Midsize Sedans 2.0

brian125

I like the front and don't like the back of this Civic model. Just not doing it for me.

What are those 2 indents on the bottom bumper. They are eye sores. I like the all around look of the Corolla.

The lower end Civic models have a nicer bumper.

zigster38

This will be more reliable than an a3, priced better, similar horsepower. Looks are subjective but I like it. It's as big as the last gen 3 series. I will picking up an ex-l I think, but I don't think I can get a deal on one till end of year. We'll see.

suydam

I hope the seats are more comfortable than they used to be.

benjaminh

It's interesting how the Civic has grown, esp. for 2016. Compared to the 2015 Civic, the 2016 Civic is two inches wider, and maybe two inches longer. 20 years ago, in 1996, we were in the third year of the 5th generation of the Honda Accord, and the new Civic is similar in size to that Accord. It's also similar in size to the current BMW 320i. Comparing a Civic to a BMW 320i in some ways is silly, since they are completely different classes of car, but this is the first Civic for which it might make even a tiny bit of sense. The upper trims of the new Civic get Honda's new 1.5 liter turbo engine, which makes 174 horsepower, which is not that far from the 180 horsepower from the 2.0 liter turbo in the 320i. But the Civic is going to weigh c. 350 pounds less than the 320i, and so there's the possibility that acceleration could be similar. Motor Trend tested the 320i at 6.7 seconds 0-60. I'm sure the Civic turbo 1.5 will be slower than that, but maybe close to 7 seconds? And Honda has also said that handling for the new Civic is more sporty. Anyway, here are some dimensions for comparison.

2016 Civic 1996 Accord 2016 320i

length c.181 inches 184 182

width c.71 inches 70 71

hp (w/turbo) 174 130 180

I know, of course, that the real competitors for the 2016 Civic are the 2016 Corolla, the 2016 Sentra, the 2016 Focus, etc. But now it is potentially for those who want a car that's roomy, but a bit smaller than the current Accord.

akirby

I don't think there is any "prestige" associated with a Civic (or most any other mainstream sub $30K vehicle) to begin with so lower trim lines won't hurt.

Ford has shown that people are willing to pay more for loaded models from the Focus and Fusion Titaniums all the way to $65K F150 platinums and Limiteds. Which is why Fusion ATPs are $4k higher than Camry.

suydam

Well, depends on how you define prestige. Back when we were younger and barely had two nickels to rub together, we could only dream of owning a Civic. We bought a Mazda 323 ( which turned out to be a great car) because we couldn't manage the extra $2k for the Civic.

benjaminh

suydam said:

Well, depends on how you define prestige. Back when we were younger and barely had two nickels to rub together, we could only dream of owning a Civic. We bought a Mazda 323 ( which turned out to be a great car) because we couldn't manage the extra $2k for the Civic.

Back in 1988, when I was helping my sister buy her first car, we made the exact same decision. She wanted a Civic, but it was almost 2k more. And so she went with the Mazda 323 instead, which was really a great little car.

Today, as in the past, there's a bit of a premium to own a Honda. But the market is so competitive that the premium is small now, and sometimes nothing at all. For instance, at a dealer in Nashville all 2015 Civic LX autos, which have a list of c. $20k, are going for $16.5. That 3,500 off of list is probably as much of a discount as you'll find on a Focus or anything else in the class.

But Honda is clearly trying to move the 2016 Civic back to best-in-class in almost all areas, including power, room, mpg, safety, features, style, etc. The list prices, I hope, will only be modestly higher, but for 6 months, and maybe a year, I'm sure Honda is hoping that discounts will be much more modest.

benjaminh

Currently the Ford Focus Titanium tops out at about $28k msrp. My guess is that the top-of-the-line 2016 Civc, the Touring, will be a little higher, but will have more power, more room, and have some features that the Focus Titanium lacks. But I'd guess close to a $28k msrp for the 2016 Civic Touring as well, but with much smaller discounts than you'd get on a Ford. We'll find out prices in about 10 days, but here are my guesses right now for msrps before destination:

