The compact sedan is the cheeseburger and fries of the automotive world. Everybody’s had one. Pretty much everybody’s OK with them. You can get by with a mediocre one and enjoy a truly high-end one. But you ultimately want a satisfying one that’s very good for its reasonable price.
Every restaurant has to have one, whether it’s McDonald’s or a Michelin-starred joint where the fries are triple-cooked, and duck fat is involved. And if a restaurant serves you a bad one, you’re not going back.
This analogy comes back around to cars. We promise.
If the compact sedan is the cheeseburger and fries of the automotive world, then the 2023 Honda Civic is the perfect, better-than-its-price meal. Almost every automaker builds a compact sedan. But, in 2023, no other company builds one this good at a price this reasonable.
We’ve given out a Compact Car Best Buy Award for nine years, and the Civic has now taken it eight times — including this year.
How We Decide
Our editors spend all year evaluating cars for our annual Best Buy Awards.
We test drive more than 300 vehicles yearly to write our detailed reviews.
We flag those that combine affordability, dependability, reliability, and low ownership and operating costs as possible award winners. Our data analysts then take a detailed look at the financial aspects of owning each. They calculate the 5-Year Cost to Own, factoring in depreciation, insurance, maintenance, financing, fuel, fees, and taxes.
Finally, we bring the best contenders in for head-to-head testing.
Why We Decided on the Civic
The 2023 Civic is better than its price would suggest.
It looks great outside — a 2022 redesign gave it European sophistication. If you could travel back in time and put a two-kidney grille on it, you could probably convince a 1990s car enthusiast this was the 2023 BMW 2 Series. An available hatchback keeps the sophisticated look, which is something hatchbacks don’t often manage.
It looks great inside — Honda’s new design theme, with a mesh-look panel bisecting the dashboard horizontally and a high-mounted central touchscreen that seems to rise out of the dash, is a more grown-up look than what most rivals offer.
And it drives well. An available 1.5-liter turbocharged 4-cylinder engine making 180 horsepower will let you close holes in traffic with confidence. The base 2.0-liter 4-cylinder offers less power at 158 horses but gets the job done for little money.
And it’s the best-handling Civic ever. Our test driver says, “The athletic driving character of the Honda Civic is comparable to the Mazda3.” The Mazda3 is traditionally considered the best-handling compact car, so that’s high praise.
But the best reason to buy a Civic is every other Civic ever built. On the shoulders of a 50-year history of well-regarded, reliable Civics, the current model has one of the highest resale values in its class. Some rivals cost less. But they keep less of their value for the day you trade them in.
Starting at $25,050 (plus $1,095 destination), the 2023 Honda Civic tastes like a burger and fries from a high-end…er…feels like a car that could get away with a higher price tag. When you’re shopping in a market segment traditionally considered basic transportation, that’s a remarkable find.
