2018 Honda Civic Type R One-Year Review: Do I Have to Give it Back?

We lived for a year with the best hot hatch in decades

Seriously, do I? When I started this year-long evaluation, I wondered what it would be like to live with the Best Hot Hatch in Decades. Now, I'm wondering how I'm going to live without the 2018 Honda Civic Type R. The CTR, as its fans call it, proved to be a consummate, comfy commuter, a maniacal mountain road goer, a multi-record-holding performer, frugal road tripper, and surprisingly spacious and convenient hauler. There may not be a more comprehensively satisfying MotorTrend long-term test car extant. It literally does everything.

Performance

Let's get right to the good stuff. The first Civic Type R (FK8) sold in the States is simply the best performing front-drive production car in history. No stock FWD car will beat it in a straight line, on our figure-eight course, or around any number of racetracks including the infamous Nordschleife "Green Hell" circuit. Nothing will stop or corner with as much tenacity. We wish there were a way to launch it harder, so tricking the self-imposed rev-limiter from a standstill nets "only" a 5.4-second sprint to 60 mph. At about 14,000 miles, our friends at Tire Rack replaced the stock Continental SportContact 6 tires with a set of Michelin Pilot Sport 4S, and we ran the tests again. There were small but measurable improvements in all performance categories, but more important, added confidence and comfort.

Comfort

Comfort is not a quality one would expect from a very sporty, bewinged four-door hatchback, but the Type R is indeed at ease with most road surfaces, and wind noise is surprisingly low and widely dispersed at highway speeds. Riding on 20-inch wheels, but three-way adjustable dampers, the compact Civic hatch's ride is remarkably compliant and quiet, even in Sport or R mode, and especially after switching tires. However, the CTR's 245/30R20 tire sidewalls are less than 3 inches tall and abhor sharp impacts. I even bent a front wheel on a jutting sewer cover.

Seating

Beyond the supple ride, the cloth/Alcantara front seats are perhaps the best seats I've ever enjoyed, and I drive about 200 cars a year. So supportive and bolstered are they that a friend with back troubles noticed and said, "I don't have to brace myself for corners. I'll just sit here with my hands in my lap and enjoy this road with you." And uncomfortable hot spots and fidgeting on long drives vanishes. I expected the tall thigh bolsters to wear, break down, or discolor from a year's worth of unavoidable contact, yet they still look and feel like new. There were no complaints from high-school rear passengers with the exception that the car only holds four people. The air conditioning system never failed to deliver cool/warm air on demand in temperatures from 20 to 105 degrees.

Fuel Consumption

Over the course of a year (377 days) and just over 20,000 miles, the Civic Type R consumed 835 gallons of California-spec 91-octane premium unleaded for a total cost of $3,322 ($8.82 per day). The per-gallon cost for said fuel ranged/rose from $3.20 to $4.70 ($3.97 avg). Our tank-by-tank economy ranged from 12 to 32 mpg depending on locale and personnel, of course. Our annual average was 24 mpg, nearly matching the EPA's 25 mpg combined figure. We saw self-reported fuel economy as high as 34 mpg, but the longest single-day drive between fill-ups was 332 miles with 1.7 gallons to spare. This calculated to 31 mpg, easily surpassing the EPA's 28 mpg highway figure.

Time & Cost

Had our friends at Honda not replaced one of the 20-inch wheels gratis, the bent wheel ordeal would have cost about $500. The Civic Type R was never out of service, except for two mornings for its scheduled maintenance and one to swap out the tires. At around 6,000 miles, the cost of the "A1" service (oil change, inspection, tire rotation, etc.) was $97. The 15,000-mile "B1" service would've cost the same for the same jobs (minus the would-be tire rotation, skipped because of its new $1,380 Michelins), but we had a coupon for a $50 service. However, the dealership called and found that the rear brake pads needed replacing ($222). "Odd," I thought, since the Brembo fronts do most of the braking. In fact, this is a common trait for the FK8 CTR, and its rear brakes do most of the work stabilizing the car on twisting mountain roads driven at a spirited pace—even with VSA stability control system supposedly disabled and in R diving mode. In total, we plunked down about $2,250 to keep the car running happy. Subtracting fresh tires and the bent wheel, that's $369 more than our 2015 Subaru WRX STI and 2017 BMW M2, both of which were covered with $0 paid for routine scheduled maintenance for three years or 36,000 miles.

Retained Value

Since it's still common to see in-showroom +$10,000 "market-adjusted" window stickers on these particularly desirable Civics, you might expect them to retain their value, as well. You're right. Our partners at IntelliChoice assume 42,000 miles at the end of three years and the Civic Type R's value to be a whopping 87 percent of its new price. I scoured our long-term reviews to find similar performance cars' values. Well, that same 2015 Subaru WRX STI retained just 58 percent, and the 2017 BMW M2 was closer with a 76 percent residual value. The Civic Type R might have set another record.

Gripes

It took time to get used to the CTR's styling, but it really grew on me. I already covered the stock wheel/tire difficulties, and if it were truly my car, I think a set of 18-inchers with taller sidewalls would not only look tougher, but also would've taken the cringes out of every sharp impact without sacrificing much in steering precision. The Civic Type R community knows about the car's brake squeal at low speed with light pedal pressure. Solution: upgrade the front pads. But I'm happy to report the new, 2019 Civic Type R has an actual volume knob, as well as physical buttons to access oft-used HVAC functions, so those gripes have been addressed. However, the aluminum shift knob doesn't like extremes in either direction: ice-cube cold or branding-iron hot depending on the ambient, so the microfiber cloth I used to wipe the screen was also put to oven mitt duty.

Conclusion

I loved my year in the 2018 Civic Type R so much that I asked Honda if I could buy it. I happily commuted, tore up Angeles Crest/Forest with zeal and confidence, comfortably emptied a tank or two in one sitting, and even hauled (not at one time) a set of four vintage speakers for repair, two loaner tower speakers, a 6-foot ladder, a small office table, and so on. Like I said, this car literally does it all. Also, with the car's sole manufacturing facility closing in Swindon, England, its future was unsure. It would retain its value even more, or so I thought. Our friends at Honda reassured me that other facilities, like the one in Ohio, will be drafted to accommodate the relatively low production numbers of the Civic Type R. Our Helpful Honda People, however, also know the car's value, so the price they proposed was out of my price range. Darn it.

Would I recommend the Civic Type R to a friend? You bet I would. There isn't a more accomplished front-drive hot hatch available at any price.