The 2020 Honda Civic Hatch is a small five-seater hatch that looks great and feels great to drive! It's really instinctive and punchy to drive in this sporty RS spec but how good is it as a BabyDrive? Let's find out…
As with all cars of this shape, the low roofline is a consideration and it definitely affects loading kids and child seats in and out of the back seats. Also, when bending down and in to do up harnesses and seatbelts get a little back-breaking doing it multiple times a day.
Two child seats fit in the back of the Honda Civic RS Hatch without room between them for a passenger or third seat. There are three top tether anchorages accessible through the boot so you could put one child seat in the middle seat and squeeze a passenger on either side if you needed to.
There are ISOFix points in the two outer rear seats too. We found legroom really tricky, with a rear-facing capsule installed there is room for a 162cm driver in front of it. Or with a forward-facing child seat installed there is room for a 182cm driver in front.
Space has been better applied to the boot, where we could fit ten shopping bags from empty or a medium-sized dog.
A twin stroller fits in the boot of the Civic Hatch with one shopping bag and all other prams and strollers we tested fitted with a few shopping bags beside them. See the below “Storage” section for more detail.
There is a great retractable roller blind in the boot of the Honda Civic Hatch that comes from the side of the boot rather than the back. It is sooooo much simpler to use than any other cargo blind I have encountered.
Storage inside the cabin of the 2020 Honda Civic Hatch is quite good. There are two good-sized cup holders in the front and rear, a generously sized glove box and the door bins all hold large refillable water bottles.
There is a two-tiered phone charging/storage area in the central console with 12V and USB sockets.
The Honda Civic Hatch also has a left-hand indicator camera, which is a fantastic BabyDrive feature!
It comes on automatically when you indicate left, or you can turn it on with a button on the end of the indicator stalk. I found we turned it on for most entire journeys because my little one loved watching it! She thought we were racing the cars next to us!
The media system does have Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, which is really handy and the media system is quite simple to navigate and use.
One of the things I loved the most was the easy to access day/night button on the top of the screen allowing you to very easily put it on night mode when it was nap time!!
The reversing camera image is a little pixellated but it fills the screen so you get a nice big image and you can turn the sensors off easily in the central console.
One of the main updates is the push-buttons down the right side of the screen, they are much easier to use than the weird touch-sensitive controls of the previous Civic Hatch I tested.
The 2020 Honda Civic Hatch is a great five-seater hatchback, however, in terms of practicality for a family, the roofline is very low and we would definitely be hitting kids' heads on it as well as our own! The legroom is tight if you need to fit rear-facing child seats too. However, it is such a fun car to drive and I would definitely enjoy that every time I do the school run!
The 2020 Honda Civic Hatch has a five-star ANCAP safety rating from 2017 models onwards and six airbags as standard.
BabyDrive Indepth
BabyDrive Indepth - Storage
How good is the storage in the 2020 Honda Civic Hatch? How big is the boot of the 2020 Honda Civic Hatch?
The 2020 Honda Civic Hatch has two cup holders in the central console storage box that will hold a reusable and disposable coffee cup. The storage box is quite small and the padded lid doubles as your armrest.
There is a two-tiered phone charging well in front of the gear lever that has 12V sockets and USB ports, it's good for having space for passengers' phones to charge as well as the driver's.
The glovebox is a good size to hold my iPad and wallet with the manual too.
The front door pockets will hold a large refillable water bottle, with a little space behind it and there are storage wells in the door handles too.
In the back, there is a map pocket on the back of the front passenger seat that will hold and conceal an iPad.
There are two cup holders in the back, in a fold-down armrest in the central seatback. They will hold a disposable and reusable coffee cup in them.
The rear door bins are much smaller and will just hold a large refillable water bottle. There are storage wells in the handles too.
In the boot, storage is good for a hatch holding ten shopping bags from empty.
The boot space and its functionality are really important. I like to have a big boot space and little side wells or areas I can divide things into. So something I don’t want to move around while I’m driving such as Tulsi’s lunch bag or her wet swimming gear can be sectioned off in a little well where it’s not going to spill or get squashed by the rest of the things in the boot.
Hooks for securing shopping bags to are also favourites of mine, I like being able to secure the bag containing more fragile things like eggs so they don’t move around on the journey.
I measure the boot space in freezer shopping bags, prams and dogs. Not because I think all there is to a mum’s life is food shopping, prams and dogs. (Although it can feel like it sometimes!!) But because these are visually mesurable items we can all associate with. For me, the car company boot measurement of litres is not an amount I can easily visualise and 400L in one car may differ in usability to that in another due to the configuration or shape of the space.
