THERE I was, sitting in Edsa traffic. I knew it would be another typical Friday afternoon during which the 22-km trip from Parañaque City to Quezon City would take about two-and-a-half hours—if I was lucky. What to do in times like this besides buy kakanin from a traffic enforcer driving his scooter against the flow of traffic?
Zero kph
Scrutinizing a car while it is at a standstill in traffic or in a parking lot reveals tiny details that reflect the car’s build quality. So, to while away the traffic, I fiddled around with some controls of the 2014 Honda Civic 1.8 E Modulo I was testing.
The Civic has a tiny knob for adjusting the brightness of the instrument panel. Despite the knob’s small size—its circumference is just slightly smaller than a pencil’s—it is easy to select from over a dozen brightness settings because the knob turns with very precise, well-defined clicks. Turning the knob clockwise by one click increases brightness by one level, while one click in the opposite direction decreases brightness by one level. A bar graph indicating the brightness setting appears on the multi-information display atop the dashboard with each click adding or subtracting exactly one bar, depending on which direction you turn the knob.
Tactile delights can be found elsewhere. As you push the sliding cover for the cup holders in the center console to close it, resistance builds up just before it clicks shut. It closes with such precise action that I found myself repeatedly opening and closing it just to experience that satisfying click. Pushing the five-speed manumatic’s gear lever from D to N during full stops also produced a precise action that I can’t help but describe as a solid, “high quality” click.
Further proof of the Civic’s excellent fit and finish are found in areas of the cabin that 99 percent of owners will never lay eyes or a finger on. There is a plastic panel under the steering column on the driver’s side and under the glove compartment on the front passenger side. Running your fingers over the edge of this plastic panel in some cars can hurt a bit but not so with the Civic as these plastic panels’ edges have been smoothened out. It’s surprising how some non-Japanese car manufacturers still overlook this tiny detail on refinement.
When I got home, I twisted and bent my flabby body to take a peek behind these same plastic covers. As you would guess, everything in there was neatly arranged. You see, I once test drove a virtually brand new American-made SUV, whose wires underneath the dashboard well were not only a horrible mess, they were dangling in full view too(!).
The only build quality issue I found with the Civic was a piece of rubber molding from a side underspoiler that had come loose.
20 to 60 kph
A few days earlier, I drove up Kennon Road en route to Baguio City with four adult companions and our luggage. With the car loaded to full capacity, the uphill drive gave the Civic’s 1.8-liter gas engine quite a workout. In these conditions, summoning what’s available at the wheels out of the 140 ps and 180 Nm the engine develops may not always be as simple as flooring the accelerator as I had to keep the revs at mid range or higher. This is where the steering wheel-mounted paddle shifters came in handy although gear changes were rather delayed, coming about one or 1.5 seconds after the paddle inputs.
Minor road undulations are nicely ironed out by the suspension. Although the jolt from bigger bumps on the road may get transmitted into the cabin, they are seldom jarring. Overall, the cabin is well insulated against noise, vibration and harshness, giving passengers a comfortable and hushed ride.
In Metro Manila traffic, the Civic returned a reasonable 8.5 to 9.5 km/li.
100 kph
Cruise control is finally standard on this mid-level variant of the current Civic line assembled in Thailand. With cruise control set to 100 kph on TPLEx, the Civic 1.8 E Modulo managed to get about 17 km/li with two adults on board (all the foregoing mileage figures have been rounded down to factor in a small margin for error). This is slightly worse than what I got in the Japan-assembled Civic 1.8 EXI I tested some time back under similar conditions. The two cars have identical powertrains so their fuel consumption discrepancy was rather puzzling. This may be explained by the added weight and aerodynamic drag from the 1.8 E Modulo subvariant’s front, side and rear underspoilers and wing-type trunk spoiler, which brings me to my chief complaint about this dressed-up Civic.
I’m a function-before-form kind of guy, so I would put fuel efficiency before form every time. After all, I like to keep my driving’s impact on the environment as low as possible. So, no, I’m not a big fan of the Modulo body kit; I would prefer a clean, streamlined look, although I must admit the Modulo Civic’s touring race-car look did elicit admiring glances from motorists and pedestrians. The SRP for the 2014 Civic 1.8 E Modulo AT is P1.138 million.
Less is more
Two weeks after my Civic test drive, Honda Cars Philippines Inc. introduced its 2015 Civic lineup that includes a plain 1.8 E AT variant without the Modulo body kit. The Civic 1.8 E gets a pushbutton ignition, smart entry system that locks and unlocks front doors through tiny buttons on the door handles, black interiors (super like!), a three-point seatbelt and headrest for the rear center passenger, and a 60:40 folding rear seat—all of which were not present in the Modulo Civic I tested. Indeed, great things have come to those Civic buyers who waited. With its SRP of P1.078 million, the 2015 Civic 1.8 E not only is the best-value subvariant in the Civic range, it has the goods to steal away sales from cheaper rivals powered by 1.6-liter engines or more expensive ones with 2.0-liter engines.
Image credits: Eric Ayrton S. Soriano