Honda Civic Tourer

The Civic tourer doesn’t come with a spare wheel. that one dark cloud was the foil to an otherwise sparkling silver lining of a loaded-to-the-gills camping adventure to the Cote d’Azur back in July. Day to day, the thought of a flat tyre barely enters my head, but once over the Channel I couldn’t put the thought of a stranded, puncture-stricken Honda estate out of my mind. (And no, I don’t have much faith in the supplied DIY puncture repair kit, although the on-board electric pump has been useful.)

Anyway, the upside to that particular down is that there’s a sizeable storage compartment under the Civic’s boot floor in place of a spare wheel well. I use it regularly it holds a big weekend shop and stops the bags from spilling their contents on the drive home but it was extra-super useful on the trip to France.

What with that, the regular load bay and the versatile magic seats, we were able to pack a truly astounding amount of kit for the three-up trip to France. In the rear cabin alone, with the ‘40’ section of the 40/60 split/fold/flip-up rear bench in its raised ‘magic’ position, the tourer swallowed (take a breath) a lightweight pushchair, one oar, a fire extinguisher, a first aid kit, a pair of roof bars (for use on arrival dans le sud), one adult camping chair, one toddler’s camping chair, a child’s scooter, a
two-year-old child, her car seat, a toy pushchair, assorted soft toys, two rain coats, three pairs of shoes, a holdall full of clothes, a picnic rucksack, a large cool box and a four-man tent. the camping mattresses, pillows, sleeping bags, third camping chair, camping stove, gas cylinder, inflatable canoe, assorted kitchen utensils and food, child’s beach tent, parasol, beach mats, picnic tables, towels, nappies, sun creams, tool box and lord knows what else went in the boot and under the boot floor.

even more amazing than the faintly ridiculous amount of stuff we took was how unflustered the car was by having it all on board, both on the autoroute-only drive down and, more amazingly still, on the Alpine detour we took home.

the key is weight distribution. the magic seats allow a lot of mass to be stored low down and well between the wheels, while that underfloor boot compartment, if used for heavier items not stored in the rear cabin, again helps to keep the centre of gravity low. remember, too, that the Civic’s fuel tank is under the front seats. so with much of that full load kept low down and centralised, the adaptive dampers in their firmest Dynamic setting and the tyres inflated to full-load pressures, the effect on the tourer’s overall balance was marginal.

Honestly, were it not for the slightly strangled engine performance (it’s only a 118bhp 1.6-litre diesel, remember), you’d barely know you were knocking on the door of the car’s gross weight limit. truly impressive stuff.

the tourer’s overall average economy did take a mild beating on the 2108-mile round trip, though, dropping from 59.9mpg before to 57.2mpg after (it has since been teased back up to 60mpg). even so, it still managed 56.5mpg at a rock-solid stable, cruise-controlled 81mph the French autoroute speed limit which is pretty good going.

that’s with the ‘econ’ button pressed (in the diesel Civic it only affects the cruise control and air-con, not the throttle pedal mapping, which is pretty ‘econ’ straight out of the box), meaning the car would lose a couple of miles per hour on the long uphill bits rather than use more fuel to sustain a set speed. seems like a fair trade.

Any problems? the sat-nav had a hiccup on the way down, spending a morning insisting we were about 60 miles to the west of the A6 autoroute we were on. We knew where we were and where we wanted to be, so it didn’t cause a problem, but if we hadn’t, things could have got confusing.

the only other issue was that the driving position felt increasingly cramped as the miles piled up. As we’ve said before, the Civic’s high-set front seats (due to that underseat fuel tank) aren’t to all tastes, and my legs were left wanting for stretching/fidgeting room on the longer cruise-controlled bits of autoroute. still, anything would have been uncomfortable after the 17 out of 21 hours spent at the wheel on the final day/night’s slog from Albertville, via the mont blanc tunnel, several Alpine cols, one mind-boggingly spectacular electrical storm and p&O’s finest from Calais to Dover, back home to blighty. 

everything else, however, went swimmingly. the tourer didn’t miss a beat, although I’m still finding sand and other bits of beach in the cabin’s nooks and crannies more than six weeks on.And no, we didn’t get a puncture.