USA Today: Is new Honda Civic as bad as 'Consumer Reports' says?

What a surprise: After years of treating it as a darling, Consumer Reports called the redesigned 2012 Honda Civic "mediocre" and dropped it from CR's "recommended" status. The magazine rated it second from the bottom in the September issue's listing of all the cars in the compact segment.



The blow comes at a tough time for Honda, which plans a new marketing campaign this fall to relaunch the car. The original spring launch -- and the supply of new Civics to sell -- were interrupted by the Japan quake. North American production of the Civic is just beginning to come back.



The only car below Civic in CR's compact car ratings was the new VW Jetta, a redesign CR also panned. We did not agree (see James R. Healey Test Drive here), nor have buyers -- sales are hot. But at least we could see where they were coming from -- that redo into a bigger and less-expensive Jetta split fans of the old model.



While the new Civic hasn't been seen as a huge leap forward, CR reviewers seem out there on their own in seeing it as a step backwards. They didn't like the interior, thought the car was noisy and the ride too harsh, and more.



We cheer their willingness to break from group-think. And CR deserves credit also for buying test cars anonymously from dealers, rather than borrowing cars from automakers, who could prep the cars to perfection.



But the decision not to recommend the Civic -- long a staple of its "best-of" lists -- sounds a little wacky compared with what others have been saying.



Here are some of the other views, with some links so you can judge:



USA TODAY and Drive On's James R. Healey, in a thorough review of the 2012 Civic in April, declared it a "nice car," though it "could have been nicer." He noted off the bat that Civic oddly lacks some now-common features for upscale compacts -- a back-up camera and a six-speed automatic transmission among them. He raised some questions about the interior and thought the car was a tad noisy. But he called the looks "jazzy enough to seem new, restrained enough to wear well over time" and found Civic still sportier to drive than most compact rivals. Overall, he deemed it "better, more satisfying overall than Elantra," which is the new trendsetter in the class and No. 1 in CR's compact ratings.



Drive On's Fred Meier also drove all the versions of the new Civic except the natural gas model, including on the New Jersey Turnpike and Manhattan's rough streets. To recheck, we have one in the Drive On parking lot now. Conclusion: Not without the flaws Healey notes, but a solid update that compact buyers should consider.



Edmunds.com Editor-In-Chief Scott Oldham issued a statement about the Civic, saying it is still on the website's hot list: "Although the 2012 Honda Civic doesn't revolutionize the compact sedan the way it has in the past, it remains a vehicle that Edmunds.com editors would recommend to their friends," he said.



Our friends at Cars.com came to Civic's defense writing that "we recommend it for numerous reasons including its terrific mileage, comfortable cabin, top safety scores, high resale value and a long track record of reliability." It picked nits as well, such as with the interior, but wrote: "While it may have flaws, the 2012 Honda Civic is still one of the best cars in its class and should be on any short list for compact-car shoppers."



In the USA TODAY/Cars.com Shootout for Best 5-seat Sedan Under $20,000 that gets at least 35 mpg, Civic finished second among five new compacts in the testing by experts and a real family. It finished behind Elantra, but ahead of the Chevrolet Cruze, Kia Forte and Ford Focus -- all cars CR rates above Civic.



In a comparison of eight top-selling compacts by Motor Trend magazine in the July issue, the new Civic finished second to Elantra, but ahead of six others: Mazda3, Jetta, Focus, Cruze, Forte and Toyota Corolla.



-- Chris Woodyard and Fred Meier/Drive On



Source;

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/driveon/post/2011/08/consumer-reports-blasts-honda-civic-wrong/1