Boot space in the Civic Hatch is comparable to the Mazda3 and Hyundai i30 which both also hold ten shopping bags. The Toyota Corolla holds nine shopping bags whereas the Ford Focus and Kia Cerato both hold eleven.
A Duet twin stroller fits with one shopping bag.
A tandem pram fits with three shopping bags.
The single pram fits with three shopping bags around it.
The compact stroller fits with seven shopping bags beside it.
You could fit a medium-sized dog in the boot of the Honda Civic Hatch.
The boot opening is nice and wide, great for lifting prams in and out of and the floor is nice and flat and even, great for dogs and for an emergency nappy change on the boot floor!
BabyDrive Indepth - Noise
How noisy is the Honda Civic Hatch? How good is the media system in the Honda Civic Hatch?
The Honda Civic Hatch does have some annoying noises! It beeps and dongs when you start it up without your seatbelt fastened, which is irritating and I find starts a journey in a harassed manner! Living in Queensland, I always get the aircon running when I start the car.
The media system is improved in the latest Honda Civic Hatch, it has new press buttons down the right-hand side of the screen which works much better than the previous model‘s ribbed touch-sensitive panel.
The media system is relatively easy to use and navigate. It does have Apple CarPlay and Android Auto which is great.
The reversing camera has different views you can select in the bottom left corner; the image is a little bit pixellated but it does fill the whole media screen and you can turn the parking sensors off with a button by the driver's right knee.
Becoming a parent I soon realised there are some noises and sounds I feel are unnecessary and I could happily live without if it meant my baby stayed asleep!!
That often the distraction of my screaming, distressed baby is more dangerous when driving than not having a lane departure warning for example.
If it is the lane departure warning beeping that creates distress with my baby then which is safest?
It’s where I think we need to be able to strike a balance and choose when we can mute the warnings or swap them to a vibration in the steering wheel or flashing light perhaps?
A lot of these noises come with the increase in technology and especially linked to safety features and alerts. For me these all have their place.
Another thing I have realised is I spend my time in a lot more places where small children roam, parks, beaches, play gyms, swimming lessons, daycare centre etc. I have become more aware that when I’m reversing or manouvering in the car parks I have to tripple check for small children running around behind me or being in my blind spot when reversing. For this I LOVE reversing cameras, I just don’t like their beeping sounds!!
I have become so much more aware of safety and potential accidents or hazards since having a child and so I love the peace of mind that I get from the cameras and sensors combined with my own vision from windows and mirrors as I don’t trust cameras alone.
The Hoda Civic Hatch has a left-hand indicator camera which is a fantastic feature. You can turn it on at any time by pressing the button on the end of the indicator stalk. Or it comes on automatically when you indicate left.
It's great for being able to see beside you when changing lanes and also when parallel parking. It is excellent in the dark for judging how far you have passed a slower vehicle on the motorway before switching back to the left-hand lane and dodging those lane-weavers!
You can lock the doors and windows from the driver's door control panel.
The indicator is not too loud at all and would not disturb a sleeping baby in the Honda Civic Hatch.
The windows in the Honda Civic Hatch open and close relatively quietly and are not baby waking. However, the doors are quite noisy to shut.
With baby asleep you can get in and out without worrying the doors will be too noisy. The same for the windows their mechanism is not too noisy and I didn’t notice them having a loud opening or closing sound.
With baby asleep you want to be able to get in and out without worrying the doors will be too noisy and wake Bub up!
An alarm did not sound when I came to a stop, took off my seatbelt and opened the door with the engine still running.
Since becoming a mum I spend A LOT of time parked up somewhere with a nice view while my daughter is asleep in the back! If it's hot I need to leave the engine running and the aircon on but I do like to get out and drink my cuppa tea in the fresh air while enjoying the fact my limbs are free from said dangling child!!
SO this is a very important test as I have found that sometimes I have been held hostage by a cars BEEEEPING alarms when I have taken off my seatbelt or opened the door while the engine is still running!! (I only stand outside the car, I am not a bad mother!!)
BabyDrive Indepth - Car Seats
How many child seats fit in the Honda Civic Hatch?
The Honda Civic Hatch can fit two child seats in the back! It has ISOFix points in the two outer rear seats, they are not within plastic guides and are quite buried so are a little tricky to connect to.
There are top tether anchorages on the back of the outer two rear backrests and the central one is in the boot floor. They are all within plastic guides and are nice and easy to access through the boot and connect to.
There are two chrome cargo tie-down points on the floor in the boot of the Honda Civic Hatch very close to the child seat top tether anchorages. Labelling clearly shows which ones are for child seats but there will always be someone who gets confused and connects a child seat to the wrong points. This would be a user error but could have dire consequences.
