A review 2006 HCH after 50K Miles
 

Everyone,

I wanted to give a review of this car after I have owned it for a while.

I'm 42 years old, and owned most cars well over 100K:

1) Mazda 626 Turbo -- loved that Car

2) Ford Expedition -- OK except needed new brake pads and rotors every 25K -- very expensive.

3) Subaru Outback -- manual five speed, but just loved that car -- 27 MPG.

4) Civic Hybrid 2006 -- review follows...

This is a decent car and I bought the 120K warranty online assuming that the hybrid system would have problems and not realizing that this would be warrantied to 150K in any clean energy state.

The audio system is bad, but the navigation is good. The handling with the tires is not good -- it is mushy and sloppy. If you need to do an emergency stop, the car is bad at that and the ABS system engages too soon.

I have not had any of the issues with the battery, but have been in stop and go traffic where the battery runs out of power -- and then the car has _no_ power. This can be a little scary at times. My battery seems to be getting worse.

I have averaged around 41 MPG -- in CA and MA -- and this is a disappointment -- I expected 45+ when I bought it.

So in summary -- I would not recommend this car for used car buyers. The MPG will not be what you want, and the Hybrid system is finicky and prone to running out of energy.

My next car will be a Ford Escape or Ford Fusion -- they have a more advanced Hybrid system. But I think everyone should know these batteries -- just like in laptops, do not reliably last past 2-4 years. Honda seems to have the most problems due to the less advanced Hybrid system.

As a family, we have 3 vehicles of 4 that are Honda (Honda Pilot, '94 XR650L motorcycle, and the HCH-II that have all been solid). I have no issues with Honda -- but this HCH-II is just a car that is not that great overall.

Hope this helps for anyone considering it.

Doberwiler