I appreciate greatly the fuel economy, though that seems to dip between tune-ups significantly. The ride is a little quirky, with strange stalls and starts, but overall pretty smooth. Lots of road noise to compete with the mediocre sound system, and blind spots previously unimaginable.

The Honda Civic is the poster child for how to build a reliable timeless car. My first one went over 250,000 miles on the original clutch and never needed more than standard maintenance before I totaled it. My 'new'' 2009 has the same reliability and feels like a refreshed version of the previous generations.