LX 6MT c. $19k
EX CVT c. 22k
EX-T CVT c. 23k
EX-L CVT c. 24.5k
EV-L Navi with Sensing c. 26k
Touring c. 28k

suydam

"Back in 1988, when I was helping my sister buy her first car, we made the exact same decision. She wanted a Civic, but it was almost 2k more. And so she went with the Mazda 323 instead, which was really a great little car."
That was the exact year for us too!

berri

II think that except for trucks, if you pay a bit more for a Japanese brand you'll generally make up the difference at trade in.

stickguy

If the civic has better seats, that could be a prime candidate for me in 2 years when I am back in market. Can't wait to see one in person.

akirby

You have to be careful with resale value - depends on how they're coming up with the used car values and what they're using for the starting prices. The best measure is lease prices and I don't think that you can lease a Camry or Accord any cheaper than a comparable Fusion or Sonata.

stickguy

Camrys and sonatas now are cheapest. Accord is highest, and from what I've seen fusion closer to the accord than a Camry.

zigster38

Fords are massively discounted from their Msrp's. Look at the ads, all the 99 and 199 lease deals because things like Focus Titaniums are instantly 5k off when you walk in the dealership. There's always a discount when reliability is suspect. Civics hold their resale quite strongly, even through the rather boring current generation. Gen 10 might be a home run. Now if Honda could only get it's hybrid act together...

backy

All this talk about the "mid-sized" 2016 Civic reminds me of what was I think the first compact car offered in the USA that was classified as mid-sized by the EPA. It debuted here 15 years ago. Anyone remember what car that was? I bought one of the first units shipped to the USA. My sister still owns it.

suydam

Not a clue, but the midsize sedans have grown so large it's become almost a meaningless category. If you want an actual midsize sedan you are now looking at "compact" cars.

stickguy

Mitsubishi Galant?

stickguy

I agree about size creep. My Sonata is IMO a full sized car (large?). I think of the Jetta as a good example of a mid size car. Really the size I prefer.

sda

backy said:

All this talk about the "mid-sized" 2016 Civic reminds me of what was I think the first compact car offered in the USA that was classified as mid-sized by the EPA. It debuted here 15 years ago. Anyone remember what car that was? I bought one of the first units shipped to the USA. My sister still owns it.

Toyota Avalon?

m6user

@backy
Elantra. 

akirby

zigster38 said:

Fords are massively discounted from their Msrp's. Look at the ads, all the 99 and 199 lease deals because things like Focus Titaniums are instantly 5k off when you walk in the dealership. There's always a discount when reliability is suspect. Civics hold their resale quite strongly, even through the rather boring current generation. Gen 10 might be a home run. Now if Honda could only get it's hybrid act together...

Nobody is paying MSRP for Hondas or Toyotas either. Honda and Toyota both average $1700 in incentives while Ford is at $2700, although Ford's number is inflated a little by typically bigger incentives on F150s. Not a huge difference.

benjaminh

As we've all heard, by 2025 federal laws for Corporate Average Fuel Economy set a goal of 54 mpg. That number, however, is a mirage or bogeyman, depending on how you look at it, because it's based on the EPA mpg tests from 1975. The actual EPA window sticker we have now, which has been reduced twice in the last several decades to more closely track real-world results, is about 30% lower. In other words, multiply 54 x .7 and you get about 38 mpg combined mpg on the sticker. Here's a guide from Edmunds on the 1975 EPA numbers for each class of vehicle for CAFE over the years, past and future:

http://www.edmunds.com/fuel-economy/good-and-bad-news-emerges-from-cafes-fine-print.html

For midsize cars the CAFE standards move forward like this:

2012: 32 mpg (actually only about 22 combined mpg on the window sticker)

2017: 38 mpg (27 combined mpg on the sticker)

2021: 45 mpg (32 on the sticker)

2025: 54 mpg (38 on the sticker)

Several midsize cars are currently rated 30 or 31, and so far exceed the standard for 2017, and get close to meeting the standard for 2021. The 2016 Honda Accord is rated at 31. An all new Accord is due for the 2018 model year, and we can guess that it'll get at least a couple of mpg higher than the current model, and the 33 mpg it will likely get should let it meet the standard all the way to 2022, when the next all-new Accord is due.

