Anyone else out there think the front fairing is a little low on the HCH? My 2004 seems to scrape on every parking curb. Neither of my other cars does this, and my Subaru Legacy had pretty low ground effects but it didn't scrape nearly as often as my HCH.

To add insult to injury, of course the snazzy body-colored plastic is white underneath the paint - so after some scrapes the front fairing looks awful. What a silly thing to do. If they're going to be a custom color they might as well be the same color all the way through because scratched plastic that's a different color underneath looks like crap.

It is low, on purpose. It's an air dam.

I'm suprized and disappointed that Honda did not make the unpainted front fairings black like on the Insight.

61.5mpg lifetime - 82mpg in recent months

Best Run >
www.cleanmpg.com

"fanatic" is what the lazy call the dedicated

Stop before you hit them.

Yes that was a constant annoyance on my 04, and I had the light blue so the scrapes really looked bad.
On my 06 I'm going to be VERY careful.

The low air dam helps your MPG, which is more important to a devout hybrider.

Need fewer troops to support.
Drive a hybrid.
Best tank 71.65 MPG.

Before this car I spent two years learning hypermiling on my 2004 HCH1.

I know it's for FE, but does the extra half inch really make that much difference? How good will the FE be after that thing's been deformed by repeated curb encounters?

I am relearning how close to get to those things, but all my other cars allowed me to get much closer so it's a hard habit to break.

The Jetta I used to have was horrible about this; I can't tell you how many times I scraped or dented the front by hitting those little curbs in front of parking spaces. But the 2006 HCH never hits them; it's just high enough that it goes right over. Good thing too, or it would be scraped and dented as well by now.

Yep, that's another "good" reason to look at the 06 - the new body style doesn't have the low-slung front spoiler that the first body style has. We have "bumpers" in our parking spaces at home, and the Civic is prone to scraping. The accord is more "regular" on the front.

A few weeks back, the sis-in-law visited with her 06 civic and that one didn't rub the bumpers at all - the bottom of the front end is VERY similar in height to the accord.

I usually learn after the first couple times ... the HCH I isn't a long car at all, more than likely you could park about 5 ft futher back if you are hitting the curb and still be in the space, TRUST ME, I used to drive a 20 ft long vehicle ... these cars are much shorter than the spaces. If you don't think you can stop an extra few inches back, the turn around and back in. I garauntee you won't bottom out the back on a curve. The aerodynamic benefits are bigger than you may think. The less air under your car the better. You must have some rather tall parking curbs as well. But thanks for the heads up, I will make sure I won't hit a curb now! Good luck and be careful!!!

Yeah... but how careful should one have to be? At some point the car manufacturer should be responsible for meeting certain standards, like being high enough to not scrape on standard height parking curbs.

I can learn to accomodate this car's special needs to some point - but really, I own a car to meet MY needs, not the other way around.