The Civic Si misconception

Fazzster said:

What drives me nuts is how the lack of a volume knob is such a big deal. Every reviewer comments on this. It's become a hysteria. I swear its a group think phenomenon with these journalist. Just use the steering wheel control. You should have you eyes on the road and hands on the wheel anyway. It is just not a problem for me. What is a problem is no spare tire.

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Luckyarmpit said:

I'm hoping Honda was at least smart enough to make the interface interchangeable with older models, but it's looking like that's not the case. Fingers crossed we can buy one and do a direct swap.

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amirza786 said:

Let me clarify that statement. There are various posts where the responses in the post were negative, not the posts themselves. An example would be complaining the Si is slow or does not match up to a car like a Subaru WRX. These were from actual Si owners. I justed wanted to point out that the purpose or mission of this car is different from cars like the Ford Focus or Subaru WRX

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Hijinx said:

The mission is exactly the same as a Focus or WRX: a hopped up econobox.

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xbbnx said:

Great write up. But FYI the Si in a straight line keeps up just fine with the ST, GTI, and WRX (from a roll cuz AWD) only lagging slightly behind almost neck and neck. Dont let the 0-60 numbers fool you, because of the 2-3 gear shift before 60 that 6.3-6.8sec number we see in reviews doesnt tell the true tale of how fast the Si is.

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Fazzster said:

What drives me nuts is how the lack of a volume knob is such a big deal. Every reviewer comments on this. It's become a hysteria. I swear its a group think phenomenon with these journalist. Just use the steering wheel control. You should have you eyes on the road and hands on the wheel anyway. It is just not a problem for me. What is a problem is no spare tire.

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BoostedSiCoupe said:

because not having a volume knob is really inconvenient. yes there are the controls in the steering wheel but youbstill cant turn the volume down nearly as fast with them like you can a physical knob. at least the elantras have a way to mute the sound by pushing down on tue volume switch in the wheel.. in addition as having a regular knob

it needs a volume knob. its not a conspiracy where ppl got together amd decided to pick one specific thing to constantly criticize tue car about. theres a reason why so many people complain about it.. its because its fucking annoying how inconvenient it is and how much SLOWER it is to adjust the volume on the fly

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amirza786 said:

I am new to this forum, and the reason I am writing this post is due to some negative posts from Civic Si owners I have read. I am by no means an expert on cars, I don't have a degree in engineering nor am I a mechanic, most of my knowledge of cars comes from 30 years of owning and driving various cars, reading, and of course Google! I believe that a lot of people have a fundamental misunderstanding of the Si. Before I get into that, let me give some of my background.

I have always loved and been fascinated by cars. To me, they are an engineering marvel. We were a VW family, and in my early years in the 1980's, I drove and owned several VW's, from the Dasher, to the Rabbit GTI. In the 90's I moved on to a Mercedes 1976 280S. I can tell you, German cars drive great, but they need constant maintenance, which is not cheap. Because of this and the fact that I did not have much money at the time, I learned to work on my own cars (as long as it wasnt an engine rebuild!). I eventually got a loan from my dad and started buying cars from dealer auctions to sell, and here is where I had a lot of exposure to many different cars. I did this for a few years while I was finishing college.

I eventually got a real job, and in 1995 decided to trade in my 1990 Chevy Cavalier Z24 for a 1995 Toyota Corolla. This is when I learned what a real car was. Let me make a long story short, Toyotas last, they don't break down, and I have owned nothing but Toyotas since then. In fact, the Corolla stayed in my family until 3 years ago when my nephew traded in for $8000 credit (cash for clunkers) towards a Toyota Prius, and it was still running great!

Now on to the reason I am writing this, the Civic Si. Except for the occasional Honda I picked up in auctions to sell, I have never owned a Honda, so I am not writing this as a Honda enthusiast. My other car which I was driving since 2006 is a Toyota Camry SE V6. I would love to write about this car, but it would take up to many pages. My daughter started college and needed a car. Instead of buying her a used one, I decided to give her my Camry and buy a new Camry SE. I had already test drove it and was going to buy it right before my daughters school starts when I saw a Civic Sports hatch. The car looked really practical and sort of cool looking, was inexpensive so I began to do some research, which led me to the Civic Si.

I have never researched a car as extensively as I did the Si. Where can you find a car that is reliable, practical, fuel efficient and fun? That has a 6 speed MT, limited Diff, and adjustable dampers? All that, and under $24K?

This car is fast, but make no mistake, it is not a race car, or a track car. It can't beat the Subaru WRX or the Ford Focus ST (both cars at least $10 to $15K more expensive), it can't compete the muscle cars, but that is not what it was built for. It was built for someone looking to drive something practical and fun without breaking the bank. It was designed for an enthusiast customizing it thru the aftermarket to get more performance if they so desire.

Yes, there are some annoying things about this car, such as the infotainment (don't get me started), the lack of HVAC buttons as well as no volume button, the sometimes notchy gear shifts, and the faux plastic "vents". But I can forgive those things, because this car offers so much for so little. People complain about the power, but for everyday driving, it really has all the power you need. I have taken this car on 4 trips between Northern California and Southern California (360 miles), and if anyone has been on highway 152 or highway 5 on the Grapevine, the very steep inclines don't even slow the car down, passing slower traffic is effortless. At 80 or 90 mph, the cabin is very quiet, with only some occasional road noise when the pavement gets rough.

Some people have mentioned that going into high RPM's can be unpleasant. The solution I have found for this was to switch from the factory fill 0W20 to fully synthetic 0W30. After switching weights, going into the high RPM range is smooth and quiet. Now I know that this is probably going to create another discussion, but let me just say that using 0W20 is perfectly alright, this grade will protect the engine in most driving conditions

Honda has built the Si over the years to be a practical, fun and economical car without compromising quality. If you really want to get more detailed information on this car, please check out the Savagegeese Youtube channel, he does a detailed video breaking down this car, which really gave me an appreciation and respect for this car

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Ataricade said:

I stopped reading when you said “I eventually got a real job”.

All work has value.

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xbbnx said:

Great write up. But FYI the Si in a straight line keeps up just fine with the ST, GTI, and WRX (from a roll cuz AWD) only lagging slightly behind almost neck and neck. Dont let the 0-60 numbers fool you, because of the 2-3 gear shift before 60 that 6.3-6.8sec number we see in reviews doesnt tell the true tale of how fast the Si is.

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amirza786 said:

I agree, the Si is a fast car and it can keep up with a lot of it's higher priced and higher speced rivals. But that is not why I bought it. I bought it because of the economy and value with fun thrown in as well as Honda reliability. For me, Sport mode is all I really need if I want some extra push. In fact, the only thing I would ever change would be to remove the Rev hang. Other than that, I'm going to keep this thing stock

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amirza786 said:

Except, the Ford Focus RS MSRP is $41K and the Subaru WRX is closer to $30K, while the Civic Si fully loaded is $23K. If I was spending $40K, I would be spending it on a Toyota Camry XSE or a Lexus F series (most likely used at that price). The Si is about being an inexpensive hopped up econobox

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marauderguy said:

In the time it takes to reach for that volume knob, you can already have the sound completely muted with the mute feature on the slider. There is always something to nitpick on any vehicle if you look for it. I'll take that crappy slider on the Civic over the crappy mileage on the Elantra Sport every single day.

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