LIKES
- Fab new interior
- Better gas mileage
- Excellent quality
- Enhanced safety features
- 9.0-inch touchscreen (Touring)
DISLIKES
- Mature style, for better and worse
- No wireless Android Auto
- Multimedia feels dated
- Needs better lumbar support
BUYING TIP
The 2022 Honda Civic remains a go-to economy car, with low-key performance and high-economy powertrains.
What kind of vehicle is the 2022 Honda Civic? What does it compare to?
The 2022 Honda Civic is one of the bestselling and best-known compact cars on the planet. Emerging now in sedan and hatchback body styles, it’s offered as a Civic LX, Sport, EX, or Civic Touring. It gains Si and high-performance Type R versions in the near future, but no coupe will return. Other compacts that come as a sedan or hatchback include the Toyota Corolla, Mazda 3, and Subaru Impreza.
Is the 2022 Honda Civic a good car?
With softened style, a jazzy interior, and fine ride and handling, the 2022 Civic earns a TCC Rating of 6.8 out of 10, before safety is factored into its score. That puts it within reach of the top-scoring compacts in our rankings.
What's new for the 2022 Honda Civic?
The redesigned 2022 Honda Civic arrives with sleeker and less wildly detailed styling, paired with a new higher-quality interior.
The sedan now dips lower in the front and is more boxed off in the rear. The windshield and A-pillars have been pushed back by about two inches, leaving a long hood that makes the Civic look more stretched than it actually is. It has only grown by 1.4 inches in length, but looks like a mid-size car from a distance.
Inside, a 7.0-inch touchscreen is standard, but a 9.0-inch touchscreen fits in Touring models, which also get a 10.2-inch digital gauge display. Materials on the lower trim levels are impressive, with metal accents on many of the switches and a fingerprint-resistant material on the center console. A clean unbroken mesh panel concealing the vents separates the upper and lower parts. It’s pretty and distinctive.
The engine options carry over from the 2021 models, with a 158-hp 2.0-liter inline-4 on LX and Sport trims and a 180-hp 1.5-liter turbo-4 in EX and Touring trims. A CVT sends power to the front wheels. Turbos have good urgency, but the CVT saps some of the fun. The Civic’s ride and handling have a sophisticated vibe, and even Sport and Touring cars with 18-inch wheels soak up the streets. Gas mileage is a strong point, too, at up to 36 mpg combined.
Interior space provides room for four large passengers, with a fifth possible in the back seat. The Civic’s front seats could use more lumbar padding, but otherwise feel plush, above its price range—and the view out is expansive. Trunk space and rear-seat room peg the usefulness meter, too.
Every 2022 Civic comes with automatic emergency braking, adaptive cruise control, automatic high beams, and active lane control. Blind-spot monitors and parking sensors come with the more expensive models.
How much does the 2022 Honda Civic cost?
The Civic LX carries a $22,695 sticker price; it has power features, 16-inch wheels, a 7.0-inch touchscreen, and Android Auto and Apple CarPlay. The $25,695 Civic EX hits the sweet spot with its 17-inch wheels, heated front seats, and blind-spot monitors—but the $29,295 Civic Touring gets a serious look with its 9.0-inch touchscreen, Bose 12-speaker audio, leather upholstery, and wireless smartphone charging.
Where is the 2022 Honda Civic made?
Styling
Honda’s toned down some of the Civic’s cutlines, and amped up the interior.
Is the Honda Civic a good-looking car?
Less adventurous on the outside, the 2022 Civic has a fresh, engaging interior that plays up simplicity. We give it a point for the exterior and two for the interior, for an 8 here.
The most common complaint about the last-generation Civic came from the almost bewildering collection of cutlines on its body: we gave it kudos for its sleek proportions, while we razzed it for the slits and gills and creases and flaps that rendered the body slightly chaotic.
The Civic’s interior sings. As a prelude to coming electric cars, Honda’s laid out a simple cabin with a thin strip of honeycomb trim that hides the air vents, which adjust with joystick ease. Glossy black trim’s relegated to surfaces not normally touched, and the dials and window switched have metal tips and connect with satisfying clicks. All versions come with a touchscreen at least 7.0 inches on the diagonal, but Tourings get a 9.0-inch screen that’s one of the few obvious departures from base trim, that and leather. It’s a democratic approach that plays well with the Civic’s economy-car duty.
Performance
Base cars have basic performance; even turbos keep things on the milder side.
The new Civic carries over its powertrains from the previous version, with the spicy Type R yet to reappear. With either of its engines, the Civic’s acceleration takes a back seat to its well-tuned ride and handling. It’s a 6 here.
Is the Honda Civic 4WD?
No, all Civics are front-wheel drive.
