2020 Honda Civic Type R - POV Final Thoughts

hey guys we are back in the 2020 honda civic type r right now i am on a road trip in this type r we've driven a bunch of miles on this they're exploring some fun back roads in this car something we don't usually get to do in this state so in this video the purpose is to tell you what it's been like living with this car for the last few hundred miles and couple days really the most extensive time i've spent in a type r and i've got some new thoughts and new opinions after the excitement has maybe settled over a day or two and uh i've really come to appreciate some of the changes made with this 2020 model so i do have a first impressions video where we went over a lot of those changes and just some general thoughts on the car but really my overall impressions still stand this is just such a spacious practical and roomy performance hatchback it is a little bit bigger on the outside than a lot of its competitors it's even bigger than the sti which is kind of impressive and surprising on the inside though the packaging is good i mean you still get this hatchback usable space where you can fold down the rear seats throw a bunch of stuff back there but for how big it is on the outside i would kind of expect it to be a little bit more roomy on the inside still though that said in the class there's more space really than you need in here you can fit a tall wide passengers in the front and the back it's pretty amazing the interior leg room in the back seat and this thing still a little bit uh heavy on the eyes but you know that's the way it is i think if i were to get one of these it'd probably be in black and i tried to undo as much of the red contrast styling elements as i could but that's not really what this car is about this car is about the driving experience and i'm so glad to say that it really does deliver in that respect so let's take this thing out on some good roads we are just uh just having a good time out here first gear handbrake automatically disa disengages there is a there's a fizziness to the type r that just isn't present anymore in most normal vehicles and that's probably my favorite thing about this it's just exciting it's engaging there is a excitement factor and amount of driver feedback here that really you only kind of get in some porsches which is pretty impressive the performance is all here it does all the things that you need um you know really the biggest complaint i hear from people in the comments is oh the civic type r needs all-wheel drive well it depends what situation you're in if you're in the snow yeah it needs all-wheel drive but if you're on dry pavement and you live in an area that doesn't get snowy weather or really heavy winters man this is all you need if anything it has superior performance to all-wheel drive cars because it could really put its power down and uh there's a little bit less drivetrain loss here and the 306 horsepower really does go a long way with this car which is pretty awesome the brakes are fantastic just about perfect pedal feel and unless if you're running into a lot of wheel spin there really isn't a lot of understeer in the corners if anything it's very neutral and off throttle it's prone to oversteer you just have to be a little bit careful about your throttle application especially on days like today where it's a little bit greasy out the six-speed manual is literally one of the best in the business it's just about perfect the throw the shape of this new shift knob the weight of the shifter honda knocked it out of the park and it shows they know how to make just about the perfect manual transmission i haven't had any issues with gear grinds all week i mean you this is not a gearbox that likes to be rushed and you can't bang gears in something like this honda gearboxes have always been like that you have to treat them with a little bit of mechanical sympathy my other big concern with the type r was how does the new active sound control sound is it going to completely ruin the experience well i i'm actually very pleased with it it's only present in plus r mode which were just switched to right now and uh i think it'd actually be kind of useful on track and that you can actually hear the car with the windows down whereas before that wasn't necessarily the case it's definitely not as artificial and synthetic as it is in the civic si so i'm glad to say that it never sounded great and the civic uh civic type r was you know it's always just kind of a all you hear is boost it's a little bit droney in here but i drove five hours in this yesterday and i was perfectly comfortable and that's the other thing the breath of performance here is insane you can take this out vlog it enjoy it and then you can go daily drive it and it's just a honda civic at that point the uh radar guided cruise control is fantastic the lane keep assist is very good the honda sensing in the in this type r is some of the best in any honda they've done a really stellar job with this system the civic si had a lot of bugs to the system this type r they figured it out it's great i haven't had any issues with this all week so basically the moral of the story here is that you can't judge a type r based on a civic si the brakes in this car are absolutely fantastic let's test those real quick [Music] and beyond they're just overall stopping power the pedal feel their progressive nature it's just all right it's correct dynamically i love this car i really don't have any complaints about it i had a lot of little annoyances with this car initially on principle and just like little tiny honda isms i like to call them but to be honest when you spend some time