2020 Honda Civic Type R - POV Review

hey guys welcome to the 2020 honda civic type r as many of you know i love this car i've been really excited to drive the 2020 with all the updates and changes they've made i think the goal of this video is just going to be to see is this even more special and more compelling of a purchase than it was before with all of these changes you can see one of them right in front of me this is the alcantara steering wheel that's new for 2020. it feels really good in hand it's nice and soft hopefully it wears well over time but in about 3000 miles of journalist use it seems pretty much brand new we also have an alcantara shift boot a different shift knob that's reminiscent of the integra type r a little bit heavier and i believe honda's also changed the shift linkage to just give you better feel we've got some more changes on the outside the first that you'll notice is this boost blue it's taken me a little bit to warm up to but after spending a few days with it i think it's a pretty good looking color it has a nice contrast with some of the red accents on the interior and i think a lot of people will really really like this color we have an updated front braking system so we have solid two-piece rotors now instead of drilled which is just better for brake cooling and uh performance daily driving there's lots of inherent advantages to having just a plain rotor face we also have a different set of pads that will hopefully reduce fade on track and just be a little bit better all around performer same massive slightly ridiculous looking 20 inch wheels but that's okay honda has enlarged the front grille opening for a little bit better cooling they've blocked out this area here so it's no longer a fake grille and they've added a little accent they've revised the front splitter too to compensate for the extra downforce from that larger grille opening and around back they've also changed these vents and i think they actually look pretty good there's a little bit of a separation between the back piece of plastic and the vent itself and uh it doesn't look as fake it looks slightly more functional now which is nice otherwise the same type r we've all come to love or hate depending on what camp you're in i personally think this is just one of the best performance buys on the market i love the space i love the usability of it i do wish honda offered it with some type of compact spare tire solution i think there is something that you can get through honda accessories that will work i did take it however this week on a 900 mile road trip and uh it was fine no issues these seats fold pretty much flat giving you a ton of cargo space you don't quite get the same exciting seats in the back as you do get in the front but hon does give you red seat belts which is exciting lots of space to stretch out in the back seats i'm five foot ten set to my driving position i just have a ton of room in here it's fantastic you could fit four normal or large size adults in here no problem not something you can necessarily say for a lot of the other cars in this class under the hood we have the same 2-liter turbocharged engine that makes 306 horsepower and 295 pound-feet of torque this thing is just a masterpiece it's one of the best performance 2-liter turbocharged engines i've ever driven and i think it's probably one of the best on the market today it's fantastic it is a powerhouse it's efficient it's just an amazing motor honda outdid themselves on this all right guys well i think that kind of covers a lot of the changes and that's a pretty good general walk around with a type r let's take this thing for a drive that's what it's all about and we'll see if some of these changes translate to a better driving experience behind the wheel before we get started with this drive i would like to thank our sponsor for this video phantom wallet they've been an awesome sponsor of the channel this year and i do really enjoy using this wallet on a daily basis it's just kind of taken out the bulge out of my back pocket and made things just a little bit sleeker and slimmer in daily use so i do really like this as a product and i do use it every day i wouldn't wouldn't promote something that i didn't actually enjoy using they also have the phantom touch guard which is a brass anti-microbial hand tool that you can use to open touch push and just kind of go about your daily life with and it's definitely not a substitute for proper sanitation during coven 19 but it does give you just a little bit of separation from just touching things in day-to-day use so they sell a number of products on their website if you guys are interested in anything that they offer use the code topher15 for 15 off big thanks to phantomwallet for their support this year let's get on with the video when you start up the civic type r it puts you straight into sport mode you have three drive modes comfort sport and plus r and to be honest one of my biggest concerns with this type r and the changes that they made is what does it sound like now with the new active sound control a lot of customers complained that on track and in driving scenarios they couldn't quite hear their type r and they wanted it to sound a little bit better so honda has put in or piped in some engine noise through the speakers that's what it sounds like in sport