Return of the R

In reply to srbvmax :

Or that you bothered to show up/were sponsored by a tire company with a full tread rain tire available.

Knurled. said:

In reply to irish44j :

The funny thing is, either VW sells a lot of R badges, or I see as many Golf Rs as GTIs.  As opposed to the only two Focus RSs that I see versus about five million FoSTs...

No clue. I see Golf R's (and older R32s) pretty regularly around here. But there are a TON of GTIs around here. I think every high school kid has one lol. I also see Focus RS's daily, they're not unusual at all in this area. I don't even notice FoSTs any more, they're pretty common on my commuting route. 

In this area, a late-model 3-series is considered a "typical commuting car" it seems lol.

I don't hate the looks of the type r, but I certainly don't love them either. The only cars I really like the looks of I very much can't afford. I'm currently plotting how to get a type r and how to tone down the outside of it a bit. Hopefully you can relatively easily unbolt the rear wing? 

Looks are completely subjective. You either like it or you don't. People have been saying the same thing about STis, Evos and to a lesser degree GT-Rs for years. I could totally rock a Type R and not be bothered about the looks at all. My only complaint is the dealer gouging. Disgusting.  

So discussing the meat of the review, it sounds like Civic Type R is a really fun car with great dynamics. It has solid performance too. I might even been convinced that they got rid of most of the FWD handicap and dynamic annoyances. It sounds like there's little reason to consider the AWD competition. As mentioned an STi isn't an terribly attractive car either. The FoST/RS is okay. GTi is a little better, but they don't scream sporting either.

Performance-wise if we use Lightning lap as the benchmark; the FoRS, CTR, Camaro V6 1LE, STi RA are in a dead heat. Golf R no where near. However, the FoRS was on PS Cup 2 tires, so in reality, it's probably ~3-4-seconds slower. The STi RA is expensive, don't see the point over the regular STi, but it does make the car a good bit faster. Realistically the CTR's Conti 6 tires are better than the Camaro V6 1LE's Goodyear A S 3, but they're the same class. The problem is it's very easy to buy a base camaro, slap the 1LE shocks/springs/swaybar and buy a set of tires and undercut the price of the competition by a  good chunk. That said, the CTR is very practical. Anyone driven some of these options?

R&T did a recent article where they said the CTR was actually more fun than a Camaro SS at a track. I have a hard time believing that. I'm a week and a half into ownership of a 2017 Camaro SS. Around the city, I'm not accustomed to the size yet and I might believe it for that situation. I'm normally a fan of smaller cars. When driven harder in corners, it shrinks and feels much smaller. There's also something very satisfying about RWD dynamics, did the CTR really close that much of the gap?

irish44j said:

poopshovel again said:

In reply to JG Pasterjak :

Good on you for pointing out the fact that it looks better “in the flesh.” My buddy bought one, and I was really surprised how good it looks in person vs. in photos. I wish I could get over the vato-zone interior :/

Interesting. I've seen 3 or 4 already around here (people in this area have the money, and always jump on whatever the "new thing" is, it seems), but I don't think it looks good at all in person. Which is odd, because I think the Civic Si looks far better in person than in photos. 

I also see a genuine Integra Type R almost every day on my commute (yep, someone commutes in it), and every time I see it I think how great it is that Honda made one of the great FWD performance cars of all time but made its cosmetic differences relatively subtle compared to a regular Integra - at least compared to the "elite" hot hatches these days (VW Golf R excepted, since it's hard to even tell it from a regular GTI at a glance....)

I may have phrased that all wrong - IMHO It’s a lot less ugly in person than it is in pictures. It is still ugly. As are the non-R’s

I could care less about the performance of a vehicle that butt ugly.  I simply won't purchase something I think is fugly and the CTR absolutely qualifies for that.

It's no secret I'm a german car whore, so I love me some Golf R.  How it does on the race track is somewhat irrelevant as it'll be my DD.  I want to know how it performs on the street and the Golf R blows the rest of the hot hatches into the weeds in that respect.  It's just a much nicer, more comfortable place to spend time and it more than gets out of its own way.  I'm planning on getting one in 2020 and really hope they throw the RS3 5 cylinder motor in it.

If I wanna go fast, well, I have a Porsche 996 Turbo for that.

poopshovel again said:

The “flair” bugs me a lot less than the general shape. The non-R’s might as well be a prius to my eye. If it had a FoRS body/interior I might forsake my “Never again, Honda” oath and grab one in white.

So you enjoy the interior styling of a 2000 Ford Taurus Jellybean?

No WRX/STI has ever looked "sexy" but you don't see people losing their minds about them like they are about the CTR. Screw it, if the car is ugly but fun and goes like stink that's all that matters. 