In standard-issue trim, it’s not very fast. The Civic LX and Civic Sport come with a 158-hp 2.0-liter inline-4 and a CVT for acceptable acceleration. It’s sluggish from a start off the line, and the CVT winds up the engine and lets it sit in a part of the powerband where noise intrudes more than speed. Even dialed into a driver-selectable Sport mode, it’s a setup that requires planning for merges and passes, even though the Civic checks in at a light 2,877 lb in stock form.
The 3,077-lb Civic Touring represents the other, happier end of the performance spectrum. Its 1.5-liter turbo-4 steps things up with 180 hp, up 6 hp and 15 lb-ft of torque from the 2021 edition. It’s not so different in feel from the previous year’s turbo version, either, with more confident levels of power. The good stuff’s on hold until Civic Si and Type R versions rejoin the family.
The Civic earns its stripes with balanced and responsive handling. It’s an evolution of the same setup from the previous car, but this Civic sits 1.4 inches longer, which helps it feel even more stable. The front-strut and rear multi-link design has been tuned for better ride quality, already a strong point, and its all-season tires soak up bumps well even when they grow to the 18-inchers on Touring and Sport versions. The steering’s also in accord with the ride and handling, and communicates some of the road through the wheel—but it’ll make vast gains in Type R and Si versions, if past predicts the future. The one downside to the bigger Civic? A crossover-like turning circle of 38.1 feet, which makes parking more of an effort.
Comfort & Quality
The Civic’s nearly mid-sized now.
The Civic continues to grow as it matures, and it’s nearly big enough for five adults. It’s a 6 for comfort and utility, with an extra point for its front seats—and it nearly earns one more for its large trunk.
Riding on a 107.7-inch wheelbase, and sitting 183.3 inches overall, the 2022 Civic has eclipsed older Accords in size, so we hesitate to call it a compact anymore. With lots of glass and a low dash, it offers an expansive view of the road to the front passengers, who ride on manually-adjustable cloth seats in the LX model. The EX version gets heated front seats, while the Touring has power front seats and leather upholstery; in our drives, the Touring’s seats had lots of bolstering and good support in all ways except lumbar. The Civic’s front seats mount low; it’s one of the few cars in which we have to raise the seat for the best view.
With 37.4 inches of rear seat leg room and at least 37.1 inches of head room, front or rear, the 2022 Civic can seat four adults in good comfort; the back seat is sculpted ideally for a pair of people, but there’s space for a third to perch in the middle. Those rear passengers don’t get air vents, but they do get USB ports, because data is more important than oxygen? Maybe?
We remain impressed by the Civic’s quality construction. Even the base Civic LX belies its economy-car ancestry with its matte surfaces and soft-touch materials. It’s not always quiet, but even when engine noise is more present it’s still rather pleasant.
Safety
Crash tests are pending, but the Civic is off to a strong start.
Since it’s new, the 2022 Civic hasn’t been crash-tested yet by the IIHS or the NHTSA. We’ll leave it scoreless until we see some data, but there’s every reason to hope it will match last year’s excellent results.
Every Civic comes with automatic emergency braking, active lane control, adaptive cruise control, and automatic high beams. Some models get blind-spot monitors and parking sensors, but they’re not free-flow options on less expensive cars.
Outward vision isn’t great—the shapely roofline’s at fault—but it’s workable.
Features
Well-equipped and inexpensive, the 2022 Civic ticks many boxes.
The 2022 Civic earns an 8 in our features category. It’s well-equipped in base form and has good infotainment, which makes it a good value. Its warranty is average, though, and its options list is limited by trim level.
The base $22,695 Civic LX has it all, almost: it sports power features, four-speaker audio, 16-inch wheels, LED headlights, a 7.0-inch touchscreen, and Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. We like the $24,095 Civic Sport, too: it gains 18-inch wheels and eight-speaker audio.
Which Honda Civic should I buy?
How much is a fully loaded Honda Civic?
For now, it’s $29,295. That Civic Touring gets power front seats, wireless smartphone compatibility, a 9.0-inch touchscreen, leather upholstery, 18-inch wheels, Bose 12-speaker audio, navigation, satellite and HD radio, parking sensors, and wireless smartphone charging.
On all Civics, Honda’s 3-year/36,000-mile warranty pales compared with that from its South Korean rivals.
Fuel Economy
Gas mileage excels in the smaller Honda sedan.
Is the Honda Civic good on gas?
Is the earth an oblate spheroid, flattened at the poles and bulging at the equator? Yes, but that’s not important right now.
We give the Civic a 6 for fuel economy thanks to strong estimated ratings. Honda predicts the EPA will rate the base Civic LX at 31 mpg city, 40 highway, 35 combined. The Sport version’s numbers dip slightly to 30/37/33 mpg.
We’ll update these ratings when the EPA confirms them, but we’ve assigned a provisional score of 6 here, based on the Civic EX.
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