how are the head units at this point (late 2018)?

mjh

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I've been on the fence literally for a few years about the Civic, with 99 percent of my concern being about the badly executed infotainment setup. I've read (probably too much) about how the head units seem to be be buggy and slow, with Honda slow to provide fixes and updates (especially since they do not have over-the-air update capability).

Now with the refresh, it appears that Honda has provided a volume knob and hard buttons, but apparently done nothing to improve the actual software of the unit itself. So my question is this: based on where the HU is now (so mainly for people with 2018s): how bad is it, really? Have most of the issues that plagued the system in 2016-2017 been resolved, or are there still fundamental flaws in the system for a person buying a late-2018 or 2019 model?
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jred721

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I find that a lot of people exaggerate just for the sake of it. Can the headunit use improvement? Sure. Is it terrible and unusable? Absolutely not. The headunit is a can be slow and rough around the edges but for me at least, it gets the job done and does everything I would ever need. It also has carplay/android auto which I primarily use anyway so I don't see much of the main infotainment setup. There are no flaws in the 2018 headunits that would make it unusable, just some kinks here and there. Imo, the headunit isn't big enough of an issue for someone to make a decision on buying the car or not.
 

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Mine sometimes glitches now. Bought mine in May. I just unplug cord and replay. Seems to fix it. Other day I had to to turn it off and unplug. So it seems to be getting a little worse. Overall, not too bad really. :thumbsup:
 
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I've gotten used to it. I don't use the Garmin navigation feature much anyway, there's nothing Google Maps can't do that the Garmin unit can.

The only glitch I had was once when it wouldn't respond to my touch input. Cycling fuse for the HU fixed issue. It's been problem free since.

But yes, it is sluggish, but not to the point that it discourages its use.

Shame though that Honda skimped on the usability of the HU.

The iDrive on my old 7 series from 2003 was more responsive and the interface much better thought out than the HU in the Touring. :confused:
 
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CivicBuff

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I have a 2018 with a June build date (from Japan). I have not had any real issues with the HU. I also was on the fence due to the early growing pains of the 10th gen tech. Android Auto and my samsung s9+ phone are working great ... so far:)
 
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mjh

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I have a 2018 with a June build date (from Japan). I have not had any real issues with the HU. I also was on the fence due to the early growing pains of the 10th gen tech. Android Auto and my samsung s9+ phone are working great ... so far:)
I rarely use Android Auto in my VW. I find the "safety" restrictions Android puts on it (restricting numbers of touches and scrolls) incredibly annoying to the point of being useless, and the voice recognition tools to be a poor substitute. Instead I vent-mount my phone and use it to play podcats, use Google maps, etc. For music, VW has an SD card reader which works perfectly -- I assume I would switch to a USB in the Honda. I think my perfect car right now would be the Civic but with the VW infotainment setup. It's simple, works as intuitively as a smartphone does, and never glitches in any way.
 
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The one in my 2018 Si is fine. I have had no real issues. No lockups or reboots or anything
 
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omens

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Mines been fine. Sure, it’s a bit more sluggish than some other head units but it still works great.
 
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lightthief

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I give the system a lot of crap.
It’s grown more stable with firmware updates and I was ready to say it’s grown to at least be useable.

But then it gave me this treat recently.

Note that at this point my phone isn’t even connected.


The system is garbage. 2016 owner but bare in mine the amount of software updates between the years aren’t openly documented and seem to be nothing more than bug fixes for the most heinous issues they they never actually openly admitted.

At best it’s passable. At worse is unusable.
Note that even the people defending it aren’t enthusiastic about it.

Personally, other people care about a lot of other factors in cars, but I’m not a car person I’m a tech person and this absolutely would have been a deal breaker on a car I generally love otherwise.

Honestly, you can afford it, i’d consider an accord.
It addresses all of the issues with the civic.... for a price.
 
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lightthief

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I find that a lot of people exaggerate just for the sake of it. Can the headunit use improvement? Sure. Is it terrible and unusable? Absolutely not. The headunit is a can be slow and rough around the edges but for me at least, it gets the job done and does everything I would ever need. It also has carplay/android auto which I primarily use anyway so I don't see much of the main infotainment setup. There are no flaws in the 2018 headunits that would make it unusable, just some kinks here and there. Imo, the headunit isn't big enough of an issue for someone to make a decision on buying the car or not.
May I ask how old you are?