What are dealers actually asking for (getting?) with these cars?  I see MSRP is a little over $35K.  Also I had a quick look at the C&D Lightning lap.  The Type R was 10.7 secs faster than the Civic SI, that's a geologic age in track terms.  I ASS-u-me that a large part of that is down to the tires, but WOW.  

Magazine article idea.  Hit up the Honda press fleet for a Type R, an SI and possibly even a regular Civic then take them to the track/autocross and try them out.  Then for extra S&G throw them all on the same wheel/tire set up and see how they stack up.

I really like the look of the car. When you make a very noticeable and in your face design like this it's going to be polarizing. To each their own. I might not always like these designs, but at the same time I always hate them if the performance does not back up the aggressive look, but that is not the case here. 

DirtyBird222 said:

poopshovel again said:

The “flair” bugs me a lot less than the general shape. The non-R’s might as well be a prius to my eye. If it had a FoRS body/interior I might forsake my “Never again, Honda” oath and grab one in white.

So you enjoy the interior styling of a 2000 Ford Taurus Jellybean?

 

No WRX/STI has ever looked "sexy" but you don't see people losing their minds about them like they are about the CTR. Screw it, if the car is ugly but fun and goes like stink that's all that matters.

 

Meh, WRX/STi were bred from/as rally cars to some degree (or at least styled after them), and rally cars aren't meant to look sexy. What the WRX and STi did do is give turbo and AWD cars mass-appeal together (where Audi largely failed) in an affordable package. And plenty of people spent plenty of time losing their minds about the looks of WRX/STI's....pretty much every time a new generation was introduced everyone screamed "horrible looks" and then they all went and bought them because nothing out there could match the all-weather/all-surface performance for the price. They screamed the most when Subaru tried to make a "normal" looking WRX (the '09, which I had) as being boring, even though it was the fastest WRX ever made.....

All that said, no WRX or STi ever made was half as ugly as the CTR....and at least they made up for bad looks with AWD...The CTR may be a great performer, but many better-looking cars are too. 

But a WRX or STi is a "car you can buy anyplace" and Subaru doesn't pretend it's some kind of niche vehicle.

===

Adrian_Thompson said:

Then for extra S&G throw them all on the same wheel/tire set up and see how they stack up.

I think it's fair to acknowledge that tires make a massive difference. I remember reading C&D saying that the GTI I bought had sub-par braking distances compared to other cars in the class. Well, no surprise - the GTI comes with garbage GARBAGE tires. After a few days of squealing through highway exits and slipping on rainy roads, I changed to a good tire and the car was totally transformed, and it is, by far, the best braking I've ever had in any car - even with the stock pads.. Too many cars these days come withe the "eco" compounds that have garbage grip both for braking, acclerating, and lateral handling.. Maybe fun in a BRZ where you can get the tail out, but not in a powerful car. 

Civic Si comes with Eagle Sport A/S....a pretty average all-season . CTR comes with Contisportcontact6, which is a 240TW and barely off being a track tire. I wonder how many seconds that is worth on lightning lap.

I still think for "performance car" tests head-to-head, they should test all with the same tires. We all know that manufacturers usually just get "whatever's cheapest" to put on their cars that aren't max-performers. My WRX came with meh summers.....SP Sport 01 is weak. 

 still think for "performance car" tests head-to-head, they should test all with the same tires. We all know that manufacturers usually just get "whatever's cheapest" to put on their cars that aren't max-performers. My WRX came with meh summers.....SP Sport 01 is weak. 

I'll disagree.  It's more fair to test the cars as they come equipped.  That's what the manufacturers have selected, and it's what you get when you buy one.  As soon as you start opening the slippery slope of "equalizing" through aftermarket parts selection, you're entering a large grey area of unintended consequences.  I'm not discrediting the notion that cars can be held back by their factory equipment, but that's just how the cookie crumbles for out of the box comparison testing. 

The tire argument is the reason why some performance cars have the option for pilot sport cup tires. That way the manufacture can send it out to be tested with those tires on because it is an available option. 

Out of curiousity, I have been seeing quite a few of the CTR around.   Are they as stolen as the ITR used to be? Are insurance rates as crazy as it was for the ITR?

xflowgolf said:

 still think for "performance car" tests head-to-head, they should test all with the same tires. 

I'll disagree.  It's more fair to test the cars as they come equipped.  That's what the manufacturers have selected, and it's what you get when you buy one.  As soon as you start opening the slippery slope of "equalizing" through aftermarket parts selection, you're entering a large grey area of unintended consequences.

Except that even the best tires are going to be on the car for what, 2 years?  3 years?  And any shop in town will put whatever tires you want on the car for $20 each.  They are a wear item that WILL need to be replaced, and in relatively short order, with absolutely nothing but available sizes to limit the owner's selections.

Putting non-OE tires on the car doesn't even count as a modification, if you stay in the original size.  It's like choosing your favorite brand of oil or gasoline.  That's very different from "aftermarket parts" like dampers, spring rates, camber sdjusters, etc.

