2008 Honda Civic EX-L Video

2008 Honda Civic EX-L Video Transcript

^B00:00:00

>> Look what happened. Gasoline hit eight jillion dollars a gallon, and guess what became cool again. Honda Civics and the like. So let's go for a spin in this Honda Civic EXL, the high-trim version of just about the only car most of us can afford to fuel anymore. ^M00:00:15 [ Music ] ^M00:00:21 Now having a high-trim Civic does not mean we have a high-tech civic. What makes this car more high tech is the fact that it has the Nav E package, as Honda calls it. Obviously that means navigation. And here it is. This is a unit we've seen before. I'm not gonna get terribly excited because it's like an old friend, not getting any younger, if you will. It's a decent system. It's a good, clear interface. But it's not very artistic. It's not the state of the art in terms of the rendering of the map, or the fonts, or all the stuff I bitch about endlessly on these videos. However, it does have a great array of very clear, obvious, dedicated buttons. I'm kind of a dedicated button guy, so I like to see a lot of these around on the perimeter. A lot of other folks are much more into either touch screen or menus. Or in this case, we have voice activation, which we think is pretty good on Hondas. So you've got that as another way to drive this guy. Navigation.

>> How would you like to set your destination?

>> City.

>> Which city?

>> Menlo Park.

>> Which street?

>> Santa Cruz.

>> What street number?

>> 888.

>> Would you like to calculate a route?

>> Now that is basically a great navigation experience. Good recognition of natural language. That's key. Secondly, it lets me do it while I'm driving. Third, I'm able to jump right ahead and go to the next prompt, which I see on the screen in case I forgot what term it wants to hear. Now aside from the navigation, this is also your head unit for entertainment. And you see we have quite a few choices on this vehicle, AM/FM of course. CD - it's single disc CD. Because of the navigation apparatus, we lose a multidisc in dash. Here's the goofy du jour. There's Honda's favorite crazy uncle thing, the PC card. We all carry PC cards full of music, right? There's no iPod adaptor available on this car. You do have an aux jack down here, so you're gonna do standard Aux in. You got power right next to that. Another bit omission, aside from the iPod thing, is now Bluetooth. That annoys me because this is not so cheap a car that Bluetooth is somehow out of the realm. This car needs Bluetooth. If not standard at this trim level, at least optional. I love this double tier dashboard. It's one of the greats for quick visual clarity. I can glance down and in half a second read everything that I need to know. It's extremely good information design. Now the star of the show for those who care about economy, the motor. 1.8-liter, in-line four. Honda does those right all day long. Thais guy delivers 2536 as its two EPA numbers. It's a five speed automatic in our car. That's optional. A five-speed manual is what you'd call the base arrangement. This is a nice power train without being a brag box. ^M00:03:10 [ Music ] ^M00:03:15 Okay. Let's price our nicer than expected but not all that high tech little gas saver. Civic EXL, Coupe or Sedan, again, high trim, with Nav, about $22,300.00. Not a bad entry point. That's with the manual. Eight bills more if you want the automatic. Not a lot of options to play with. You can get an eight-disc changer for about $440.00. Add a subwoofer for $370.00. Remotes start is a little over $500.00. And by they way, those are all dealer-installed options. ^E00:03:43