I think this is partially a generational issue.
I can look up the polling but in general the younger the buyer the more important phone integration and the infotainment system is.
It doesn’t top the list just yet but it has climbed much higher in the past 5 years.
Just changing trends.
 


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mjh

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May I ask how old you are?

I think this is partially a generational issue.
I can look up the polling but in general the younger the buyer the more important phone integration and the infotainment system is.
It doesn’t top the list just yet but it has climbed much higher in the past 5 years.
Just changing trends.
I realize you're not asking me, but I'll answer FWIW: I'm in my early 50s. As I've said elsewhere, I care about the tech working because I don't EVER want to have to think about whether it's going to work when I get in the car. And the reality is, I put on "the radio" (today broadly defined as a combination of 1) podcasts/audiobooks from my phone via Bluetooth; 2) my own music on an SD card; 3) siriusxm) literally every single time I get into the car to drive more than five minutes. So while tech should not matter as much as the "car" stuff, the reality is that it does, because it's always there.

And yes, I have seriously considered the Accord, which seems to do a lot of things really well. I just have always had a preference for smaller cars. Next car I might give the Insight a long look as well (although Lanewatch rather than a blind-spot monitor, really?).
 

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I realize you're not asking me, but I'll answer FWIW: I'm in my early 50s. As I've said elsewhere, I care about the tech working because I don't EVER want to have to think about whether it's going to work when I get in the car. And the reality is, I put on "the radio" (today broadly defined as a combination of 1) podcasts/audiobooks from my phone via Bluetooth; 2) my own music on an SD card; 3) siriusxm) literally every single time I get into the car to drive more than five minutes. So while tech should not matter as much as the "car" stuff, the reality is that it does, because it's always there.

And yes, I have seriously considered the Accord, which seems to do a lot of things really well. I just have always had a preference for smaller cars. Next car I might give the Insight a long look as well (although Lanewatch rather than a blind-spot monitor, really?).
Pricing aside the insight gives you the Civic size, and the updated infotainment system, plus the great mileage.
It would be a strong contender personally if I was looking today. The pricing isn’t that bad at all.
It’s a bit odd to me that they didn’t call it the civic hybrid.
 

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May I ask how old you are?

I think this is partially a generational issue.
I can look up the polling but in general the younger the buyer the more important phone integration and the infotainment system is.
It doesn’t top the list just yet but it has climbed much higher in the past 5 years.
Just changing trends.
25 years old, and I definitely think that obviously younger people have phone integration high up on the priority list. But at 25, I do not fall under the older category and I still think that the infotainment is reasonable. There is definitely room for improvement, and obviously other infotainment systems like my BMW's iDrive are way better than the Civic's in comparison, but I use mainly apple carplay anyway which works pretty well so I don't see much of the main Honda UI at all.
 
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lightthief

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Oh to go point by point.
Bluetooth connection is solid once paired for most people. Haven’t seen many complaints.

Music on a USB stick has been a sore spot.
How it sorts songs and artists, what format the stick needs to be in, how many files it can handle well, etc etc etc you can find a lot of threads on issues. Expecting more than a bunch of files in one directory and having it play on random may be expecting too much from what I’ve read.
One thing is that the manual does say you can use the cars voice commands to request an artist. This is 100% simply not true. The feature never has exsisted and likely never will.

Sirius XM. A few reports of people not being to get a signal. Seems more like particular bad headunits than bad implementation in general.
Sirius is the one mode I don’t really use so I can’t comment on it other than being able to say a small number of complaints but not many.
 
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lightthief

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25 years old, and I definitely think that obviously younger people have phone integration high up on the priority list. But at 25, I do not fall under the older category and I still think that the infotainment is reasonable. There is definitely room for improvement, and obviously other infotainment systems like my BMW's iDrive are way better than the Civic's in comparison, but I use mainly apple carplay anyway which works pretty well so I don't see much of the main Honda UI at all.
I have a phone dedicated to the car just to stay in carplay as much as possible, but even there there is the issue of it failing to connect to carplay.
I brought down how often that happens with a cable change and not using the icloud music library, which means no local playlists, which is a pain.

So many little unpolished things.
It doesn’t surprise me at all that Honda only used this system for a few years before dumping it for a new one entirely.
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