okay so pretty much sounds like it did before just a big vacuum cleaner in comfort there's very little active sound control it's a little bit quieter let's see what it's like in plus r you can hear the exhaust note get just a little bit more aggressive there when i drove the civic si a few months ago they had done the same changes to the si many of the same changes that they have done to this type r but so many of those changes in additions are better and different in a type r so the moral of the story is you can't judge a civic type r based on the si which i'm glad to report is that's a very good thing [Music] you can hear it's just a little bit more artificial in plus our mode let's do a little pull here and give you guys an idea what it sounds like all the way through the rev range i think on track this is a good thing because you can actually hear the car now when you got the windows down you just had trouble hearing where your revs were at and when when to shift and this kind of helps solve that problem so i'm not terribly disappointed with the way this active sound control sounds i think it could be better but it also could be a lot worse it could sound a little bit more like the civic si which i think is just it's horrible using my phone here too much acceleration to be honest i haven't really driven this car this much this week in plus r mode so not really an issue and i think overall it's a it's a positive for the car um it really hasn't bothered me and if you do want to disable it you just go into the glove box unscrew four screws in the dash and pull that down and you unplug a little module and that's it gone stock same as before i love the traction control system in this car so i haven't really felt the need to turn it off all week and that's because it's pretty liberal it lets you get a little bit of wheel spin even with it on it doesn't completely shut things down like a lot of other cars do it's a very good traction control system it works well with the front differential it actually lets you have traction this thing is so good you guys i have really really enjoyed driving this type bar this week i think i've probably driven it most in comfort uh put it into sport mode a couple times but to be honest these drive modes are really well tuned for what they are a lot of people would want to isolate different settings like steering weight and feel and engine tone and engine responsiveness and though that would be nice sometimes it's good to just keep things simple and that's what honda has done here each drive mode is tuned very well for the desired intent and um i think honestly these three modes are just they're perfect for what they are and for what they do for me that's more of a complaint on paper and in theory than it is in practice also in comfort mode ride comfort is a little bit improved i can tell there's just a little bit of a difference with even without having to drive both 19 and 20s back to back i can tell this rides a little bit softer especially in comfort mode they've increased the damper frequency by about 10x so it can respond to bumps go from full stiff to soft a lot quicker than before [Music] just little changes whenever a manufacturer does a refresh of a car like this and they make a bunch of little changes i get really excited because that means they've taken what consumers and owners have complained about and improved upon them and that's what honda's done here with this type r this is such a well-rounded performance car my biggest complaint with this car is just the wheels and the tires the wheels are too big the tires are too small that's an easy fix though pretty much everyone who's bought one of these things has gone to 18s and uh i think everyone is pretty much the better for it so that's probably the first thing i would do if i had a tight bar is i just swapped the wheels out for a smaller wheel and tire setup this is a gearbox that does not like to be rushed like all hondas you kind of have to take your time when you're shifting this thing especially one two from high rpms this car asks just a little bit of mechanical sympathy from you with regards to its gearbox so getting onto the highway you can easily adjust all this honda sensing stuff lane keep assessed works great keeps it really well centered it's been very reliable for me this week not buggy like it was in the civic si radar gutter cruise control is fantastic again reliable not buggy if a car moves over into the other lane and slows down the civic type bar pretty much keeps its speed which is great this thing eats up miles on the highway i've been averaging about 27 28 29 miles to the gallon no matter how i drive it this week these seats have been super comfortable i have great visibility the exhaust is a little bit droney but it hasn't worn on me again i did like six seven hour stints in this car up north and uh it was fantastic i really really like the way this car just gets the job done on the highway kind of a bummer the fuel tank is so small in this uh it does really only get 300 miles out of a tank max i was probably doing like 260 to 280 so it's something to consider but again high performance car keeps the weight down not the not a deal breaker not the end of the world you can easily control your speed five mile increments by holding the button this is coming from one of the