Arvi86, first of all hearty congratulations on acquiring your dream car!
Your story is so similar to mine that it bears describing. I fell in love with the Civic when it was launched in 2006 for the exact same reasons as you have mentioned. Till then, the vRS was the stuff of my dreams but simply not affordable on top of the general Skoda A.S.S. nonsense. Along came the Civic at what was then a much lower price point and it was simply a one-horse race as far as I was concerned. Interestingly enough even I was 25 at the time and while I came -><- this close to booking one my parents and friends convinced me otherwise for a number of very logical reasons. For starters it would have been my first car even though I had been driving for 7 years at that point. There were some other factors to be considered and I had to eventually wait 4 years before I could lay my hands on my own dream machine. The two differences are that mine's new and black. So I can totally relate to your sense of elation here. Congrats once again!
Over the past 11 months I've found that every minute, every second of that 4-year wait has been worth it. The Civic checks nearly all the boxes for me, and I'm sure it will for you as well.
I'll now come to some specific issues you have raised -
1. The blame for the hush noise at > 80 kmph can be laid squarely on the stock Goodyear Eagle NCT5s. Given that you're replacing them, this should no longer be a concern. That said, those stock tyres will live for another 10k kms at least.
2. If you do ghats frequently, option #1 is safer and better. However I don't do that 100% of the time. When going downhill I do rely on the brakes a lot at times. When going uphill however I ensure that the engine never struggles in a higher gear. The golden rule is that given any incline, the gear in which you descend should match the gear in which you ascend. The Civic's engine is extremely free of friction and once you're in gear 3 and above, engine braking is minimal, necessitating the use of brakes. This has been my observation compared to the other cars I've driven extensively (M800, Indigo, i10).
On a related note, low-end torque/throttle response is a problem with this car. You will have to gun the throttle - liberally if you're on rough terrain, fully loaded or on a slope - else the engine (and car) will shudder. This behaviour is very similar to what you see with modern turbo-charged common-rail diesels. At lower revs progress is sluggish. Beyond 2.5k rpm the Civic's an absolute rocket.
3. Power and GC issues do exist when fully loaded, but it's just a matter of getting to know the car better. On the Tirumala ghat for instance we once had 6 adults in the car and a boot full of luggage and the car didn't skip a beat. That said, Tirumala ghat is a lot easier and smoother than most other ghats but I'm talking specifically of the hairpin bends, which I was easily able to take in 2nd even with this kind of load. Secondly, the car never scraped even once with 4 adults and boot full of luggage over the absolutely mountainous speed-breakers before and after every village on routes such as Kadapa - Rajampet - Ranipet. On occasions I've heard other cars - including an Innova - scrape on bumps that we sailed over effortlessly. On the other hand, if you aren't careful, you'll scrape over moderately tall humps even if it's just you and you alone in the car. As I said earlier, this car just needs more TLC than most others over bumps. It's not an insurmountable (in more ways than one!) problem.
Quote:
Originally Posted by arvi86 Meanwhile, my Civic got yet another scrape at the bottom yesterday evening in one of Chennai's city roads that got battered with the recent small spells of rains. My heart skipped a beat as I heard the 'thud' sound. And this is the third time this is happening for me in the last one month. I need to do something to prevent this from happening henceforth. |
Don't worry about it. I've scraped my car's underbelly hordes of times - mostly due to my own carelessness. First, take bumps at an angle as long as you don't inconvenience traffic around you. This solves the geometry problem created by the long wheelbase and moderate GC. Second, slow down more than you would. 3-4 kmph is needed, sometimes. This takes care of the soft suspension which will bounce and cause the car to hit if you take a bump at speed.
Yes, there are other cars that can take these bumps straight and at speed, but if your aim is to avoid a scrape let me assure you it can be done with those two bits of care. If you still get a scrape, you can take it for granted that any other car with a similar GC and wheelbase (or similar proportion/geometry) would have scraped too.
Don't worry about it. You'll get better over time on the GC front.
4. I've kept this to the end because at the end of the day, it really doesn't matter so much as the overall experience of owning, driving and maintaining the car. The car's definitely low on features compared to others in its segment (e.g. the Cruze). Honda has been acting, but very slowly and not always in the right direction. One of the better things they did was to get rid of the multi-disc changer and introduce useful, plug-and-play iPod + USB + AUX-IN connectivity in the 2009 facelift. But instances such as this are few and far in-between. Check with @hiren.mistry on how he got USB + AUX-IN capabilities on his 2007 pre-worshipped Civic. A couple of more useful features would be a speed setting on the windshield wiper's intermittent mode, the ability to fold down the rear seats and remote boot-lid opener. Honda cannot be excused for missing out on these basic features on the Civic. But to me at least, it doesn't deter from the day-to-day pleasure I derive out of my car. If it's a question of priority, I would rather see Honda fit the Civic with OEM Koni FSDs than add these "practical" features. On a day-to-day basis, the former is more useful than the latter.
Enjoy your dream run with your new Civic!
Regards,
spadix