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I never thought that Honda would let me down, but man, the new Civics are no fun at all!
When I went to test drive one, I was disappointed by how boxy the exterior looked compared to my sporty l'il Amadeus. But I told myself it wasn't really that big of a deal, so long as the car drove well, so Seanie and I went off to find a sales associate to unlock a car. Unfortunately, we'd come exactly when the dealership was having their holiday party, and it was impossible to find anyone. Luckily, the party was nearly over so after we stood watching for a few minutes, a receptionist flagged a salesman down for us.
He was the most uncharismatic person I've ever seen at a car dealership! He barely talked to us the entire time, not even to make polite conversation. He didn't bother to ask why we wanted to look at new cars, or what other models we'd looked at. As I drove the car down the road, he didn't point out features or discuss the benefits of owning a Civic. At one point, Seanie even asked him what a number on the dashboard meant, and he shrugged and said he didn't know before lapsing back into silence. When we got out of the car, he seemed ready to walk away. I asked him for a business card, just to give him one last chance to show any sort of interest in selling a car to us, but he handed it to me without a word and disappeared. It was the strangest thing - I mean, we weren't planning to buy a car right that second, and I guess we did pull him away from the holiday party, but he did absolutely nothing to convince me that when/if I bought a car, it should be from him.
But I really didn't care for the Civic when I was driving it. Part of my antipathy may very well stem from this salesman who seemed to ooze disinterest, but the dashboard annoyed me - all the meters and information panels were digital instead of analog, the radio was really poorly designed (because the standard radio was no doubt, the dealership hopes, going to be taken out and upgraded to a backward-facing camera) and the seats were a bit uncomfortable. They weren't terrible, but they definitely felt like cheap car seats, whereas the Corolla I test drove a few days before was perfectly comfortable. The car also seemed a little shaky at faster speeds.
So at this point, I'm leaning towards a Corolla, but what I would really prefer is to keep my old 2005 Civic and let Kenny find something else. The new cars just aren't doing it for me.
When I went to test drive one, I was disappointed by how boxy the exterior looked compared to my sporty l'il Amadeus. But I told myself it wasn't really that big of a deal, so long as the car drove well, so Seanie and I went off to find a sales associate to unlock a car. Unfortunately, we'd come exactly when the dealership was having their holiday party, and it was impossible to find anyone. Luckily, the party was nearly over so after we stood watching for a few minutes, a receptionist flagged a salesman down for us.
He was the most uncharismatic person I've ever seen at a car dealership! He barely talked to us the entire time, not even to make polite conversation. He didn't bother to ask why we wanted to look at new cars, or what other models we'd looked at. As I drove the car down the road, he didn't point out features or discuss the benefits of owning a Civic. At one point, Seanie even asked him what a number on the dashboard meant, and he shrugged and said he didn't know before lapsing back into silence. When we got out of the car, he seemed ready to walk away. I asked him for a business card, just to give him one last chance to show any sort of interest in selling a car to us, but he handed it to me without a word and disappeared. It was the strangest thing - I mean, we weren't planning to buy a car right that second, and I guess we did pull him away from the holiday party, but he did absolutely nothing to convince me that when/if I bought a car, it should be from him.
But I really didn't care for the Civic when I was driving it. Part of my antipathy may very well stem from this salesman who seemed to ooze disinterest, but the dashboard annoyed me - all the meters and information panels were digital instead of analog, the radio was really poorly designed (because the standard radio was no doubt, the dealership hopes, going to be taken out and upgraded to a backward-facing camera) and the seats were a bit uncomfortable. They weren't terrible, but they definitely felt like cheap car seats, whereas the Corolla I test drove a few days before was perfectly comfortable. The car also seemed a little shaky at faster speeds.
So at this point, I'm leaning towards a Corolla, but what I would really prefer is to keep my old 2005 Civic and let Kenny find something else. The new cars just aren't doing it for me.