Honda Civic Type R long-term review
Sure, it’s great around the ’Ring, but what about on wet, windy nights in Stoke? After six months on loan, we reveal all
Why we ran it: To determine whether the most ferocious front-wheel-drive hot hatch on sale today is usable on a daily basis
Month 6 - Month 5 - Month 4 - Month 3 - Month 2 - Month 1 - Prices & Specs
Life with a Honda Civic Type R: Month 6
Saying goodbye to the Civic Type R - 25th July 2018
That’s it, then, the Honda Civic Type R has gone. And with it, after nearly 10,000 miles, we know that this 2.0-litre turbocharged hatchback, unlike its predecessor, is a well-rounded all-year-round car and not just a one-dimensional Nürburgring scream machine. Yup.
The main thing I’ll take away from this test is how usable the Civic Type R is on a daily basis, given it’s the most ferocious front-drive hot hatch on sale today. Far more so than the previous Civic Type R.
Last time around, the Type R was shoehorned into the Civic’s model cycle near the end of the car’s life, just on the basis that Honda realised that the hot car market wasn’t dead, and it wanted to make a splash. So they made it incredibly fast around the Nordschleife, and to heck with everything else.
This time, it still is fast in that patch of Germany – it’s the current holder of the ’Ring’s front-drive production car record, after all – and it’s still great to drive in the right conditions. It steers really keenly, has great body control, is very fast and seriously rewarding. But it’s also habitable and usable in the wrong conditions.
That the Type R was in the product plan from the start of development has made the Civic a better racing car. Before the start of the BTCC season, I took our Civic up to Team Dynamics, which runs Honda’s touring car campaign, where they were putting together a racing car using the road car’s body-in-white as a basis.
The floor is flat along most of the underside – in the old car, the fuel tank was under the front seats – which allows the driver’s seat to be mounted lower and also means the under-body aero effect is better. And the wings and scoops that find their way onto the road car, giving it an ‘interesting’ appearance, are also used on the race car, which gives impressive aero performance.
From a road car perspective, and on the M4 or a back road rather than a race track, I suspect the only notable benefit of the flat floor is that low driving position. It’s dead easy to get comfortable in the Civic and stay that way, with its body-hugging seats and widely adjustable wheel matching the car’s intent nicely.
As does the metal-topped gearlever, which is the coolest outside of an Ariel Atom or Caterham 7. Not cool frequently enough, mind you: freezing cold or red hot are its preferred states. I love it, but having climbed into the car in both -5deg C and 30deg C temperatures, it makes you suffer for your art. No wonder most car makers moved to wood or plastic as soon as they could.
Still, it’s not a fault, it’s a feature. As is, apparently, some brake squeal. Distinctly “not a malfunction”, says the Civic’s owner’s manual.
And that’s it, from a hard-work perspective. This hot hatch, which you might think demanded quite a lot from its owner on account of a) being front-wheel drive, b) having 316bhp and c) being really fast on a race track, is actually very easy to squeeze into your life, even if most of your driving is away from back roads.
The ride is compliant. As standard, and perhaps to be expected, the Civic defaults to Sport on its drive modes when you start it up. But that’s where I like it. Comfort brings some softness, which can be nice, but also lightness to the steering and lower throttle response, so it feels neutered. There’s an R mode too, which feels too harsh for British roads. If I could, I’d sometimes have switched the dampers to soft but left the rest in Sport, but you don’t get that option. Pity, it would presumably only mean amending some software.
That said, software isn’t necessarily a Civic strong point. The infotainment system is clumsy to use. You can upload your own picture to the home screen and change the navigation car icon to something else; I picked a BTCC race win for the former and what looks like either an aircraft or a rudimentary space ship or the latter. Both are amusing, but I’d swap them for being able to enter some menus on the move.
Our Civic came in ‘GT’ trim, which is £2000 more expensive than a regular Type R, but is equipped with lots of comfort and safety kit, such as blindspot warning, parking sensors, auto dimming mirror and dual-zone climate control. That’s how we’d spec it again and clearly how most Civics are specified, given nearly all the used ones we’ve seen for sale are GT pack cars. After all, if you buy on finance, as most people do, you only pay a few extra quid per month.
