Looking at the dashboard in the 2013 Civic Si review: It looks as if it has a VTEC gauge but no temperature gauge. I could see a VTEC gauge being useful for development purposes when trying to dial in a closed loop cam control algorithm, or if there was some sort of VTEC adjustment knob on the dash. Or if the system were horribly unreliable. But could anyone explain their logic in kicking out a genuinely useful gauge for one that has got to be one of the least useful I've ever seen?
Gee Whiz!
No turbo. So the act of quantifying how hard the VTEC is kicking in (yo) makes the owners feel like they made the right decision. Who would want the complexity of a forced induction setup from Mazda for 1700 dollars, or 1200 dollars from Ford, more in an actually quick car?
I want to know how many buyers confuse it with a boost gauge.
is the red end marked "yo!"?
Because Honda.
For the last few years, Honda has made mistake after mistake. This is just their latest. Even here, in Civic fanboidom, the Civic is slowly losing its fans.
At the local autocross, the field used to half-Civic's, and half-everything else. At the last autocross, on 103 entrants, there were two Civic SI.
Point Blank: The Civic, while a great appliance car again with the emergency 2013 redesign is TOO BIG TO REPLACE THE OLD SCHOOL CIVIC SI'S!
Why not a Fit Si? It's hilariously tall compared to an '89 Civic, but at least it's around the right footprint. And hey, the Abarth 500 is pretty damn tall too...
I would love if they made a fit si or a Cr-z si , I know neither will happen. But the civic just does nothing for me
2013 Si owner here. Yes, I bought it as an appliance car that I wouldn't hate driving. It's prefect for that. And one day the Miata will make it out here to sunny California, filling the void the Honda misses.
Coolant temp is handled by two idiot lights. A blue "cold engine" lamp that's illuminated for the first couple minutes of driving (if the car's been sitting), and ostensibly a "hot engine" light, which I have thankfully never seen.
The VTEC (yo) light is pretty freaking dumb. But it's just one light. Not a gauge. Underneath it is a line of orange bulbs, followed by red, that indicate when you're reaching redline. Maybe the GRM crew mistook this digital tachometer for a VTEC "gauge"? I found it dumb from the outset, but honestly by the time those lights start glowing, my eyes are nowhere near them.
I think GRM missed pretty hard on a couple of points in their review, but maybe we see the Si as belonging in two different places. I went with the sedan. I see it as commuter car that won't bore you to tears. It's not the boy-racer flat-brimmer that the MazdaSpeed 3 or Focus ST is. And that's a good thing. I can take the office crew out to lunch in it and the first thing they say is "wow, this interior is really nice". Not one comment about "is this fast?" or "can it beat a..." that imply a fast-looking car.
The Honda Civic Si isn't the only car to lose the temp gauge. I have heard from a few people in the industry that most drivers are more receptive to a temp light vs. a gauge. Plus a lot of temp gauges were basically idiots lights, anyway: off, normal and hot. Progress, I guess.
David S. Wallens wrote: Plus a lot of temp gauges were basically idiots lights, anyway: off, normal and hot.
Came here to say this.
In reply to peter:
To be fair my 2011 MS3 also has a temp light not a gauge. I don't particularly mind the loss of the gauge since it was just sort of geewiz info as opposed to being something useful in most of my cars. I probably obsessively maintain it so the fluids are always topped off and clean, plus the car isn't exactly designed to tow a trailer up a hill so a temp gauges usefulness is a bit limited.
The VTEC gauge seems to be grasping at, well something, by a group that lost it's way.
Now that you mention it, i havent noticed a temp gauge on the 07 Prius we just bought.
Now, my 82 Lebaron which has a catch-all idiot light, is getting a full spread of old-school gauges. But that's partially because i know the oil pump can stop spinning while the rest of the motor keeps running and i have a strong hunch it will overheat someday.
Fit didn't have it. 5 doesn't have it. I hate idiot lights.
The0retical wrote: In reply to peter: To be fair my 2011 MS3 also has a temp light not a gauge. I don't particularly mind the loss of the gauge since it was just sort of geewiz info as opposed to being something useful in most of my cars. ... The VTEC gauge seems to be grasping at, well something, by a group that lost it's way.
I don't mind the loss either. I honestly bought this car as a no-brain-use appliance. I dislike that it bongs and puts a big warning up on the auxiliary screen when the low-gas light comes on, but I take comfort in hoping that if something serious were to go on, the car would grab my attention, no matter what I was doing.
The VTEC LED is definitely a gimmick and not something I like: the bright red light is easy to confuse with the redline indicator lights underneath it, when kept in peripheral vision. I'm just calling out that it's not a multi-segment "how much am I using" display that Alan Cesar seems to imply in his write-up.
I also call shenanigans that the ST Ford is only $1200 more. Maybe the Fiesta ST is only $1200 more, it was not available at all when I bought my car back in July. But the Civic is comparable in size to the Focus ST, which costs a LOT more than the Honda. The cheapest Focus ST at the three dealers closest to me is $27k MSRP, most are $30k or more. The Si MSRP is under $23k, at least for the 4-door, IIRC.
In reply to peter:
I have no doubt that the ST is suffering from optioning markups. I just pulled base numbers from Fords website where it states that it starts at $23,700 and the numbers from Hondas website where it states $22,515. I'm sure every dealership, even in my area, is tacking on Recardos and those pesky market adjustments (though I have yet to see what that feature nets me) taking it north of 26k.
Still not as bad as the "oil pressure gauge" in the NC Miata.
The computer just "knows" what the psi should be based on temp/RPM so that it moves around. So incredibly stupid.
anybody who has driven an older car knows that the temps of a car fluctuate quite a bit. Sit at a light, and they will rise. Start moving, they will go up a little bit more and then drop...
I miss real temp gages
I wonder if Hondata's flashpro system, one could turn the VTEC light into a shift light?
and I've gone the other way .... full set of gauges in the CRX + a BRIGHT RED idiot light wired to the OEM sensor for oil pressure/water temp ... most of the time you don't have a chance to actually look at the gauges while on track
Back when cars had one coil 
you could easily put a relay in your coil circuit that only closed when the oil-pressure switch turned the light off. These days, it would be complicated to wire such a feature into a car without pissing off our new computer overlords.
I will say that at one point my old 06 Dodge Magnum ran low on oil and when it detected low oil pressure it beeped insistently and turned the engine off. I'd say that's even better than a gauge.
How is it that as a fanboi, I would consider a Ford or Toyota over a Honda at this point? How did Honda let it get to this? The only Honda I would look at in a dealership is an Accord for my retired mother. Sad v-tech yo.
Honda has completely pulled a Toyota. Oh well, times like these I'm glad I have zero brand loyalty. 
I think the new Honda plan is to out GM Toyota, who out GMed GM.
Wait, the indicator is RED?
THAT is stupid. Red light on dash = trouble with car.
Geez, if the weenies want to get rid of words and go with colored heiroglyphs because they "make more sense", they could at least be consistent about it.
The Civic died to me after they got rid of double wishbones.
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