Fitting child seats in the Honda Civic Hatch is made difficult by the low roofline and narrow door openings.
I found I could not fit between the two child seats, there simply is not enough room for a person or third seat.
With a forward-facing child seat, we found a 182cm driver or passenger could fit in front.
With a rear-facing child seat installed a 162cm driver could fit in front. Legroom is a consideration if you are needing to put child seats in especially if they are rear-facing.
Also posting bub into their child seat is a consideration too. It is incredibly difficult from outside the car because of the low roofline and positioning of the side pillars and doors. It is actually easier from inside the car if you only have one child seat installed.
There is room to feed bub in the back with only one child seat installed.
Australia being a country of weather extremes blazing sun and torrential rain means you may find it easier to put bub into their seat from inside the car. If it’s hot you can get the aircon going, cool the car down and not stand out in the heat with the door open while you fasten them in or shelter from the rain and not get soaked yourself whilst you’re doing it. So it is important to test whether bub can be easily installed from either direction.
The seats in the back of the Honda Civic Hatch we tested are black leather-like fabric with minimal stitching and detail which would be easy to wipe clean of kids' crumbs and spills!
BabyDrive Indepth - Drive & Comfort
How comfortable is a Honda Civic Hatch?
The front seats of the Honda Civic Hatch we tested are comfortable. Their perforated panels would be hard to keep clean but they are not perforated in the back where the kids would sit, which is great.
I found I couldn't wear a ponytail while driving though!
I had spent hours styling my hair this morning to get it just right too… said no new mum ever!!!
The steering wheel is fully adjustable in/out and up/down.
The cruise controls are on the right side on the steering wheel. They are relatively easy to use and I found the adaptive cruise control was good but it gets carried away over the selected speed on undulating roads at lower speeds but was more accurate on flat faster motorway driving.
There are four air-con vents across the front dash. Two above the media screen, and one at either end of the dash.
There are no air vents in the back of the Honda Civic RS Hatch which would be really bad for keeping rear passengers cool in the Australian summer.
The controls for the air-con are centrally located on the dashboard and easy to reach and use while driving and some controls are within the media screen. The front seats are also heated which is nice for the winter!
Visibility was better than I thought it would be when maneuvering and parking. The split rear windscreen does help with visibility lower down if you do not have prams covering it in the boot. For rear-facing passengers that split rear window does give a lot of glass area for the sun to come streaming in onto them though which is definitely a BabyDrive consideration. The rear side windows are also quite small and they are not very deep which makes visibility for rear-facing passengers quite difficult.
One thing I have noticed since being a mum is I hate it when I reach a destination or get home from being out and Tulsi has either done really well in the car or she is screaming her head off and I have done really well to keep it together for the entire journey (usually the latter!!) and it takes 10 minutes to park the car! It can be really stressful. Usually I dread when we drive big cars and utes as they tend to take longer to park in our tight apartment block carpark, the Honda Civic Hatch was quite easy especially with the two cameras to drive and to park!
In the back, the ceiling lights a tucked in behind the handles above the rear doors. I couldn't reach them from the front.
Both front visors have lit vanity mirrors in the model I drove and there is no glasses case in the ceiling in the front.
In the back, the interior light is situated centrally in the ceiling but towards the back, so I could not reach it from the driver's seat and it would be difficult to reach from outside the back doors when putting a child into their child seat.
There are handles above the rear doors on either side in the back which are perfect for hanging a baby toy from.
I often will reach back to turn on the interior light if I am driving at night time, I find my little girl gets less distressed traveling at night that way. It helps if I can reach the interior light from the drivers seat so I can turn it on and off whilst driving. I often find my daughter will need it on as we start our journey in the dark but once she falls asleep I can turn it off.
It is also useful when there are lights situated above the doors where the handles are usually positioned. These are good for when putting baby into their child seats when visibility is poor, so you do not have to reach across them to a light situated in the ceiling centrally etc.
The Honda Civic range all come with six airbags and load-limiting pre-tensioner seatbelts in the front as standard. The six airbags include driver and front passenger front and side airbags and curtain airbags for the front and rear side passengers.
Some of these safety features are also features that drive me crazy as a mum! Like the lane departure and forward collision alert or the parking sensor beeping sound.
I want all the safety technology AND to be able to mute the sound when my daughter’s asleep!
Tace Clifford founded BabyDrive in 2017 after discovering a huge information gap in mainstream car reviews that left new parents and expanding families in the dark when it came to one of the biggest purchasing decisions of their lives.
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