So after 10,000 miles, in which nothing has gone wrong (save for a windscreen chip and flat tyre, neither of which was the Civic’s fault), this Type R returns to the forecourt where it will ask its next customer for nearly £30,000 to get into its driver’s seat. Given it cost £33,520 new, that’s a strong residual value. Clearly others who have Type Rs have discovered, like me, that they’re easy to live with.
Love it:
RIDE QUALITY Surprisingly supple, but it’d be nice to put the suspension in Comfort and leave the other settings in Sport.
DESIGN Honda says all of the scoops and vents and body addenda are there for a reason. And I rather like them.
BRAKE HOLD Useful feature that deploys the park brake automatically when you’re in stop-start traffic.
Loathe it:
TYRE PRESSURE MONITOR Often cried wolf, typically in the dark when you wouldn’t see a puncture. Worked when there was one, though.
CONSPICUOUS DIRT I had to invest in a couple of new chamois to keep the paintwork gleaming.
Final mileage: 9964
Second opinion
I wasn’t 100% sold on the Type R’s B-road ride when we road tested it last year. I thought the suspension was a touch jiggly in Sport mode and a bit limp in Comfort. But after 9000 miles had gone into them, the adaptive dampers seemed to bed in to make Sport the perfect compromise.
Matt Saunders
Is the Type R as great as they say? A doubter tests the theory - 4th July 2018
I’ve been in a minority about the Honda Civic Type R, in that I don’t swoon over it quite as much as everybody else seems to. I just think it’s very good. My colleagues seem to think it’s the hot hatch’s second coming, the Peugeot 306 GTi-6 reincarnate or something. Me, I think I’d rather have a Hyundai.
Still, it has two days and about 600 miles to change my mind: driving the A66, which is definitely not Britain’s version of Route 66, what with it being shorter but with more castles.
It’s the kind of drive that the Civic is much better at than the previous generation car. The old Civic was thrown together near the end of that model’s life cycle, the sports hatch Honda never really intended to make because it thought the bottom had fallen out of the market. As a result, it pitched it as a one-dimensional, Nürburgring-lap-time special.
This time around, the Civic is more rounded. It’s still a bit noisy on the motorway but the ride is decent and there’s a comfortable, low-slung driving position. (The body-in-white’s floor is largely flat, which helps.) On average, the car is returning 33.4mpg but you’ll see a few more mpg than that on a steady motorway run. With a 46-litre tank, you’re looking at a range of about 350 miles, which is respectable. But although the digital fuel gauge has a lot of increments, it still crept up on me.
Top tip, though: use the sat-nav on your phone rather than the one in the car. Also, the Civic limits some of the functions on its ropey infotainment system if the car is in motion, even if there’s a passenger alongside you; and it knows there is, because it beeps at them until they’ve done their seatbelt up. So that’s quite annoying.
Roads like motorways and the A66, which is predominantly dual carriageway or straight single carriageway, though, are still not strictly its forte. Halfway across the north Pennines, we make a small detour off the A66 just in search of some extra prettiness. ‘Look what you could find’ – that sort of thing. And, okay, maybe, at last, I’m starting to get it.
The Civic steers really well; hefty, accurate and with very little disruption or kickback given it’s equipped with a mechanical limited-slip differential and 306bhp. Its body control is exceptionally tight, too, despite the fact that the ride is relatively pliant the rest of the time.
Maybe that’s the biggest trick. I don’t have a problem with a Hyundai i30 N’s ride but I know people who do. And although a Volkswagen Golf GTI is more comfortable, it’s not as tied down as the Civic. Perhaps, then, the Type R is the one that does both things. You don’t have to be going stupidly fast to enjoy it, either, but it’s worth noting that if you are enjoying it, you probably end up going pretty fast, simply because of how capable it is.