in this car and you get behind the wheel it doesn't really matter as much anymore so i'm i'm glad to say that [Music] i think i would say that if i had to go buy a brand new car right now and i just wanted one car this would be it let's talk a little bit about this versus its competitors so the veloster n has gotten a lot of acclaim rewards praise it's quite a bit cheaper than the type r it's a little bit more of a hooligan whereas the type r is a bit more of a button-down serious performance machine despite its looks you'd think this would be the hooligan it's not it's really refined it's really well done the veloster end is fun it makes all the right noises it looks pretty good uh it's a little bit small a little bit tight but you could you could probably wing it as a good daily driver but you know what the veloster end lacks a little bit of soul it lacks the fizziness of the type r and there's something that's a little bit emotional about the type r driving experience and the veloster end though it is fun and exciting it doesn't quite have that same just special something and um that's really why i would take the type r over the veloster end still today and especially with this 2020 it gives even more compelling reasons to do that now the other competitor that's still on sale is the sti and that's a tough one i was just in the wrx for a week and i loved that car really the only complaint that i had is there's quite a bit of tire noise but you swap out the stock bridgestones and you've got that pretty much solved sti same deal stock tires are terrible in that car go with a set of michelins or something else if you live in an area like michigan with inclement weather and you want to be maybe taking your sti or your daily off-road have a little bit of fun in the snow kicking it sideways i mean sti is going to be your choice you can't really do that with a silly type bar but if you live in an area where you're not doing a lot of winter driving and that just doesn't quite appeal to you as much as outright grip and dry performance then the type r is probably the way to go it's just so much more sorted dynamically than a stock sti they're close but the sti is a little bit of a dog to drive sometimes it's definitely not as precise this just it has the power it has the steering feel the gearbox is just about perfect it really delivers the goods in terms of the driving experience and driving feel so it's kind of up to you i mean depends what you're looking for you know if you want an all-wheel drive car or not personally i really like front-wheel drive i think there's a challenge to it that's really exciting and uh really engaging there's kind of no doubt that the civic type bar is one of the best front wheel drive cars ever made it's probably the best front wheel drive car on sale right now it doesn't really have a lot of competition anymore unfortunately but i really do like this thing it's definitely not without its flaws but once you drive it once you live with it all that stuff just fades away it doesn't matter anymore probably the first thing i'd do if i bought one of these would be to swap on a set of 18-inch wheels the tires on this are just too thin for normal roads i don't know what honda's thinking about it maybe it improves the steering feel maybe it improves the immediacy it's nice that the ride quality still is fantastic with 20 inch wheels on it but it just seems unnecessary to me that goes into the drive modes so we have three drive modes comfort sport and plus r plus r you're really going to want to only get into that when you're on the track or you just want to impress your passenger comfort mode is great it's comfortable throttle response is dulled a little bit it kind of feels like an eco mode and the suspension really softens up a lot sport mode though is a very daily drivable mode it's fun that's what we've been in pretty much for the majority of this video the ride quality is very good not as good as it is in comfort but it's still very livable and that's the mode that you start up and every time you key on the car fuel economy comfort let's talk about that so important stuff for a daily driver important stuff for a road trip um since i've gotten this i have been driving it uh gingerly and i have been driving it hard in the last 418 miles i've averaged 28 miles to the gallon and i think that's pretty representative of what you would normally get in a car like this um hyper violent on the highway going 65 70 miles an hour tucking in behind a semi just right laning it the whole way i was getting 37 on the readout um driving at a little bit of higher speed on the highway doing some pulls i got 26 and that includes some idling and back road driving as well so pretty good fuel economy for something with this performance these seats super super comfortable i love these seats i think uh the bolstering on them is fantastic they've really nailed this like comfort practical blend um five hours in them yesterday and i got out i felt like i could go another five easily they're fantastic definitely some of my favorite performance seats in any car right now i think they could also accommodate a pretty wide range of drivers i'm five foot ten about 140 pounds and i fit in them perfectly if you're a little bit bigger you might be a little tight but i would just recommend trying them out see how you feel on them otherwise if you're thinking about a type r this 2020 is a very compelling option it's just nicer there's better steering feel here this shifter is just a little bit sweeter you know you get that extra cooling for track days if you're going to do a track day we'll talk about that in a sec but there are some