New Cars: Toyota, Chev, Honda

It's new car time.

Our Honda Accord is crossing the 10 year mark and, even though it still has tons of miles left on it, there are repairs coming up that justify looking at new cars. Seeing that we have driven Hondas exclusively for 23 years, it's almost a no-brainer that we stick with a Honda... but we looked around a little.

Contenders were the Toyata Matrix and Chev Sonic.

The Matrix was OK, a little higher and less "performancy" than we would like. Going back to a stick makes the shifting feel a fairly major consideration and we weren't fond of it. In order to match the Civic in bells and whistles the price was higher... not by a lot but enough to be a factor. Also being a hatchback it has a rear window wiper which, from past experience with many versions of this setup, is less than ideal. The dash was not particularly inspiring either.

 

The Chev Sonic was not available in a stick to test so I had to make due with the automatic. Unlike Honda and Toyota most of the extras were all extras rather than being included in a package. Sometimes that is good and sometimes that is not so good. In this case I think not so good as it drives the price up quickly when trying to match a competitor's option package. The dash looked like an attempt at some sort of minimalism, interesting but small. It is also the first year for this model, not something I am fond of buying as it has no proven record yet.

The Honda Civic was the favourite going in so perhaps the whole comparison was not fair. Even so, it was good to have done it just to know for certain. The option package at the EX level was just a right mix of extras that included things like the integrated Bluetooth, full variable wipers, sunroof and stereo controls on the wheel. A feature that I really liked was that the dash display included the radio and information center and was mostly above the steering wheel, I think this is in all of the Civic's, not just the EX and higher. No need to turn my head to look at anything on the center console. Of course the shifting was silky smooth, as I would expect.

So we went with the Civic. We had a hard time deciding between the black and the titanium. The final deciding factor may seem odd but it came down to something seemingly so small. The colour matching mirrors only matched on the top half of the mirror assembly, the underside and mirror post were black, so it stood out just enough that we chose black. Now the mirrors will match more seamlessly.

With our old trade and using the current cash rebate incentive the final price was under $20,000... which I could not have managed with either the Sonic or the Matrix given mostly identical options selected.

Delivery is next Wednesday and we are looking forward to the new car experience once again.

Jeff.