most rudimentary cruise control systems in the previous model years and this is a big update this is actually a big reason why i would go for a 2020 civic type r as opposed to any of the other options there are just so many little changes in this 2020 that add up to make this car even more special than it always has been i absolutely love the way this thing drives i think it is just honda's knocked out of the park with his new type bar if i didn't have my volvo i'd buy one i'd go buy one in a heartbeat i absolutely have loved driving this thing this week it's totally rekindled my want for one of these what else can i talk about um rev matching feels about the same it seems a little bit more reliable again it won't quite give you revs under two grand so occasionally i'll give it a little blip with my foot i do wish you could change that setting a little bit easier with just a button instead of having to go through five screens in the menu but that's the way it is these brakes are just about perfection the feel the pedal travel has been reduced by a little bit and the brake braking performance on this car is just sublime i cannot believe how well they perform and the feel from them is absolutely fantastic so and that was in comfort mode oh the brakes on this are just they hurt your skull so this honda sensing is actually pretty cool and how it works especially with the manual transmission so you can set it the system kind of remains on all the time unless we hit the main button so when you start it up all you have to do is hit set and you can shift gears up and down as the vehicle accelerates and decelerates it's fantastic lane keep assist works really well it does add a little bit of weight to the steering and i'd really only recommend using it on the highway uh but if you just need to kind of shuffle around with something in apple carplay or what have you it's a really useful feature it does tend to hunt around quite a bit on low speed back roads as you can see here but for the most part it's pretty good so let's see how it handles the stop light here i'm gonna down shift it's slowing down i'm not pressing the brakes but i am downshifting and i believe below a certain speed it's just going to disable yeah so we're going to under 15 20 miles an hour it'll turn off so it's probably not something you want to use in traffic but as a cruise control system that works with a manual transmission it's great all right let's do one last entrance ramp we'll put it in plus r suspension gets super stiff oh boy it's a pretty big difference this car just gets so active too in this mode a little bit of liftoff oversteer the front end is darty it's just fantastic and down into comfort again just awesome i have not driven a front wheel drive car in the modern era that is this visceral and this exciting and this high performance honestly this uh this is a new bar for front-wheel drive performance honda has tuned out a lot of the disagreeable understeer torque steer but for me unless if you're driving in inclement weather or trying to rally your daily this is the way to go it's just so so good all right guys while we're just cruising here let's do a sound system test in the sidebar [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so hey if you're [Music] [Music] right [Music] good [Music] two [Music] uh i think it's acceptable it's not the best sound system some songs sound pretty grainy and not that great depends on your audio source of course but [Music] i think most buyers of this car would be reasonably happy with the way it sounds so to sum things up if you're thinking about getting a civic type bar and it kind of fits within your philosophy of what you want out of a car this is the best front-wheel drive car on the market and it's probably the best front-wheel drive car that's been made in the last 15 to 20 years it's just it's just so good it's so fun it's so enjoyable it's really really well [Music] sorted and well put together a car like this makes every drive and every trip just a little bit more exciting every time i get into this i look forward to it i look forward to driving it it's a little bit of a challenge it's kind of a next level of performance too for i think a lot for a lot of the buyers who are getting into a car like this um you know you can get a veloster in but despite the way that thing looks it feels childish this car looks childish feels grown up it's kind of counter-intuitive but that's just the way it is all right guys well i think that's going to sum up the civic type r for me same civic type r just incrementally better and uh if you're on the fence waiting for the 2020 model year to come out this is the one to get i think and uh even if you're spending a little bit more money about 37 000 a little over 37 grand now for the 2020 with the changes i do think it's worth it show you guys the reverse camera here all right guys thanks for watching and also a big thanks to our sponsor phantom wallet for the support of the channel love the type r again it just keeps getting better and better all right guys that's it for this one we'll see in the next video take care you

Channel: TheTopher

Views: 635,936

Rating: 4.9077125 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: S-3A7lsbS2c

Length: 25min 12sec (1512 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 16 2020