2016 Honda Civic Sedan: Car Seat Check
CARS.COM — Redesigned for 2016, the Honda Civic stands out in the competitive compact sedan class with its sporty looks, but there’s more to it than its new styling. With active safety features, an upscale interior, and improved ride and handling, the Civic has earned a nomination for Cars.com’s Best of 2016 award. Families will find the redesigned Civic to be surprisingly roomy. It’s grown in both width and length, resulting in 1.2 additional inches of backseat legroom. For this Car Seat Check, we tested a model with cloth seats and fixed rear head restraints.
How many car seats fit in the second row? Two
What We Like
- The Civic’s Latch system is easy to use. The two sets of lower Latch anchors sit just inside the seat bight, where the back and bottom seat cushions meet, and are easy to access because the seat cushions move out of the way easily. Three tether anchors are on the rear shelf under flip-up plastic covers. They’re also easy to find and use.
- With its rigid Latch connectors, the rear- and forward-facing convertible installed easily. There weren’t any fit issues.
- The rear-facing infant seat installed easily with its hooklike connectors, but we had to move the front passenger seat forward about an inch to fit the car seat behind it. Our 5-foot-8 tester had plenty of legroom to sit comfortably.
- Our high-back booster seat fit well.
What We Don’t
- The backseat’s seat belt buckles are on floppy bases, making them difficult for younger kids to use independently. When installed behind the driver’s seat, we found our high-back booster seat covered up the middle seat’s seat belt.
Grading Scale
A: Plenty of room for the car seat and the child; doesn’t impact driver or front-passenger legroom. Easy to find and connect to Latch and tether anchors. No fit issues involving head restraint or seat contouring. Easy access to the third row.
B: Plenty of room. One fit or connection issue. Some problems accessing third row when available.
C: Marginal room. Two fit or connection issues. Difficult to access third row when available.
D: Insufficient room. Two or more fit or connection issues.
F: Does not fit or is unsafe.
About Cars.com’s Car Seat Checks
Editors Jennifer Geiger and Jennifer Newman are certified child safety seat installation technicians.
For the Car Seat Check, we use a Graco SnugRide Classic Connect 30 infant-safety seat, a Britax Marathon convertible seat and Graco TurboBooster seat. The front seats are adjusted for a 6-foot driver and a 5-foot-8 passenger. The three child seats are installed in the second row. The booster seat sits behind the driver’s seat, and the infant and convertible seats are installed behind the front passenger seat.
We also install the forward-facing convertible in the second row’s middle seat with the booster and infant seat in the outboard seats to see if three car seats will fit; a child sitting in the booster seat must be able to reach the seat belt buckle. If there’s a third row, we install the booster seat and a forward-facing convertible. To learn more about how we conduct our Car Seat Checks, go here[JN4].
Parents should also remember that they can use the Latch system or a seat belt to install a car seat, and that Latch anchors have a weight limit of 65 pounds, including the weight of the child and the weight of the seat itself.
