2019 Ford Focus vs Honda Civic

What's the difference?

While It might be hard to explain exactly what micro-niche the Active falls into, it's less difficult to understand it's appeal.

Let's face it, the vast majority of us will never have need for the complex four-wheel-drive systems that appear in some SUVs.

And so a car like the Active makes obvious sense. Whatever the hell it is.

The Civic was pretty good when it landed in 2016 but remains wilfully weird and lacking in a couple of details. The lack of advanced safety at the lower end of the range is also extremely frustrating. Even though the Mazda3 range now starts where the VTi-S is priced, it's loaded with safety gear and handles well into the bargain.

Where the Civic wins out in this class is the clever interior, excellent build quality and a long reputation for reliability. I just wish Honda would fling that deeply ordinary 1.8-litre engine and get a new set of front seats.

Like the look of the Focus hatchback? Then have we got some news for you. Because the Active looks a lot like one, just a little higher off the ground.

The 17-inch alloys are fitted with higher-profile tyres, and there is some black wheel-arch cladding and side skirts that are designed to convey an adventurous spirit, but outside of that, it's Focus through and through.

That's not a bad thing, mind. The new Focus is a handsome small car. More that you can see where the marketing department might struggle to call this anything but a hatchback.

Climb into the cabin and you're met with an equally Focused experience, though there are some exclusive Active niceties on display. That Nordic Blue piping on the seats, for example, or the 'A'-stamped seat patterns and the Active-stamped scuff plates at the doors.

Yep, the Civic is still not the easiest car in the world to look at when you're front or rear on. The nose is a mess of angles and protuberances and appears to have a catastrophic underbite.

The lights are a weird shape and there's just way too much going on. The new piano black grille isn't helping. The giant carbuncles that are the rear lights still frighten me in traffic, but less so after a few years of bedding in.

The profile is a welcome relief but look closely at the creases and slashes and you realise there is still a fair bit going on. The new 16-inch alloys are handsome if a little lost in the big wheelarches.

The cabin hasn't had any major changes, the biggest update being a chequered pattern on the seats fabric. Look out.

The Civic's interior is very clever, though. The high console features a double-decker arrangement where all the ugly plugs are hidden underneath the dash and you feed the cables up through a gap. The dash is still a festival of angles but the digital layout is a model of clarity. And boy is it big in there.

The Active stretches some 4.4m in length, 1.8m in width and 1.5m in height. In other words, it's very much the Focus hatch you're familiar with, no matter how much the ride height has been lifted.

And that means your key figures are largely unchanged, too; you'll get 375 litres of boot space with the rear seats in place (about on-par for the segment), and 1354 litres with the seats folded flat, though that's measured all the way to the roof line.

Up front, you'll find two cupholders, and a storage pocket in each of the front doors. On the tech front, there's a USB point in front of the wireless charging pad, and another hidden in a  deep, covered central storage bin.

Ford says there is more shoulder room in the backseat, and they've tried to design an airy-feeling space, thanks to larger rear windows. And if you've ever spent time in a car like the Toyota C-HR, for example, then you'll know how important a little lightness and brightness can be for backseat riders.

That's about where the good news ends for backseat riders, though. There's no cupholders (nor a pull-down divider to house them in) and no USB points either. Also missing are rear air vents.

There are two ISOFIX attachment points, though, one in each window seat in the back.

It's so big inside the Civic, but then again, everything in the segment bar the Mazda3 has a voluminous interior. Still, the way Honda has organised the Civic is pretty much the best.

The boot has a massive 525 litres and you can drop the rear seats for yet more space. Honda doesn't offer a seats down figure as it is no doubt complicated by the narrow aperture.

Front and rear passengers are treated to two cupholders each for a total of four, bottle holders in each door, again for a total four and the central console houses a gigantic space you could stand bottles in as well as your cups.

Space for humans is generous. As you do sit low in the chassis, the roofline doesn't take all your headroom and the legroom available is hugely impressive given the car's footprint.

This is something Honda does well - the Jazz and HR-V are also super-roomy for rear seat passengers. Some larger sedans would beg to have this kind of legroom. It's also one of the few cars in the segment where the rear seat is reasonable for three people. Well, it's not an indecent squeeze, anyway.

The 2019 VTi-S ships with a natty new set of 16-inch alloy wheels, an eight-speaker stereo with DAB, climate control, cruise control, power windows, 7.0-inch touchscreen, reversing camera, cloth trim, leather steering wheel, keyless entry and start, front and rear parking sensors, rear privacy glass, 'LaneWatch' and a space-saver spare.

Without wishing to go overboard, the update to the multimedia system is life-changing. Okay, perhaps I went slightly overboard, but putting a physical volume knob along with proper shortcut buttons (even if they are a bit flimsy) is so much nicer than the volume and on/off arrangement of the 2018 model.

The software is still pretty basic but the inclusion of Apple CarPlay and Android Auto makes that a moot point and I'll always welcome them both.

There's just the one engine and gearbox combo on offer here, but it's a peach. A woeful sounding on paper, but utterly charming in real life, 1.5-litre, three-cylinder petrol engine good for 134kW and 240Nm, which is fed through an eight-speed automatic to produce an 8.7 second sprint to 100km/h.

