Honda Civic 1.6 i-DTEC ES-T

THAT time has finally come when I have to say goodbye to the Honda Civic 1.6 i-DTEC ES-T I’ve been running for the last six months. I’ve been avoiding thinking about it, simply because I’ve had such a trouble-free, cheap five thousand miles with the Civic that I’ll certainly be sad to see the back of it.

Take a weekday as an example. Say I’ve got a meeting in Birmingham; I know I can jump in the Honda, and I know it’ll be trouble free, comfortable, and refined over the next few hours of monotonous motorway. As a bonus I know it’s got a crystal clear Bluetooth set-up so I can catch up on some business calls and I can be sure of getting my 60mpg without trying.

If I choose to stray from the motorways, I’ve got the excellent sat nav as a back up. The minute you don’t know where you’re going it’s easy to input a postcode or a street name. Once I arrive, the Civic portrays the perfect image for a small business – it’s smart and stylish but not ostentatious.

It’s so light on company car tax too. If you run it as a company car it sits in the lowly 13% company car tax band. What’s more it’ll keep business car managers around the country happy because its 94g/km CO2 emissions qualify for 100% FYA.

If you want that from a Focus or a Golf you’ll need the expensive ECOnetic or Bluemotion models and then you’ll need to add things like sat nav and a rear view camera, which both come as standard on the Civic.