Honda debuts "honed" 2013 Civic

[Mr. Burns]

Minor changes to the exterior where they could at the lowest cost (i.e. new bumper and trunk lid). The interior is what needs to most improvement.

Funny how sales still increased over last year by over 200k units. Honda people will buy any piece of garbage they put out

The Civic is hardly "garbage". You're kidding yourself if you think it is.

[steve333]

Notice the C Pillar, GM. That's called cohesive design, not sticking a wad of black plastic in there.

[jld]

Are they going to fix those torture chambers they call "seats?"

[dagr382]

Marginally less mediocre

[donmateo]

2013 Civic:

[cdp326]

So ... it looks more like the previous one? Not sure what that says about Honda's design chops!

Thought the same thing - the front looks like the '09-11 coupe front, with more chrome.

What happened to the projectors in the spy shots? Those just for a different trim? It's the interior that'll make the biggest difference anyway.

Wheels remind me of the '14 Accord PHEV wheels.

Funny how sales still increased over last year by over 200k units. Honda people will buy any piece of garbage they put out

Crosstour and ZDX?

As a car Civic is still decent (and much more current than the 4-speed auto, 34 mpg Corolla) and they've been dealing on them all year, even before the announcement that the new one would be out Nov. 29. That helps move them, clear out parts for the '12 and they'll get to say "HONDA IMPROVES BEST-SELLING CIVIC FOR 2013" in the news releases.

Yes, it's good for 10 HP and 2 MPG.

This is a pricey "compact." And $1600 for 16" alloys and $2000 for 17-inchers? Oiiii!

Yeah, for a car that was designed to be cheaper, it doesn't appear to have ended up that way. At $19k the Civic LX still only has fixed intermittent wipers.

The wheels are shortfall to Honda's "no options/only accessories" setup. Granted, most automakers have expensive accessory wheel packages like that too, but they at least have the factory option of an alloy/larger wheel to begin with. They might have gotten the message with the Accord which has alloys standard across the board.

[kafuller]

Bought a new 2011 Civic and dumped it in eight months. If the 2012 is worse than the 2011 I bought, then it must be really bad. My wife hated it and so did my daughter who said dad's car is noisy. One reason I bought the car is because it is assembled close to where I used to live in Greensburg Indiana. Hopefully the Hoosiers there will have a better car this time to produce.

[mchicha]

Cruze is still the better buy; when all is said and done

[jcgable]

It's marginally better, but I'll reserve judgement until I see a volume level trim. That looks like the si or the EX-L to me.

[steve333]

Are they going to fix those torture chambers they call "seats?"

I've always disliked Honda's seats, I hope they've improved them.
I found the Cruze seats to be too narrow and short and no lumbar controls made it difficult to get comfortable.
Chevy still has crummy seats, although Buick usually has nice ones.

[gdvalente]

Funny how sales still increased over last year by over 200k units. Honda people will buy any piece of garbage they put out

Ditto for Toy-otaphiles.

[fakeout]

It would have been interesting to see how well the sales would have been had they not done any refresh just to see how a company's reputation can sell a car. I wonder how many refreshes were done in the past like the 1960's Mustangs. Seems they did some exterior changes often.

EDIT: I wonder how they could change from "fun-to-drive" to not fun to drive. I'd like to see the changes to make it fun to drive.

[steve333]

There were good deals and incentives on the current Civic pretty much as soon as they went on sale. Lately they've been having a fire sale

[zete]

So it's mildly better. If it still drives like the outgoing one and has the cheap looking interior they accomplished nothing but devalue 2012s -- and probably irritate a lot of 2012 owners to boot. I know I'd not be happy if I saw a memo from the automaker I bought my car from saying to get rid of the current models (that are brand new, just out) because they, well, suck.

I somehow doubt this will be much of an improvement, but who knows. I'll await CR since they usually fawn over everything and maybe they'll love that they were listened to .

[ColoradoZQ8]

Cruze is still the better buy; when all is said and done

Talk about damning a car with faint praise.