I think I was eight or nine years old when I figured out that I hated gold stars and happy faces.
I didn’t hate the actual stars and happy faces, but rather the teachers who dished them out and the reasons they were being awarded to some and not others.
As a child I was good at most subjects at school, but my handwriting was particularly good. On one occasion when a teacher was walking around class sticking stars in the notebooks of children with neat handwriting, he stopped to put one in my notebook, but not in the notebook of the boy next to me.
This boy had the most untidy scrawl, but that was probably because he came from a poor family that didn’t have electricity and he did his homework by candlelight. He was an awkward guy, quite shy and not terribly bright. Watching that teacher chastise him, almost reducing him to tears and comparing his writing with mine, filled me with the kind of revulsion for teachers that ensured I would get thrown out of class all the way to my matric year. Thankfully I had the kind of friends who also hated gold stars, happy faces and dictatorial teachers, so I was never alone when I got tossed out of class for challenging a dense teacher.
It’s for these reasons that I wasn’t entirely keen on the fuel-efficient driving aids in the Honda Civic diesel, because I felt like it was the gold stars and happy faces situation all over again.
On the upper tier of the dashboard on the driver’s side there are two rows of lights. The row on the left lights up with little red dots when the car is being revved in a not-so-fuel-efficient fashion (bad driver) and the one on the right lights up with little green dots when you’re being a good driver and changing gears in a fuel-efficient manner.
Naturally, in the first few weeks, all I saw were red dots and it didn’t bother me at all. But then the diesel price shot up to nearly R12 a litre and I was forced to score a few green dots in the interest of preventing my wallet from having a massive coronary. And so, over the course of the next few months, those blasted green dots changed the way I drive.
Whenever I drove the Civic in between other test cars I would unconsciously look at the row of lights on the right-hand side hoping to see more of those little green dots, and eventually driving in a manner that stretched out the fuel as much as possible annoyingly became second nature.
After I got over the fact that the Civic 2,2 iCTDi diesel had changed my driving style, I began to enjoy driving slowly. You have to understand that this is somewhat difficult for me to admit because I am a motoring journo. I love performance vehicles and I’m a tad guilty of having a heavy right foot – mostly when I’m on a racetrack.
Now don’t misconstrue what I’m saying. I’m not a puerile robot-to-robot racer and I think my road manners are fairly good. Obviously I get annoyed by people driving recklessly, but equally disturbing for me is the number of drivers who don’t express the small courtesies most of us half-decent folk are accustomed to – the flick of hazard lights to say thanks for stopping traffic to let me into your lane or raising your hand (not your middle finger) in your rear-view mirror to apologise for almost sideswiping me because you didn’t check your blind spot before drifting into my lane. See, I’m not as bad as you think I am just because I sometimes feel the need for speed.
But I digress, so back to the Civic.
The newly developed diesel engine in this car has a great deal of torque low down in the rev range. That’s good news because you don’t have to red-line the revs and burn more fuel to get decent performance from this hatch. I generally found that changing gears at about 2 000rpm to 2 500rpm gave me enough power to speed up when I needed to and, more importantly, it scored me two green dots. I would only score four or a maximum of six green dots when I was coasting or braking.
One of the Civic’s greatest assets is its versatility. I was able to use it in practically any situation and when my two large dogs and one medium-sized puppy had to go to the vet at the same time, the Civic swallowed them up and still had space for three adults. So not only is the interior spacious but the upholstery, fit and finishings are faultless and the boot is a class-leading 485 litres.
Standard features on this range-topper are quite high and include multi-function steering, cruise control, a refrigerated glovebox, climate control, leather upholstery, six airbags, ABS, emergency brake assist, electronic brakeforce distribution, vehicle stability assist and much more.
The suspension doesn’t feel too hard, but throw the Civic into a few twisty sections and you’ll quickly realise that its road-holding is most impressive. Steering feedback is also pretty good as the Civic now has electric power-steering. Of course, as with many modern diesels, a great deal of effort went into reducing noise, vibration and harshness levels. What this amounts to is a diesel car that is quite easy on the ears.
There was only one thing that bugged me about this car and that was that it didn’t lock automatically. Obviously, if you drive it every day, you get into the habit of locking your doors, but if you’re in the habit of driving the other family car on occasion, then you do sometimes forget to lock the doors and that’s something that Honda needs to remedy.
But ultimately, everything from the radical, futuristic styling to its phenomenal engineering makes the Civic one of the best hatchbacks on our roads, which can easily hold its own against far more established hatches in this segment.
Fast facts
Model: Honda Civic hatch
Price: R255 000
Engine: 2,2-litre turbodiesel
Tech: 103kW, 340Nm
Top speed: 205km, 0-100kph in 8,6s
Tank capacity: 50 litres
Services: 10 000km
Odo at start: 78km
Odo now: 3 071km
Fuel input: 193,1 litres
Fuel cost: R2 173,83