Why is the 2022 Civic slower than its predecessor?
If your first thought was weight, you weren't wrong. Our 2022 Honda Civic Touring test car weighed in at 3,081 pounds on our scales, while back in December 2015 those same scales measured our 2016 Honda Civic Touring test car at 2,920 pounds. OK, so the new Civic Touring comes standard with an extra 160-pound passenger. That's not nothing.
But it's not going to add 1.2 seconds to the sprint to 60, either. What else can we look at? How about weather? It's no secret that turbocharged cars don't like heat. Sure enough, on the day we tested the 2022 Civic, it was a toasty 77 degrees, whereas the 2016 Civic was tested on a 60-degree day.
So that must be it, right? An extra 160 pounds plus a too-hot turbo. Check this out, though. In early 2016, we tested another 2016 Civic sedan with the 1.5T/CVT powertrain. It too weighed in at 2,920 pounds. At the drag strip, it threw down a 6.9-second run to 60 — still a second faster than the 2022 Civic's best time.
The temperature that day? 80 degrees.
Hmmmmmm.