test drives

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By Tim Saunders

The Honda Civic 2.0 i-MMD Advance is a mid-size family hatchback. Its nearest competitor might be a Mazda 3 or similar. I take it for a road test to Guernsey where it tackles the challenges of getting on to the Condor Ferries Voyager catamaran as well as pootling along narrow country lanes. Taking it on the M27 motorway from Hampshire down into Dorset allows us to travel at up to 70mph if we’re lucky, the automatic box making light work of the journey. There are paddleshifts for more entertaining driving. I discover that there are different driving modes too: economy, normal, individual and sport and that in individual it is possible to adjust things like the steering and powertrain if you wish, tailoring the car more to the driver’s requirements, which is a nice touch and enhances that all important driving experience. When in sports mode there is a hearty roar from the exhaust when the accelerator is fully pressed down. It raises a smile. “Go on, do it again Dad,” urges Henry (9). Some tailgaters get short shrift and give up, only to undertake in a traffic jam. There’s some pretty awful driving out there.

Arriving in Guernsey motorists seem to be more amenable and of a better temperament. It is necessary to drive with extra care due to strict speed limits rarely exceeding 35mph and there are some very challenging roads. The sat nav insists on directing us down the most awkward of these; single lane roads where there are stone walls either side and sometimes large stones protrude from the edge of the road making it even more difficult to manoeuvre. It’s no surprise that there are quite a few damaged cars about and yet we see a good number of large luxury vehicles. How on earth do the chauffeurs manage? We find ourselves down one road that is so narrow that when we realise we’ve gone wrong we can’t actually get out of the situation and so just have to continue with extreme caution down this road. Eventually a local helps us to find our destination. Unfortunately, not all the roads are listed on the sat nav and we find that following a traditional map is more reliable.

The Civic is a comfortable car with supportive leather seats and a good driving position. The suspension is pretty hard and this sports car is quite low to the ground, which I do enjoy. There are no complaints from my temperamental rear passengers either and there’s a good size boot for our luggage.

We like the honeycomb pattern on the dashboard and the front grille, which reminds us of the importance of bees – how nature inspires design. There’s rear privacy glass. The good size electric glass sunroof makes the black cabin a lot lighter and when the weather allows I drive with the sunroof open. Externally the metallic red Honda with its smattering of chrome around the windows, striking black grille and black alloy wheels really does look the part and we like it a lot.

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Truly silent. That’s the claim from Honda with its HR-V self-charging hybrid. Apparently mild hybrids are noisy when in electric vehicle (EV) mode. But this full hybrid is quiet as a mouse. And I can vouch this is true.

These days I am most interested in economy and note that this SUV will travel over 400 miles on its 40 litre fuel tank and is capable of returning up to 70 odd mpg. The only way to test this is to take it on a long journey and so a trip to North Devon, with its good variety of roads, seems ideal. It’s more than 150 miles from our Hampshire home and takes the best part of three hours to travel to Ilfracombe. While the bulk of the journey is on unadventurous main roads, the sat nav soon introduces us to the narrowest country lanes known to man where caution is certainly required. We discover parts of Devon we never knew existed. I often hanker after a manual gearbox but find that the automatic with paddle shifts in this HR-V is a blessing over the course of this journey, not least because of worryingly steep inclines. On a couple of occasions I am left very surprised that the front wheels have not actually left the road altogether. How people live on such steep hills I will never know. But the Honda takes it all in its stride. I even manage to parallel park on a hill at Combe Martin.

“I love it when you drive on the wrong side of the road,” says my son Henry (9) as there are no oncoming cars and I straddle the centre line on driving round a slight bend – a safe manoeuvre, allowing me to see further ahead. The Honda, with its 1.5-litre petrol engine is a swift vehicle reaching 60mph from standstill in under 11 seconds and a top speed exceeding 100mph. When pushed, that engine sounds like a motorbike under pressure and we all like it.

Homeward bound we have over 170 miles range so I am confident that I won’t need to refuel. However, steep hills soon put pay to this idea making the fuel range unreliable when there is a declining amount of fuel in the tank. And once the range hits 25 miles this reading suddenly disappears from the dashboard altogether to be replaced by a fuel refill sign – very unhelpful and unnecessarily stressful for the poor driver. The only way to keep a check on the remaining miles is to faff about finding the trip computer which then does provide the correct reading. Adding £5 of fuel to the tank does not seem to alter the remaining range and in fact adding another £5 makes little difference either. The remaining miles we have left to travel exceed the range but through slow driving I am able to claw back four miles as we reach home. It seems that here is a car that is happiest when it is above half full – the driver certainly is! Anyway we make it home with a few miles range remaining, no doubt helped by crafty use of the speed limiter at 56mph.

“It’s how it’s made,” says the collection driver. “In my experience there seems to be about 20 miles extra in the tank when it says there's low range.”

EV mode can be used at speeds of up to 60mph, I discover.

My three children complain a bit about the size of the seats in the rear with Harriett (14) and Heidi (12) taking it in turns to sit in the middle. “Henry shouldn’t have taken his car seat, which he doesn’t need now anyway,” says Heidi. Apart from that though, the interior has some neat features including the touch sensitive roof lights, similar to those LED lights you find in houses these days. The black cloth seats are of a good quality – and heated in the front - and I like the feel of the heated leather steering wheel. The power folding wing mirrors are a great help when you find yourself down a narrow country lane having to tuck in to let a tractor get by….

The boot is big enough for a couple of suitcases and a week’s supply of food but it would be helpful if the flimsy rear parcel shelf could be easily removed when travelling with such cumbersome luggage.

Finished in seabed blue pearl it is eye-catching and the plush alloy wheels enhance its side profile featuring hidden rear door handles.

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