A Ford Fiesta ST or the old Suzuki Swift Sport or a Toyota GT86 would give you as much, less obviously, but, okay, I concede, this is the most capable hot hatch on sale. Still, there’s no excuse for that sat-nav.
Matt Prior
Love it:
DEFT METAL Metal-topped gearlever is one of the nicest touches on any modern car…
Loathe it:
HOT METAL… but a metal-topped gearlever is no fun if the car has been parked in the sunshine when it’s 30deg C.
Mileage: 9659
Life with a Honda Civic Type R: Month 5
Making the infotainment a bit more individual - 6th June 2018
Our Civic’s infotainment features some customisable options. You can upload an image to use as wallpaper, so I’ve used one of Matt Neal’s BTCC car following his recent win at Thruxton. You can also choose from various icons to represent your car on the sat-nav screen. I’ve chosen an aeroplane, which sadly doesn’t enable me to fly over traffic.
Mileage: 6995
Life with a Honda Civic Type R: Month 4
Easy to forget the looks when you're behind the wheel - 23rd May 2018
When you’re inside the Civic Type R, it’s easy to forget how dramatic it looks from the outside. On photo shoots, I often swap cars, and it’s only when I’ve been following the Type R in something else that I realise how polarising the design is. Not everyone is a fan, but I love it. Just a shame I don’t get to see it more from behind the wheel…
Mileage: 6661
Now the engine’s run in, there’s no holding the hot hatch back - 9th May 2018
Our Honda Civic Type R has passed the 5000-mile mark. That’s the kind of distance in a car’s life where minor faults start to become full-on irritations, but not in this case.
In fact, the Type R is actually improving with age.
The engine has benefited from being properly run in, for one thing. When we first jumped into the Type R, the 2.0-litre turbocharged VTEC engine felt a bit tight, as such highly tuned units often are at first. But in recent months it’s begun to loosen up, making the 306bhp engine more responsive.
That’s good for the car’s performance and it’s also been good for my wallet. Honda claims a 36.7mpg fuel efficiency for the Type R, but in our early days with the car we were lucky to average in the 28s.
Granted, some of that is down to our desire to sample the engine’s full potential – purely in the name of research, clearly – but the vast bulk of our mileage has been normal, everyday driving. Thankfully, as the engine has been run in, so the economy has improved, and we’re now achieving an average of around 32mpg. That improvement adds up over time.
Of course, the Type R is never going to be a particularly frugal car to run. It’s a performance hot hatch, after all. I was reminded of that when idly flicking through the owner’s manual, a document so thick it puts some novels to shame. I found an instruction telling you to check the car’s oil every time you stop for petrol. That might have been true of cars of yesteryear but it seems somewhat excessive in 2018.
Still, the next time I was filling up I gave the oil a check and topped it up. I was quite surprised I needed half a litre of oil, which was more than I’d expected after 5000 miles, and could add up over time.
Having to fiddle around checking my oil more frequently is a small price to pay for the sheer joy of driving the Type R, though: it’s so rewarding in that respect. That was hammered home to me when I was given the task of snapping Andrew Frankel’s recent tour of the sites of some of Sir Stirling Moss’s finest moments, a 370-mile trek that spanned from Aintree to Goodwood.
Frankel was in a £108,780 Maserati GranTurismo MC, powered by a 4.8-litre V8 engine, while I got to follow him round in my £33,520 Type R. It shouldn’t have been much of a fight, if you went by the list price. And yet, in challenging conditions on twisting country roads, I had absolutely no problem keeping up with him.
Frankel, who is no slouch of a driver, just couldn’t get away – and I wasn’t even pushing. The Type R just has incredible traction and speed, and the handling is predictable and consistently rewarding, with a hint of benign lift-off oversteer.
It made what could have been a long slog of a trip hugely entertaining. I’m sure I saw Frankel give a few envious glimpses in the rear-view mirror of the GranTurismo too.
In fact, the only real area in which I reckon it lost out to the Maserati – a car nearly four times as expensive, remember – was noise: the Type R’s turbocharged unit will never sound as good as a mighty Italian V8.
