Gadgetory

it's the end of the line for this era of the Honda Civic there's a whole new one that was just unveiled and is on the way so let's get a taste of the final chapter of generation 9 as we drive this si sedan with all the tech toys and check the 10 this generation began as the model year 2012 here in the US and it was kind of let's not put it softly hated people gave it knocks for bland exterior styling a cheap tacky plastic interior and boring driving dynamics nothing to work on there in the thirteen and fourteen model years Honda really rework the Civic while keeping it on this same generation and now it's ending its life as we just got the announcement of the tenth generation 2016 but that's another video now this si level has always been basically Honda's answer to lets analogize it to a VW GTI affordable reachable good everyday car but sporty fast and fun this remains the top of the stack until that next generation arrives when for the first time we'll also be able to get the Civic type-r stay tuned for that now the first thing you're gonna have to deal with when you buy an SI is that no matter what color you get on the outside you've always got red seats with black bolsters doesn't really work for me but maybe you're 20 now the SI models have the same basic - structure as any other Civic but of course they lose eco assist which is a greenie training gauge and other civics have and instead they get that rev limiter and shift indicator on the upper left of the eyebrow display you've got a 5 inch what they call a mid helper display over there with several different menu modes and of course a giant tach right in front of the wheel very si now all these sis are gonna come with this 7 inch touch head unit up here which is very much like a single glass panel they've eschewed a lot of knobs and buttons you have some down here for climate but basically nothing for infotainment everything is via touch whether it's the home button the volume slider or the submenu now having navigation in this head unit is optional and with that comes satellite radio HD radio a multi angle rear camera and a bunch of other things we'll look at that in the pricing see if it's worth it but even if you go stripped on an SI you do get a rear cam you also get this guy over here which is what they call their Lane watch camera standard I find it one of the best things Honda does with a camera gives you a very useful look down the far side of the car when you either make a right turn signal or just press the button on the stalk now the navigation system seems like it hasn't changed since Nixon was in office and it's never impressed me it's perfectly serviceable but honda have nothing to write home about it is of course voice command able and has live traffic by a satellite radio which is bundled in with the navigation option even if you go without it though and lose Sat radio and HD radio I think you might do okay you've got basic bluetooth streaming you have a USB port here you've got another one in the console there's an HDMI jack down there which is kind of exotic and of course you have AM and FM radio and there's an optical disc slot as well these guys are on board with carplay and android auto but you won't see it in this generation we're gonna look for that later on down the road perhaps in the 16s drive controls are real simple on this car primarily because it only has one transmission choice the 6-speed manual there is no automatic of any kind on an inside now if you buy an outside products the biggest motivator is because you're gonna get a Honda VTEC engine in this case a 2.4 liter sidesaddle in line for that breathes naturally no turbos or superchargers in these cars they're pretty basic stuff but boy do they run nice and high and super smooth 205 horsepower 174 pound-feet of torque all out to the front wheels of course by the way through a standard limited slip differential now this Si Sedan weighs just a hair over 3,000 pounds that's light by today's standards so 0 to 60 is pretty readily accomplished in a nice tidy six and a half seconds your mpg of course at the Honda is not bad 22:31 and an SI does drink premium standard civic caddy with lady first thing you notice about an inside there's a green engine at VTEC mouth drain this thing stays on cam and breathes readily at any point on the tack the clutch feels really good not too light not agonizingly heavy on the other hand I'm not a huge fan of the gearbox which is gonna surprise a lot of folks the first half mitts pretty good and then it starts to get real kind of tight and under Gosha below Veron 4 5 and 6 not a gating that I really like to be honest you got to think to make sure you're gonna hit fourth and not second on some of these down shifts or third versus fifth the space in here is very good the Peugeot is excellent in this cabin I love this two-tiered dashboard always have on these civics and everything is sort of plain that you in a way that's easy to reach easy to see the car corner is nicely predictably and quite flatly in a way that doesn't bring any undue harshness with it I do find some torque steer more than I see in many cars everything in this cabin by the way feels really solid if you haven't driven a Civic in a lot of years you think of it as kind of a cheap car kind of stuff being that quite a while ago now a couple things to note about its freeway behavior for those of you that commute a lot first of all the things geared pretty low I'm gonna get this up to let's see 60 here let me go to fifth and I'm at 3400 rpm and even in sixth I'm around 2,700 kind of a busy set of gears for long freeway cruising just bear that in mind the other thing is we've got this very linear very responsive steering rack but you do have to baby it a bit to maintain straight on those long boring freeways this isn't one of those cars that kind of sits into a groove and Nestle's there it will wander very easily with a little steering input on the long straight now pricing the last of this current generation Civic Si is a little bit of a torn situation for me I like to load them up seen that style you know that but the bass here is a little under 24,000 I might just leave it at that because for 1500 more you guess you can get that nav system I find an uninspired you add some media options that maybe you're obviated to have but what you're doing on your phone and you get a multi angle rear camera which I don't think is any substantially better than a single angle saving that 1500 bucks on that option package saved you over 6% on the overall price of the car because it's so cheap to start with I might keep this one based si actually spells see that's how I'll take it you