2020 Honda Civic Type-R Introduce

2020 Honda Civic Type-R Introduce https://youtu.be/d_nuQ-fzH5c

How much do we love driving the Honda Civic Type R? Deputy features editor Jared Gall summed up the ultimate Civic's pure steering, hypersharp brake pedal, and all-around dynamic rightness in just two carefully chosen words: "F**k me."

And we have indeed found ourselves, uh, screwed from time to time by our fiery hatchback, with nearly all its issues being of the round and black variety. We've already covered that in its first month, a pothole ended a front wheel and tire; less than two weeks later, we discovered a nail in that brand-new tire, which a local shop patched for $31.
At 8873 miles, the front tire that hadn't been replaced was completely worn, a record in burning through rubber in our long-term fleet. So we ordered a $304 replacement from Tire Rack. While mounting this new tire and rebalancing and rotating the others, we discovered that the other front wheel was bent. We had that one straightened for $150.

All of this happened before even the first scheduled service at 10,000 miles, a simple $58 oil change and inspection. That service also calls for a tire rotation, but Honda should really program a specific service schedule for the Type R that calls for tire rotations every 5000 miles, rather than the Civic norm of 10,000. Doing that may have extended the extra-short life of our front tire to 15,000 miles.
We can't help but notice that the Civic's long-term stablemate Hyundai Veloster N has not had a single wheel or tire issue; perhaps its 0.02-g-less cornering grip and 11-foot-longer stopping distance from 70 mph are worth the trade-offs of longer life and less susceptibility to damage. We're definitely planning to downsize the Civic's wheels and upsize the tires' sidewalls when we procure our winter-tire setup.

Nits to Pick
The only other issue of significance has been false low-tire-pressure warnings. Unlike most new cars today, which monitor pressure directly with a sensor on each tire, the Civic uses a less expensive approach that closely observes individual wheel speeds to sniff out low pressures. (Low pressure causes the diameter of that tire to be slightly smaller and thus rotate slightly faster than the others.) But on multiple separate occasions, the alert flashed, which caused panic, given all the tire issues we've had. We'd stop and check the pressures, and all was well, so we'd reprogram the system and head on our way.
The Type R has mostly stayed local, other than the visit to Peter Cunningham's collection of Hondas near Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and a 1200-mile trek down and back to this year's Lightning Lap track test at Virginia International Raceway. The Civic's average fuel economy remains 25 mpg.

Complaints about the Type R have centered on its uninspired exhaust note—drawing comparisons with the livelier Veloster N, which relies on active exhaust flaps to make its music—the stereo's sound quality, and that the Civic is still soldiering on with Honda's outdated infotainment, rather than the much-improved system in its newer vehicles. Someone even took issue with the Type R defaulting to its Sport driving mode rather than Comfort, but he's wrong.