In general I support the CAFE standards, and they are one reason among many that fuel prices have come down recently by lowering demand slightly, but I still don't see right now how a midsize car gets to 38 by 2025. I think, however, there are ways to carry forward credits, and get credits for other things, and so the actual number might be closer to 36. But still that seems ambitious given that the 2015 Civic is rated at 33 mpg combined.

But the 2016 Civic, which as mentioned now moves up to EPA's midsize, is expected to get c. 42 mpg on the highway and maybe c. 31 in the city, for a combined rating of c. 35. That's pretty close to the 2025 standard of 36 with credits, and we're still 9 years away from it.

benjaminh

As a PS from that article from Edmunds above:

"The 54.5-mpg figure equals about 36 mpg in the EPA's current window-sticker measuring system."

And so the next time you hear someone say that those crazy gov't rules are requiring 54.5 mpg, you can tell someone that the actual number on the EPA sticker of the car, which is pretty close to real world mpg now, will be about 36.

Just doesn't make much of a headline to scream: "Cars that get 36 mpg by 2025." But actually that is still a significant improvement from where we are now.

backy

m6user said:

@backy
Elantra. 

Ding ding ding! We have a winner! 2001 Elantra. Hyundai marketed the heck out of the mid-sized interior numbers... that, and the warranty. Then in 2005 they did the same trick on the 2006 Sonata, which was marketed as having a full-sized interior. But then this upsizing became pretty commonplace, so that today's "compacts" are like yesterday's mid-sized carrs, and today's subcompacts like my Rio are like compacts of the past.

In most of the world, the mid-sized sedans so popular here would be considered humongous cars. I saw a story recently in MT (blog version here: http://blogs.motortrend.com/1507_a_tale_of_two_top_tens_japan_us_buy_very_different_vehicles_the_kiinote.html) that lists the top ten vehicles sold in Japan and in the USA last year. There was only one vehicle on both lists, the Corolla. Four mid-sized sedans were on the USA list, but only 8000 Camrys were sold in Japan.

benjaminh

There's a press embargo on the new 2016 "midsize" Civic until Oct. 19th. But this 2-minute video gives a little preview of the new electronic gauges, the sound of the new 1.5 turbo engine, as well as the 450-watt 10-speaker sound system on the Touring model....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7baWUsEUUfs

explorerx4

I wonder if Honda will be phasing out the Accord? It's already discontinued in Europe.

benjaminh

explorerx4 said:

I wonder if Honda will be phasing out the Accord? It's already discontinued in Europe.

lol! The Accord still the second best selling midsize car in the US. Honda has never had a big presence in Europe, and the Accord is really too big for them anyway.

The Accord is at the large end of EPA's midsize category, just a foot or so away from full size, while the Civic is just barely in the midsize realm, and will still be considered by most a compact.

But now that the Civic has abandoned the smaller car area, Honda does need a new small sedan to take the place of where the Civic used to be in the 1980s-early 2000s. In other markets Honda has a "City" sedan that is about the size of a Civic from 20 years ago. It's based on the Fit platform, and perhaps they'll bring it here at some point.

robr2

explorerx4 said:

I wonder if Honda will be phasing out the Accord? It's already discontinued in Europe.

Well Honda never sold our Accord in Europe. Our TSX was sold there as the Accord. Mid-size sedans (aka executive saloons) as a whole have been falling out of favor for years in Europe having been supplanted by small CUV's. Toyota doesn't sell the Camry in Europe either yet it's their #1 car in the US. As such, I highly doubt Honda will discontinue a car that sells close to 400,000+ copies a year in the US.

suydam

Everyone talks about the CRV but Honda has sold more Accords than CRVs so far this year. It's their bread and butter car in the US. No way would they discontinue it.

explorerx4

Acura replaced the TL with a smaller model. The Accord has no place to go, but get larger, which isn't huge market.

suydam

The 2013 Accord got smaller than previous years. It will probably stay that way.

stickguy

That civic looks nice. Can't wait to see one in person.

benjaminh

stickguy said:

That civic looks nice. Can't wait to see one in person.