practical reasons to get a 2022 this radar guided cruise control system the honda sensing is fantastic it's not invasive it's a very useful system and it's really nice in day-to-day driving took a lot of fatigue out of me on the way up here yesterday i would definitely recommend uh this 2020 over the 2019s for just that reason i think it's worth it honda's done a bunch of changes to this new car one thing they've tried to do is to basically make it more track worthy and i've got a little bit of experience with this some of it is secondhand but i've just heard of a ton of issues with keeping these cars cool on track and i think it depends on the driver and it depends on the track and it depends on the temperature so there's three factors there that are kind of up to anyone's guess i think you're pretty safe in a tight bar if you're on a long fast track where there's a lot of airflow you're pretty safe on a cooler day and but you have to practice good heat management in these cars you have to be a little bit of a mechanical sympathizer you know you can't just go out and expect to flog this thing for 20 minute sessions like you could maybe like a veloster n or a porsche it really does need a lot of cooling work beyond what the factory has offered and that's a consideration you know if you um if you're going to be doing a lot of track days honestly i just recommend getting something naturally aspirated it is so hard to keep turbocharged engines cool on track especially with everything else that they have to handle being a passenger car so as it sits that's a little bit of a bummer um i think you can if you just want to do one or two track days a year you'll probably be okay but you're gonna potentially destroy a set of tires in one track day i've seen tires chunk in 15 minutes in these cars with drivers who are over driving the car and uh really pushing hard and it depends on the surface too like track like gingerman tires were gone in 20 minutes it was it was ridiculous so i think that's a situation where a you know instead of camber plates or you know really dialing in your alignment would be a good option if you're going to be tracking a car like this but you know this is one of those vehicles that would just be a fantastic daily you want to take it out the track you want to push it a little bit here and there you could do it but this is not going to be a dedicated track car without a lot of work and a lot of frustration getting it dialed in kind of a shame because this is a tight bar but that's just the way it is it is one of the best street cars i have ever driven and i would buy one in a heartbeat if i didn't have the volvo 850r and i didn't love that car as much as i do so those are my final thoughts on the civic type bar i uh i think honda's really done a good job with this car this 2020 is more balanced and uh just less disagreeable than it ever has been there is a real uh it's really well sorted they have you know they've made this just a great honda product it's reliable it's practical it does all the things it doesn't sound particularly good it's a little bit buzzy and i think you'd probably get some rattles here and there over time but this feels a little bit more refined in the 2019 i drove last year in that in that respect the ride quality is definitely an improvement over the 2019 i can feel that immediately especially in comfort mode yeah all right guys well hopefully that gives you some further thoughts you know everyone said just about everything they can about this car and um it really is a phenomenal option for the driving enthusiast if the looks bother you get one in black take off all the red pinstriping and go a little bit more stealth with your type r you know there are definitely some questionable styling choices in here i wish honda would just kind of uh maybe maybe go a little bit easier on the fake carbon fiber on the red accents that don't quite match i mean this is this red accent is a completely different color than this red accent and uh a different color from the red on the outside of the car you don't necessarily need to bring the exterior color to the inside and sometimes this red clashes with the exterior colors like in this case i don't know how well the red goes with the blue [Music] so i think the best thing about this car for me is just getting into it and driving it it's refreshingly good to drive in pretty much all situations and that's the selling point here it's just an engaging fun car and it reminds you of what maybe cars were like to drive 10 15 years ago where they just had that little extra fizziness and element of excitement that most manufacturers have tuned out and refined out of most vehicles today [Music] [Music] so there's even torque in sixth gear all right guys thanks for watching we'll wrap up the video there i won't put you through looking at the exterior of this thing one more time but uh we'll just finish the video in the best spot sat here in the driver's seat thanks for sticking around for this one uh hopefully that kind of puts some type r thoughts to rest and you guys get a pretty good idea of what this thing is like to live with we'll see in the next one take care you

Channel: TheTopher

Views: 150,809

Rating: 4.9209661 out of 5

Keywords: pov, car, vehicle, onboard, camera, helmet, gopro, point-of-view, point, of, view, acceleration, driving, exhaust, engine, sound, fast, professional, test, review, interior, exterior, walkaround, walk, around, walk-around, drive, first impressions, binaural audio, stereo, hd, 3d audio, hero7, thetopher, topher

Id: 16sZ81XhwzM

Length: 24min 57sec (1497 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 21 2020