Three variants were launched for Malaysia :- Civic 1.8, two types of Civic 2.0 - with and without the NAVI option, and finally as suspected before the launch, the Civic Hybrid as well. Prices are extremely competitive, with the Civic 2.0l non-NAVI for e.g. seeing a price increase of only RM1k. Meanwhile the Civic Hybrid makes its return and is now going for just below RM120k on the road with full insurance.
I will be putting up a full coverage of the ASEAN 9G Civic very soon on TOVA. In the meantime I wish to cover a couple of questions I raised during the press conference, which I believe should be of great interest to TOV/TOVA'ers and so should be given priority in answering.
The first question I clarified about this new ASEAN 9G Civic was about the interior. As regular TOV/TOVA'ers will now be familiar with, when the USDM 9G Civic, it received some quite polarized comments and some of the most negative ones centered around its interior. They were primarily targeted at what was perceived to be low quality materials used in the interior. I asked the chief engineer who was present at the launch about this. He was surprised I knew about this issue as it is related to the USDM models but he very readily admitted to knowing about the comments/concerns. He replied that the materials are not identical. Obviously the suppliers are different which means the materials are different. However, the actual specifications of the materials are similar. Nevertheless, there are detailed changes to the interior including more padding for the seats.
As I have not seen the insides of the 9G USDM Civic up close, I am unable to make a personal comparison. What I can offer is a photo of the dashboard of the 1.8 Civic. For direct comparison, the 1.8 Civic variant should be used as it is the only common variant between the USDM and ASEAN line-up. The other common variant in both line-up is the Civic Hybrid but the one launched by Honda Malaysia comes with a leather interior so may not be a fair comparison. Both 2.0 Civic types comes with leather interior as standard. In any case, there is no 2.0l variant in the USDM line-up. Nevertheless, I also put up a photo of the dashboard of the 2.0 Civic for those who might be interested.
The other major question I directed at the chief engineer during the press conference concerns any specification differences between the suspensions of the AEAN and USDM Civics. To this he confirms that the settings are different. Apparently Honda perceives the expectations of US and ASEAN drivers to be different so the suspensions are tuned differently. US drivers are thought to prefer 'sharp response' which I believe means a preference for better handling. This probably entails compromises in ride comfort. ASEAN drivers on the other hand is perceived to want 'stable ride' which I believe means a soft, cushy comfortable ride. Given this information, the infamous complaint made by the US Consumer Reviews magazine, about the 9G Civic having 'choppy ride', can probably be put into proper perspective by ASEAN TOV/TOVA'ers who are interested in the 9G Civic but are concerned about the CR review.I will have a more complete coverage in the proper TOVA article.
