Is Honda losing it?

[gheba_nsx]

Yesterday I stopped at a Honda garage to give a look at the new Civic 5 door:

Very nice, car, impressing interior :smile: . The engine seems interesting with 140Cv / 1.8l for a city car.

BUT the build quality, strongest Honda selling point, where is it gone???
The door handle are bad plastic with a small lever inside. You can even feel the line of the stamp that was used to create the plastic part...

The dash is completely made in hard plastic, where most cheap car (in Europe at least) use now the softer plastic that you found in more expensive car in the past but is quite standard nowaday (like Accord and Mazda6).

And by sitting in all the three that were in the showroom, you could hard the front seat squeaking. :frown:



For 25k$ you could expect something more.

 

[DutchBlackNsx]

I saw one sitting in the carpark the other day.
Had a good look around, seems a pretty nice design, inside and outside, to bad the shift lever has fallen down again. That looked pretty stupid in the previous model, but it was actualy sitting absolutely perfectly.

Downside is the black glas on the rear, just as we saw on the 1988-1992 CRX, where it only in a black painted model looks realy good (to much contrast on different colors).

They running the advert with the black one here on tv now, and everybody is realy excited about it. Advert sorta looks cool.

Personally i'm waiting for the Type-R to show. Cant wait for a drive in one of those. If its at least like the 'old' one, it will be a spectaculair car. Enginewise with the short-gearbox, it sure is a nice piece of technologie.

For the quality, the previous model (the one i have now), the guality is allready not on a very high standard, which is a result of used materials (as you said), and the place where the damn thing is build (UK).
Not that it breaks down or anything, it just doesnt feel like what it should be for a 33.000 Euro (44.000 USD) car. But then, the price of Honda's is the reason they are not a very populair car over here.

 

[Gerard van Santen]

I have driven one. And I must say I was very pleased by the handling although it has a very conventional rear suspension. I was surprised that it has a solid axle and not a multilink one. Compared to the Civic Type R I think a standard new model Civic can meet the handling of the Type R. So the new Type R must be something fantastic.

The dash is like a space ship. And I like it:biggrin:

 

[gheba_nsx]

The dash layout , lighting, instrument... is very nice as I said!

But what is terrible is the FIAT Panda kind of plastic...

 

[NeoNSX]

i'm sorry to hear about the plastic, but in reference to your question.

<B> > Is Honda losing it?</B>

We can have a huge long discussion whether Honda is losing it or not, but I've save everyone the time: The answer is No.

 

[gheba_nsx]

<B> > Is Honda losing it?</B>

We can have a huge long discussion whether Honda is losing it or not, but I've save everyone the time: The answer is No.

True, they still build very good quality cars (Accord, TSX in th US; Legend/RL and even the FRV are all very well built).

But then, why did they came out with details like this new Civic? It needs some adjustment to look like a real Honda and not a French/Italian/Korean product. It really pissed me off , and the Civic segment is the most important in terms of sale. At least in Europe.

 

[Gerard van Santen]

Personally i'm waiting for the Type-R to show. Cant wait for a drive in one of those. If its at least like the 'old' one, it will be a spectaculair car. Enginewise with the short-gearbox, it sure is a nice piece of technologie.

Like the SI?

 

[DutchBlackNsx]

The Si is pretty cool, but i suppose thats left for the americans.....

 

[RyRy210]

In my opinion build quality (how its put together) and the quality of the build materials (plastic vs metal) are 2 different things. I've been in old Honda's and they use a lot of plastic, but they are still very well built and reliable. I have a 2004 Honda Odyssey, and it does have it faults. 1 key thing to remember that quality and also reliability is all relative. Yes, my Odyssey has problems, but believe it or not, it is far less than the Sienna that I owned before. My neighbors Dodge Caravan sliding door just fell out recently!

 

[gheba_nsx]

Ok, I wake up an old topic after having seen Top Gear tonight on BBC2... they completely trash the new Civic TypeR and it seems to be a huge disappointment against the previous generation one. For what is worth TG opinion (but I heard the same from hardcore CTR fans around Europe)...

I am really not that confident that "this" Honda will ever be willing/able to produce a car that will be what the first NSX was when it entered the market.