Me too. I think there's more buzz for this midsize Civic than there's been for any Civic for a couple of decades.

benjaminh

Consumer Reports seems to like the new midsized 2016 Civic. The tester says you might mistake it for a new Accord....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1hAWTiNz8M

stickguy

Sounds promising. Really only 2 things mentioned as missing important to me were BLIS and lumbar! Bad seats were primary reason I didn't get a 2006 back in the day.

benjaminh

Consumer Reports says that Toyota and Honda dominate their list of cars that make it to 200,000 miles:

http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/news/2015/03/ten-for-the-long-haul/index.htm

Truth about Cars, not surprisingly, said that Toyota and Honda dominate their list of vehicles that the original owner keeps 10 years or more:

http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2015/10/toyota-honda-dominate-list-cars-kept-10-years/

carboy21

Ok , so whats the big deal ? They labelled a Accord as the 2016 Civic .

suydam

I guess the issue for people who traditionally like midsize sedans is that those so labeled are no longer truly midsize but more like full size. I drove my son's Chevy Impala and it didn't seem all that different from my Honda Accord. I know that for my next vehicle I will be looking hard at the vehicles labeled compact because they are now more my idea of a midsize sedan. That's certainly the case for the Toyota Corolla and now the new Civic.

ral2167

It's disappointing honda can't do a blind spot system like other manufacturers. .. just put a light on the side mirrors instead of the lane watch system.

suydam

I have blind spot on my other vehicle. Lane watch on the Honda. They are both good. Lane watch is more helpful for changing lanes on a busy highway.

benjaminh

Those articles about some people keeping the same car for 10 years, or even up to 200k miles, is making me feel like a wimp for thinking about trading in my 2008 Accord with only 75,000 miles. Probably the best choice in terms of money would be to keep it at least another couple of years.

But when I do trade it in, I am thinking about the new midsize Civic. It looks great, but I am worried about the rear visibility.

akirby

I don't get all the "rear visibility" hand-wringing. I drove a high cube van for years delivering furniture in college with nothing but side mirrors, and semis do it all day every day. With properly adjusted mirrors there are no blind spots anyway.

suydam

Good for you. I need all the visibility I can get.

akirby

Do you drive in reverse all the time?

roadburner

akirby said:

I don't get all the "rear visibility" hand-wringing. I drove a high cube van for years delivering furniture in college with nothing but side mirrors, and semis do it all day every day. With properly adjusted mirrors there are no blind spots anyway.

Precisely; I am convinced that most vehicle operators(can't really call them "drivers") in the U.S. couldn't adjust their mirrors properly if their life depended on it.

suydam

Very charitable for you to be so judgmental (not). Who are you to lump all people who like clear visibility into a group that doesn't even deserve the name of driver? Sheesh.
On an entirely different note, a friend of mine just got a '13 Ford Fusion hybrid. I've never seen one as I'm not a Ford person. That is a sharp looking car, both inside and out. Just beautiful. And great fuel economy too.

roadburner

I just think it is humorous to read all the discussions about the best "blind spot" system when-in most every passenger car on the road today-you can obtain similar results by properly adjusting and utilizing the mirrors your car is already fitted with.
But hey, if you adore electronic seeing eye dogs have at it!

suydam

I believe we were talking about rear visibility in the Civic.
But I like the new safety features too.

akirby

I use BLIS as an added safety measure. I don't rely on it 100%.

carboy21

suydam said:

I guess the issue for people who traditionally like midsize sedans is that those so labeled are no longer truly midsize but more like full size. I drove my son's Chevy Impala and it didn't seem all that different from my Honda Accord. I know that for my next vehicle I will be looking hard at the vehicles labeled compact because they are now more my idea of a midsize sedan. That's certainly the case for the Toyota Corolla and now the new Civic.

I was looking at 2016 Sonata but found it too big for my already cluttered garage, so I settled for a 2016 Elantra which is a perfect fit for mid-size though it is labelled under compact