You also get improved independent rear suspension that's missing from most Focus models. Plus the key difference that makes this Active more, well, active, is the increased ride height, but we're really only talking a handful of centimetres at each end.

Honda's 1.8-litre four-cylinder makes its second and final appearance in the Civic range, replaced by the 1.5-litre turbo in the VTi-L onwards.

Generating a reasonable 104kW and a modest 174Nm, a CVT auto connects the engine to the front wheels.

It might be a tiny three-cylinder engine, but Ford has still thought hard about the fuel use equation, including a cylinder deactivation function that, when cruising, shuts down one of the cylinders to save petrol.

As a result, the claimed/combine fuel use figure is 6.4 litres per hundred kilometres - and it's a believable quote, as we scored 6.5 litres after a day of pretty enthusiastic driving.

The Co2 emissions are pegged at a claimed 148g/km, and the fuel tank will hold 52 litres.

Honda says the Civic will consume the cheap stuff at a rate of 6.8L/100km, and that's without any help from stop-start or energy recovery.

It's pretty lo-fi at Honda these days. My week with the Civic netted an entirely reasonable (and consistent with past experience) 8.4L/100km, which isn't bad at all.

"Would you take a regular hatchback on sand?" Asks one of the Blue Oval's reps, as we point the noise of our Active at a stretch of commendably soft sand.

And if we're honest, the answer to that question would be a resounding "no". Not least of which because we've just watched the Active in front of us getting pulled out of this very sand pit, the front tyres dug into the soft stuff like they were burrowing their way to China.

But no sooner was it pulled out than the Active was tackling that very obstacle again, this time with a bit more speed, and sure enough, the high-riding Focus was through the sand and out the other side, the front tyres somehow finding a way to keep the Focus moving.

And then we followed, and with the same successful result. As did the car after us. And so on. 

Now, a true off-roader it ain't. The Active is a front-wheel-drive only proposition, but it's two new drive modes (Trail and Slippery) are intended to give you just a little more confidence as you pull into a campsite or turn onto an unsealed road.

But for mine, the real charm of the Active isn't how it performs off-road, but rather on it. It's not a particularly sporty-feeling drive, and to be fair, there are other cars in the Ford range that can tackle those duties, but the steering is engaging, and it's a composed, comfortable and quiet drive experience.

Part of the reason for that is the new independent rear suspension setup (also found in the ST Line wagon). We piloted the Active over some pretty harsh and broken country roads on our drive program, and it proved plenty comfortable, disposing of most road imperfections with little bother.

A final word? I bloody love the engine. A tiny little three-cylinder unit, sure, but it never feels underdone, even when overtaking uphills. And for bonus points, it makes a delightful little burble when you plant your right foot.

The Civic is perplexing. So many things are good, and a few aren't.

The front seats are overstuffed and uncomfortable on longer trips, as they are in the HR-V and as they have been for the life of the Civic.

Also the same since Civic 10's debut is the lacklustre drivetrain. Every time I mention it, the comments are filled with people telling me the performance is perfectly fine from the 1.8.

It might be for some, but isn't for me. While plenty of blame can be laid at the feet of the buzzy 1.8-litre, it's really the CVT that blunts the performance.

The transmission is one of the better ones, but really, a proper six-speed auto would be much better here. Again, plenty of buyers won't care and in somewhat surprising news, that's okay - it's not a reason to avoid the car. You just have to know that the going is slow and noisy.

There is still a bit of tyre rumble from the Civic, too. It's not as bad as the previous car and is not ever-present. But anything other than a smooth surface will treat you to not only tyre rumble but a bit of suspension noise, particularly sharper frequencies like expansion joints.

The good things about the Civic certainly add a great deal of weight to the good side of the ledger. The driving position is good if you don't mind the seat itself and the ride and handling are for the most part excellent. The steering is particularly good, connecting you with the road below without getting too chatty. The ride is only upset by truly terrible surfaces, usually concrete slabs that have slipped.

The VTi and VTi-S feature six airbags, ABS, stability and traction controls and a reversing cameras. The VTi-S also picks up LaneWatch, which is a camera pointing down the left-hand side of the car to show you what or who is in your blind spot. It's activated by the left-hand indicator or via a stalk-mounted button.

There are three top-tether baby seat anchor points and two ISOFIX points.

Frustratingly, you have to move to the VTi-L to get 'Honda Sensing', which includes things like AEB and lane keep assist. The Mazda3 has all the safety gear at this level and the i30 Active has AEB, why not the Civic?

The Civic scored a maximum five ANCAP stars in 2017.

The Ford Focus Active is covered by a five-year, unlimited-kilometre warranty, with servicing required every 15,000kms or 12 months.

Service pricing is capped for the first four years, too, with each service costing a maximum $299 for the first four years or 60,000km.

Honda offers a bang-on five year/unlimited kilometre warranty, which is a fine start, but you don't get roadside assist.

You can plan ahead on services costs on your annual/10,000km visits.

That kilometre figure is a bit cheeky because most of us will do more than that every year. The "tailored" servicing costs range from $284 for all but one of the first 10 services, and even then it only increases to $312.