2019 Honda Civic vs Toyota Camry

What's the difference?

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.

It's a pity families don't buy sedans any more, because this is a terrific family car, particularly if you're not bothered by badge cache or speed, but do like an easy-to-drive, cheap-to-run car. Just a few years ago it would have been almost laughable to contemplate a car this big, for this money, being so cheap to own and run.

I'm also really annoyed that my hackneyed Camry jokes are no longer just not funny, they're not funny because they're not (as) true. No, it's not a super-fun excitement machine, but that's not the point. It is a very good car, with all the Toyota goodness of old, added warranty and the bonus of genuinely feeling good to drive. And you're a mild shade of enviro-green to go with it.

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.

Some key changes to the design approach on the new Camry means it's not as knock-kneed and simpering as the last, um, six or so generations.

To be fair, the previous one wasn't terrible but there are actual hints of mild bravery, with an angry front-end look, some interesting surface detailing and, even what might be called a "Lexus-lite" look for the rest of it.

The new Camry is lower, has big wheel arches that the 17s struggle to fill but it has some genuine style, rather than looking like the clay modellers knocked off before lunch. The dual exhaust seemed incongruous to me, but is, in fact, a styling win.

Jokes aside, I don't mind it at all. It's no Supra, but it's no mid-90s Camry, either. Yeah, I bet you don't remember which one I'm talking about, either.

I really like the cabin. The dash design is quite something and shows some real flair. William Chergowsky told me last year that this interior was going to be more emotional and memorable. And it really is, along with Toyota's impressive build quality. Even the volume knob feels substantial, the materials are nice but the steering wheel is... well, more of that later.

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 new, stretched wheelbase has meant a lot more interior space for passengers, particularly in the rear. The Camry hasn't really been small for a very long time, but this one's generous rear legroom is probably why it's a smash-hit with the Uber crowd. The seats are comfortable too, if trimmed in what appears to be neoprene.

Front and rear passengers each have a pair of cupholders for a total of four, plus there's a deep central console bin and a space under the stereo for a phone. There's even a coin slot. Each door also has a bottle holder.

The boot in the Ascent Sport is a voluminous 524 litres - the Ascent has a full-size spare that swallows up 30 litres of that space. The seats fold down 60/40, but the cargo volume when they are down is not readily available.

The hybrid drivetrain is available on the Ascent, Ascent Sport and SL. I had the $31,990 Ascent Sport for the week.

It comes with 17-inch alloy wheels, a six-speaker stereo (with CD player!), dual-zone climate control, cloth trim, with space-saver spare wheel, electric driver's seat, auto LED headlights, keyless entry and start, sat nav, reversing camera, active cruise control, front and rear parking sensors, an impressive safety package, power mirrors and windows. Did I mention the CD player?

The six-speaker stereo is powered from the 8.0-inch touchscreen and the software is...um...not great. Which wouldn't matter if it had Android Auto and/or Apple CarPlay but Toyota Australia stubbornly refuses to include them. The damn Seppos get it in their Toyotas, so it's not like it's impossible. But our version does have a CD player. Hipsters rejoice!

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.

While the standard Camry packs the same 2.5-litre four-cylinder, the Hybrid's ICE output is slightly lower, at 131kW. When paired with a hybrid motor, the total power figure is a pretty decent 160kW, but the torque figure appears to be unaffected, at 202Nm. Toyota doesn't quote combined torque figures, because it's tricky with the type of transmission it uses.

The front wheels are driven by Toyota's favoured e-CVT, with six artifical steps to make it feel like a proper auto, if you're feeling racy.

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.

The Hybrid's windscreen sticker makes the bold claim of 4.2L/100km on the combined cycle, which is amazing for a big sedan. Reality isn't quite so amazing. In our week with the car, 5.7L/100km was the best I could get, but it was mostly city driving, the weather was really humid and, it turns out, this isn't a bad thing to drive, which means you're tempted to hit the throttle regularly.

As it's a typical Toyota hybrid, there isn't a plug to charge it, so you'll not be running on batteries the way you can in, say, a Hyundai Ioniq PHEV.

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.

All the Camry markers are here. It's easy to get in and out of and easy to get comfortable. The dash isn't too high and, uh, the steering wheel is plastic, which is genuinely disappointing. A Mazda6 (no, not a hybrid, I know) doesn't have a plastic steering wheel. The Toyota one is pretty cheap-feeling.

Pressing the start-stop button, you hear the electrics switching on and, if you're backing out of the drive, you won't hear the engine until you're on the gas driving away. You may not hear anything, but your passengers might hear your tutting. The brakes are very grabby when you're in stealth, I mean, electric mode, whether you're going forward or backwards. No doubt it's something you will become accustomed to, but it's there. Toyota hybrids seem to be behind the game on this particular score.

In every other way, the Camry is exactly as it has always been. Except it isn't. Toyota kept all the good things - it's smooth, it's quiet and it rides well. Everyone is comfortable and everything works. I've already mentioned it was stinking hot the week we had it and the Camry's air-conditioning was super-fast cold.

The bit that's different, though, is that, just like the styling, things are better. Camrys past had over-light steering, marshmallows for suspension and as much grip on the road as Kanye West has on reality. This one has body control. The steering feels good. There is actual grip and you feel like you're driving the car rather than just steering it around.

The Ascent Sport ships with seven airbags, ABS, stability and traction controls, active cruise, lane-departure warning, forward-collision warning, forward AEB, reverse cross traffic alert and blind-spot monitoring.

The Camry scored five ANCAP stars in November 2017.

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.

In news that still has me all a-tingle (okay, not really), Toyota now offers a five-year/unlimited kilometre warranty. There's till no roadside assist offered for free, though, so you have to pay extra for it.

The first five service intervals are capped at $195 each so, if you're lucky, five years of servicing will only sting you $975. Intervals are set at 12 months/15,000km.