this power train as a whole. But overall, it's-- you know, the thing of that that keeps striking me about the Civic, I'm not sure that you guys can hear it over the video is that it feels remarkably solid. There's not a lot of engine noise. It's only really there when, you know, when you do this.
[ENGINE REVVING]
And even then, it's not-- it's not obtrusive. It's not obnoxious or buzzy or any other things that you could have described the last generation Civic has been. It just sounds, you know, fairly refined, not the most, you know, the best sounding Honda engine ever. But it's good enough. You're not going to be annoyed by it.
And as soon as you get off the gas and back off like a normal cruise, you know, I'm doing 50 miles an hour right now. And it's spinning below 1,500 RPM. So, you know, you're not dealing with a lot of engine noise ever. And, again, I'm not sure if you guys can hear it through the video, but there's not a lot of suspension noises either.
I mean, I'm driving down Woodward Avenue, which is one of the better roads in metro Detroit. But it's certainly not bad at all. You know, it's among the best in the class in terms of overall ride comfort, I think. So I got to say, you know, I was really skeptical when Honda won North American Car of the Year for the Civic.
But I've been with it for almost a week now. And I absolutely get it. It is such a good comprehensive product. It's easily the best Honda badge product I've driven in in years. So you'll see me driving it a little bit more in a couple of weeks when I get behind the wheel of the Civic Coupe out in San Diego and look forward to it then.
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