Mileage: 5771
Life with a Honda Civic Type R: Month 3
Winter windscreen wear and tear - 25th April 2018
The winter weather caused damage to Britain’s roads and to the Civic Type R’s windscreen, which picked up several small chips from stones thrown up by cars ahead of me. A specialist windscreen firm quoted me more than £100, so I tried the chip repair service run by my local Halfords. It was quick, cost £25 and fixed the chips really well.
Mileage: 5113
Road-going racer meets the real thing - 11th April 2018
A photo shoot at the HQ of Team Dynamics, which prepares the Civic Type Rs that race in the BTCC, offered a useful opportunity to compare our road-going car with its competition sibling. The race version is optimised for the track and to meet the rules but our car’s exterior design has as much performance intent as you’d want or need on the road.
Mileage: 4624
Life with a Honda Civic Type R: Month 2
Honda's attention to interoir detail - 28th March 2018
The Civic Type R has a useful two-tier storage area in the centre console, just ahead of the gearstick. In our higher-spec GT model, the upper cubby doubles as a wireless charging mat if your smartphone is equipped with compatible technology. If it isn’t, you might need to plug it into the USB port, in the lower cubby. A cable pass-through means no messy wires trailing around.
Mileage: 4202
Cleaning off the winter grime is both an education and a chore - 21st March 2018
The exterior design of the Civic Type R might not be universally admired as a paragon of exquisite styling, but it marries function and form to good effect, with the wings, vanes and ducts all contributing to an enhanced airflow compared with the body of the standard Civic.
The shape of the front bumper, for example, creates an ‘air curtain’ that directs turbulence away from the front wheels. The dramatic-looking slats behind those wheels let air escape from the arches, thus reducing pressure. The front splitter and side skirts create downforce on the front axle, which is a contributory factor in this Type R being able to effectively manage its prodigious power through the front wheels alone.
That’s the theory, anyway, but I was recently able to conduct my own (unscientific) aerodynamic testing during the milder days that followed the Beast from the East, when the snow thawed on the roads and a film of briny grime was splashed up over the Honda’s bodywork.
When we adopted this car back in January, we speculated that the pearlescent black paint, a £575 option, might show the dirt quite easily, and so it proved. Usefully, though, the swirls of dirt enabled me to trace the flow of air. To my eyes, it seemed that there was still quite a lot of turbulent air flowing around the body of the Civic, but the quality of my aerodynamic analysis could be one of the reasons why I shoot cars for a living rather than design them.
In any case, I don’t spend a lot of time pondering aerodynamic minutiae when I’m driving the Type R – there’s too much fun to be had. I’ve noticed that the driving mode selector seems to default to Sport when you first fire up the 2.0-litre turbocharged VTEC engine. That’s logical, given it sits between Comfort and full-bore +R modes, but I’ve become familiar with other cars in which Sport is the name of the maximum-attack mode, not the middle-of-the-road choice.
I’m fine with it, though, because although Sport firms up the active dampers, adds weight to the power steering and sharpens the throttle’s responses, it offers the best compromise of acceptable ride quality without dulling that heady performance. For me, Comfort mode injects a degree of lightness into the steering that feels unpleasantly artificial. Perhaps that might make the car easier to drive over very long distances, where you might not want as much involvement, but it just feels like the car has been neutered.
Having the driving mode selector as a rocker switch near the gearlever, where it is just the flick of a finger away, is preferable to the set-up on the previous-generation (FK2) Civic Type R. To deploy +R mode in that car, you had to prod a button that was partially hidden behind the steering wheel and windscreen wiper stalk.
It’s yet another small way in which this version has made a step forward.
Mileage: 3920
Life with a Honda Civic Type R: Month 1
Innovative gear knob solutions - 28th February 2018
The Civic’s beautifully machined aluminium alloy gear knob is an impressive thing to both admire and use. I have just one minor quibble with it, though: it is uncomfortably cold to the touch when you first get into the car on a freezing winter’s day. Two solutions I’ve thought of: invest in some driving gloves or borrow a knitted hat from an Innocent smoothie bottle.
