![]() For my average six-foot frame, the seating and driving position proved ideal enough that despite sharing driveway time with a 2013 Mercedes CLS63, I found myself choosing the Civic for longer trips during our week. The extra support was perfect for my back, but since it isn’t adjustable, you should get plenty of seat time before you buy to be sure you can live with the shape. Honda continues to put fairly exaggerated lumbar support in the front seat backs, something you don’t find in many of the competition. The change has brought the Civic from slightly below average to a solid contender, although I think I prefer the style of the Elantra, Sentra and Focus to the Civic’s dual-level dash. Even the radio’s plastics have received a color and texture upgrade to look classier. Keeping costs d0wn, the same gauge cluster and dash structure remain from last year as well as the dash parts farther from your reach, but they have all been re-cast to texture-match the new bits. In addition to the color change, Honda had an eye on touch points, swapping out the hard doors and dash “faces” for squishy injection-molded units with fake stitching. For 2013 Honda cranked the thumbscrews on the parts suppliers and all the colors in our Civic EX were the same. Our 2012 tester’s four main dash components sported four different variations of the same target color. What I did have a problem with was a lack of color-matched bits and ill-fitting panels. The old Civic’s plastics weren’t great, but they were easy to clean, textured attractively and I just didn’t expect anything different from an $18,000 car. And, in my mind, it wasn’t the interior design ORthe interior plastics quality. ![]() The problem with the 2012 Civic wasn’t the exterior. From the side it would seem that noting has changed with the same four-window silhouette, but the difference is in the glass: it’s thicker this year for improved sound isolation. While I didn’t have a single issue with the way the old Civic looked, I have to admit this one looks better, especially from the front or back where Honda spent some cash to have the tail lamps cross onto the trunk lid giving the Civic’s heinie a more premium feel. While I didn’t hear as many complaints from my comrades in the auto-biz about the Civic’s curb appeal, Honda took the opportunity to graft a chrome smile from the 2013 Accord onto the Civic, redesign the bumper covers (front and rear), add smoked tail lamps, new wheels and finished everything off with a trendy honeycomb grille. How can I call it a redesign? Well, if Lexus can call the “new” LS a new car… But I digress. The changes after only a year on the market land somewhere between a refresh and and a redesign-on-the-same-platform. The 2013 Civic isn’t just a second-year options package shake-up, and it isn’t even a mid-cycle color and trim shuffle. Honda could have found solace in their sales, but instead they did something unusual: they re-re-redesigned the Civic for 2013. The 2012 Civic was purchased in impressive quantities by real-people. The result was bashed by Consumer Reports and raked across the coals by most of the press. In the perpetual game of auto-leapfrog, Honda miscalculated the direction Ford, Hyundai, Kia (and perhaps even Nissan) were headed. The 9th generation Civic was intended to début as a 2011, but the financial implosion caused Honda to go back and re-work their compact car as a 2012 to keep prices low. Need proof? Look at the 2011, 2012, 2013 Honda Civic. ![]() While some less-than-ethical information exchange goes on, on the whole, a car manufacturer like Honda finds out what the competition’s latest widget looks when we do. If you found the data or information on this page useful in your research, please use the tool below to properly cite or reference MPG Buddy as the source.People assume that car companies know their competition’s every move, as if there was some sort of mission impossible crew sent in every weekend to monitor R&D progress. We spend a lot of time collecting, cleaning, merging, and formatting the data that is shown on the site to be as useful to you as possible. Make sure to contact the specific car manufacturer to confirm accuracy. MPG Buddy does not guarantee the accuracy of this data, nor are we liable for any decisions made by referencing this data. Be advised that manufacturers may have upgraded, downgraded, or changed these ratings following the compilation of this data. Department of Energy, which is where we sourced the data. Ratings were provided by the manufacturer to the U.S. ![]()
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