Climate Control Consternation - 2016 Honda Civic Long-Term Road Test

Edmunds.com

Climate Control Consternation - 2016 Honda Civic Long-Term Road Test

Our long-term 2016 Honda Civic tries to reinvent the proverbial wheel when it comes to climate controls, and it's causing some climate-control consternation for at least one of our editors.

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dm7279

You're not nuts. This would drive me crazy. In the summer, sure I'm going to hit the Auto button, set the temperature and go, but when not using the AC, I like to adjust it myself. At least there is a fan on/off button.

kirkhilles1

Nah. Set Auto and forget it. I guess the ideal setup is to where it'll remember your last settings which would probably make it perfect for 90%+ of the people. I see the settings that I would use right there. Fan on/off. Temperature knob (actual knob, sweet!), Recirc vs not. Separate front/rear defrost. Done. I'd gladly trade the manual knobs on my Miata for our auto controls on our other vehicles. We adjust the temp, that's pretty much it. Separate Driver/Passenger controls, check. Seat heaters, check. Perfect for me.

ebeaudoin

This car doesn't seem to be adding miles as quickly as anything else in the fleet. Is there a reason for that? When I worked at a Honda dealer and these just came out they seemed like a great highway cruiser. I'd love to hear some road trip impressions.

longtimelurker

Yeah - that's awesome. Fan on/off on the hardwired physical buttons panel, but fan SPEED on the touchscreen above it. The all-defrost air outlet position on the hardwired physical buttons panel, but all the OTHER air outlet positions on the touchscreen above it.

They should put the volume control for USB sources on a physical button and the volume control for the radio on a touchscreen...and the volume control for Bluetooth phones down on the kick panel, maybe.

Insane. Looks like the discussion at Honda HQ came after happy hour.

schen72

I notice that the temp numbers aren't displaying. This is a known issue and is discussed in great detail over on civicx.com. This new infotainment system has a lot of bugs. If I was buying, I'd wait for at least the 2017 model.

puppetsblood

no way i will defend this head unit but there is a setting for how long for this climate screen holds before going back to menu/radio/etc

03hondaaccord

Man, even for a diehard Honda fan, there not making it easy to love this interior tech!

schen72

My older Acuras have hard buttons for the functions like mode, fan speed, etc. I never touch them. I occasionally adjust the temperature. So I don't mind the new Civic's implementation. I do prefer the A/C button to be a hard button because I like to manually turn it off when it's not required. I also always turn off the A/C (just the condenser, not the fan) a couple miles before reaching home, so that the ducts start getting dried out. This avoids the musty smell later on.

black07gti

This touchscreen setup basically rules out the Honda Accord/CIvic for me. Even if you are not a fiddler (and I generally set it and forget it, too), this looks impossible to use at speed. The touchscreen volume control is even worse. True example of form over function.

craigo7

Whats the difference between fiddling with this and fiddling with a phone? Dumb and dangerous

explorerx4

It seems like there are plenty of buttons on the steering wheel, Can't you use those?

mrvtecski

I would prefer a hard AC button as well. In my TSX I never use the auto function because the AC saps up too much power off the line and I like to tweak my temp anyway.

dby2012

Complain all you want about FCA products but the one thing they got correct is the balance of touchscreen vs knobs. The Uconnect on my Dart is excellent and has knobs for fan speed, volume and AC buttons just like others have suggested here. It can be done, find it strange Honda did not do it.