Mileage: 2481
The 316bhp hatch doesn’t hide its roots as a practical family car - 14th February 2018
Performance car it may be, but the Civic Type R has to provide an element of practicality if it is to live up to the ‘daily driver’ brief demanded of it by a photographer.
If I’m heading to a shoot I need space, and plenty of it, for my kit. I have to say that so far I’m impressed by what I’ve found in the Civic. There’s a surprising amount of room under that bespoilered rear hatch and it’s certainly generous by the standards of this class. Officially, the Civic has 420 litres of boot space, increasing to 786 litres if you fold down all of the 60/40 split rear seat and pile your possessions as high as the bottom of the window line.
One idea that I like very much is the retractable luggage cover, which puts me in mind of either a roller blind or a Bacofoil dispenser. I find conventional solid parcel shelves rather ungainly, not least because I’m often forced to remove them to free up additional space and have to find somewhere safe to stow them. That’s fine if you’re blessed with your own garage in which to put such a cumbersome item, but considerably less fine if you’re 20 minutes down the M1 before you remember you’ve left the flipping thing at Bruntingthorpe Proving Ground.
So retractable luggage covers are the way forward, and what sets the Civic’s apart from many others is that it deploys from the side, so it doesn’t act as a barrier across the width of the car when you need more space. It’s one of those ideas that I can scarcely believe isn’t implemented more often.
On a different note, in my previous report I mentioned the squealing brakes that were drawing unwanted attention to our Civic Type R during slow-speed, around-town driving.
If the Type R online forums are any guide, it’s a fairly common issue with this latest Civic. Our car has since been back to Honda’s press garage, where the technicians skimmed the Brembo discs. That has alleviated the issue for the time being, but I’ve been warned that it is likely to return.
Indeed, the owner’s manual (believe it or not, we’ve bothered to read it) states that “to satisfy the performance under a wide range of driving conditions, a high- performance braking system is equipped on your vehicle. You may hear the brake squeal under certain conditions, such as vehicle speed, deceleration, humidity and so on. This is not a malfunction.”
So the noise is an unfortunate by-product of the car’s performance intent, then, although in my opinion that doesn’t satisfactorily explain why the Civic Type R makes it when many other performance cars do not.
Mileage: 2189
Welcoming the Type R to our fleet - 31st January 2018
It’s less than two years since the previous-gen Civic Type R left our long-term fleet.
That’s precious little time in the grand scheme of a manufacturer’s model development plans, but Honda had good reason to quickly usher its latest banzai-hatch to market.
Not only was it conceived as a way to mark the 25th anniversary of the Type R sub-brand, which fell in 2017, but it was also produced in parallel with the cooking Civic. This made it easier for Honda’s go-faster wizards to instil the foundations of hot-hatch nuttiness from the outset, whereas this Type R’s forebear was developed long after the base model.
As much as this is a new car, though, the fundamental technical set-up isn’t too far removed from the FK2-generation Civic Type R that preceded it, insomuch as the power is produced by a 2.0-litre turbocharged VTEC petrol engine, which is mounted transversely and mated to a six-speed manual gearbox that drives the front axle only, using a limited- slip differential to meter the power. The engine produces slightly more power than the old car’s, at 316bhp compared with 306bhp, but torque remains the same at 295lb ft.
Beneath the surface, though, there are more significant changes aimed at refining the handling. The car is based on a new platform that enables it to be lower, wider and stiffer than its forebear, and there’s a revised suspension set-up – most notably at the rear, where the torsion beam has been replaced by a multi-link configuration – and a new adaptive damping system.
The move to a new platform has had an effect on the interior too, because the fuel tank has been moved from its position beneath the driver’s seat to a location aft of the rear seats, enabling the driver to be seated lower, more in keeping with what you’d expect from a hot hatch.
Another change that’s been made possible by the new underpinnings is a move to 20in wheels and 245-section tyres; our previous car ran on 19in wheels and 235/35 tyres. As much as those bigger, widerhoops should convey some dynamic advantages, I’m a little concerned at the effect they might have on the ride. As Autocar’s snapper-in-chief, I rack up a lot of miles per week and it’s fairly important to drive a car that’s as forgiving to cruise in as much as it is engaging when I want it to be.