Duke said:

 

Putting non-OE tires on the car doesn't even count as a modification, if you stay in the original size.  It's like choosing your favorite brand of oil or gasoline.  That's very different from "aftermarket parts" like dampers, spring rates, camber sdjusters, etc.

Original treadwear? compound? DOT legal? etc.  

They're not testing used cars.  They're testing new ones.  I'd say slapping RE71R's in place of some eco-focused all seasons most definitely acts as a modification even if it's in the original size.  ...and next year it'll be the next hot tire, and at what point in the year do they switch? do they retest the prior cars? it's a constantly moving baseline of compounds and original equipment.  Does this mean certain manufacturer's game the system with a hot tire?  Sure.  It seems kind of silly to mandate a spec tire for comparisons though, on the other end of the spectrum at some point a high end sportscar will have tires which surpass the new spec tire, and they'll be hurt by dropping to the chosen spec tire.  Does that car not actually perform better than tested at that point?  Would the Viper be allowed to run it's own spec ACR Kumho?  etc.  

xflowgolf said:

Duke said:

 

Putting non-OE tires on the car doesn't even count as a modification, if you stay in the original size.  It's like choosing your favorite brand of oil or gasoline.  That's very different from "aftermarket parts" like dampers, spring rates, camber sdjusters, etc.

Original treadwear? compound? DOT legal? etc.  

They're not testing used cars.  They're testing new ones.  I'd say slapping RE71R's in place of some eco-focused all seasons most definitely acts as a modification even if it's in the original size.  ...and next year it'll be the next hot tire, and at what point in the year do they switch? do they retest the prior cars? it's a constantly moving baseline of compounds and original equipment.  Does this mean certain manufacturer's game the system with a hot tire?  Sure.  It seems kind of silly to mandate a spec tire for comparisons though, on the other end of the spectrum at some point a high end sportscar will have tires which surpass the new spec tire, and they'll be hurt by dropping to the chosen spec tire.  Does that car not actually perform better than tested at that point?  Would the Viper be allowed to run it's own spec ACR Kumho?  etc.  

well, it all comes down to whether the manufacturers care more about winning some magazine test that most customers will never read, or they want to save $100 per car on some cheap closeout tires that will add up to millions of dollars in profits. Look how many cars used to come with the Potenza RE92 - one of, if not THE worst "all-season" tire ever made and probably responsible for thousands of rain/winter accidents as it was in no way suited to anything other than non-performance driving in dry conditions. 

For regular 'ol consumer reports reviews, fine. But for a magizine like GRM, in which we can assume that people reading it are going to use their performance cars for MOTORSPORTS (as is in the title of the magazine), it's dumb to assume anyone is going to keep the crappy stock tires. Hell, my GTI will never see a track and I changed from stock tires within a week of buying the car (because I like not hydroplaning in the rain). To add, when I bought my GTI, the lot was full of '18 models with the same trim, same colors, etc. And among them they had three different brand tires on them, depending on which car you picked (all the same price, model, etc). Manufacturerers are "choosing" whatever they get the best deal on, not "the tire that's best for the car" in most cases outside of true performance cars. Bottom line is that the majority of car buyers don't know a performance tire from some cheap Chinese grand-touring all-season, and will buy the car for other reasons. It's all about profits. Or putting eco tires on a car to eke out an extra 1/4 mpg of fuel economy to meet CAFE, or whatever. Maybe Subaru can't put sticky performance rubber on their cars because they don't have the MPG offsets that Honda has thanks to AWD. IDK...

So I'm not asking for "regular testing" magazines and sites to care about equal tires. But if we're comparing TRACK times for performance-driving readers (or bragging about Nurburgring times, or Lightning Lap times, or whatever), all the cars should be tested with whatever tire someone who goes to the track would put on it (i.e. not some crappy all-season).

mr2s2000elise said:

Out of curiousity, I have been seeing quite a few of the CTR around.   Are they as stolen as the ITR used to be? Are insurance rates as crazy as it was for the ITR?

ITRs were stolen because it was easy to swap the engine into other Hondas and have a  crazy sleeper Civic or Integra GS. I'm betting with modern ECM and security tech, it's not quite as easy of a swap with the CTR engine into something else unless you go megasquirt and other things. Just a guess though. 

mr2s2000elise said:

Out of curiousity, I have been seeing quite a few of the CTR around.   Are they as stolen as the ITR used to be? Are insurance rates as crazy as it was for the ITR?

I would think that theft is not going to be much of a problem because the cars are not as ridiculously easy to steal as Hondas were at the time, and the engine is probably nowhere near as swappable into different chassis in the same way a B18 is.

In reply to irish44j :

Thanks! 

In reply to Knurled. :

Thank you !