And here’s where one of the most significant changes between the old and new Civic Type Rs should come into play. In this new one, you get three selectable drive modes, whereas the old one simply hadtwo choices: standard or ‘R’. The latter, engaged via a red button on the dashboard, turned all of the old car’s mechanical settings up to 11. ‘R’ mode, however, often felt too harsh and uncomfortable for the majority of British highways and byways.
Honda clearly listened to feedback from the enthusiasts who buy its performance cars – and perhaps even took a long, hard look at what its hot-hatch rivals have been doing – because this new Civic Type R has an additional ‘Comfort’ mode. It can dial down the directness of the steering feel, damping, stability assist, traction control and throttle response. At the same time, the default (or ‘Sport’, as Honda names it) and full-bore ‘R’ settings – now accessed via a rocker switch near the gearlever – have been made more extreme.
What we expect to discover over the course of the coming months is a hot hatch with a broader spread of configurability. But can it really be capable of lapping at a supercar-bothering pace, yet comfortable enough to cover vast swathes of motorway without me needing to keep my osteopath’s phone number on speed dial? What’s also similar to the last Civic Type R we ran is the specification because, like our 2016 version, this new car is in ‘GT’ trim. For an additional £2000, you get a raft of comfort and safety features of the kind you might find useful on longer trips: blind-spot warning, parking sensors, front foglights, an auto-dimming rear-view mirror and dual-zone climate control.
That extra kit comes with a weight penalty that means the GT-spec Civic Type R takes one-tenth of a second longer to sprint from 0-62mph. Based on our early impressions, we’re unlikely to quibble over 5.8sec rather than 5.7sec, though – so far, it has felt mightily quick to us.
Beyond opting for the bells-and- whistles GT trim, the only cost option we’ve added is pearlescent black paint. They do say black is the new white when it comes UK motorists’ favourite car colour – although, this being a photographer’s weapon, I’m fastidious about appearances and expect to spend quite a bit of time and effort keeping the bodywork clean.
It’s certainly an eye-catching car, but so far our Type R has also been turning heads for the wrong reasons. In the slow crawl of rush-hour traffic, there’s been a rather loud squeal from the Brembo brakes that draws glares from passing pedestrians. Could it be just a new-car issue, indicative of a deeper problem or something we’ll have to accept due to the Type R’s performance intent?
We’ll keep an eye (or, rather, an ear) on it, although we intend to waste as little time as possible plodding through traffic jams and more of it exploiting this hot hatch on some of the nation’s best driving roads.
Second opinion
I ran the previous Civic Type R on our fleet. On a specific road on a specific day when I was in a specific mood, I revelled in its raucous lack of manners, but it was a challenge to live with day to day, so I’m encouraged by talk of this one having a wider spread of ability.
Matt Burt
Honda Civic Type R prices and specification
Prices: List price new £32,995 List price now £33,525 Price as tested £33,520 Dealer value now £29,995 Private value now £28,000 Trade value now £27,000 (part exchange)
Options: Pearlescent paint £525
Fuel consumption and range: Claimed economy 36.7mpg Fuel tank 46 litres Test average 33.4mpg Test best 37.2mpg Test worst 26.1mpg Real-world range 338 miles
Tech highlights: 0-62mph 5.8sec Top speed 169mph Engine 4 cyls, 1996cc, turbocharged petrol Max power 316bhp at 6500rpm Max torque 295lb ft at 2500rpm Transmission 6-speed manual Boot capacity 420 litres Wheels 8.5Jx20in alloy Tyres 245/30 R20 Continental SportContact 6 Kerb weight 1380kg
Service and running costs: Contract hire rate £370 CO2 176g/km Service costs None Other costs New tyre £265, oil £14 Fuel costs £1525 Running costs inc fuel £1803 Cost per mile 20 pence Depreciation £5520 Cost per mile inc dep’n 73 pence Faults none
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