Seats and Interior: The driver's seat lacks a lumbar adjustment, but is very comfortable as is. I am instantly more comfortable when first sitting in the Civic than my Accord or Odyssey, which both take a little seat tweaking to find a comfortable position. Once tweaked, the Odyssey is by far the most comfortable because it is so spacious; the Accord and Civic feel like sitting in a cocoon by comparison. On a long drive, I begin to notice the bottom cushion on the Civic could be a little longer, and I wish it had some sort of tilt capability for the cushion. Still, I have done multiple 1000-mile days in my Civic with no problem. Overall, my Odyssey with the power seat is the most comfortable, followed by the Civic and finally the Accord. I rate the Accord driver's seat as least comfortable because of the armrest on the door panel. As noted before, this armrest is too short and not usable when the front seats are all the way back because the B-pillar interferes. The door armrest is most usable on the Odyssey, followed closely by the Civic. Hopefully Honda will fix the B-pillar intrusion problem on the next generation of the Accord.

The actual door armrest fabric is not very durable. Within just a couple months, the driver's door armrest on my 06 Civic looked more worn than the armrest on my two-year-old Accord. The Civic armrest has a thicker nap than the fabric on the Accord, and this nap is easily rubbed the wrong way and loses its like-new appearance. Honda was nice enough to replace it under warranty because a lot of the excessive wear was accelerated during the umpteen times my Civic was in the shop trying to fix a different problem (more on that later).

The trunk has great storage space in the spare wheel well, including molded compartments in the foam pad on top of the spare. There are also fancy plastic covers over the trunk hinges that even my Accord lacks.

The heater has a common Honda feature that to my knowledge no other manufacturer has. When floor is selected, which you normally do when using the heater, warm air also comes out the side dash vents on the instrument panel; I'm not referring to the extra side vents for the windows, but the actual front passenger outboard vents where you normally receive air in the vent or face mode. This might sound like a strange function, but the warm air from the outboard vents definitely makes the interior more comfortable on cold days. This is a distinctly different function from the bi-level mode, which distributes air to all four dash vents. All of my Hondas (02 Odyssey, 04 Accord, 05 Odyssey, and now 06 Civic) have this feature, although the output from the side vents is a little less with the Civic than it is with the others. The 05 Odyssey distributes the most air from the outboard vents in this special mode.

The 06 Civic includes factory automatic door locks, something I've always wished my Accord and Odyssey (non-Touring model) had. Civic and Accord both lack the passenger trash bag hooks that the Odyssey has. I end up hooking my trash bags to the seat belt anchors in my Civic and Accord. Speaking of hooks, it would be nice if Honda included grocery bag hooks in either the rear seat and/or trunk of their sedans as is commonly seen on minivans and some other manufacturers' pickup trucks.

Transmission and Cruise Control: Honda's automatic transmissions have always been one of the main reasons I choose Hondas over other brands, and the automatic in the 06 Civic raises the bar even higher. The grade-logic with the automatic is the best I have ever experienced. Most people understand automatic transmission grade-logic going uphill, but few seem to have experienced or understand grade-logic going downhill.

Uphill is easy: the transmission should hold the gear that is just low enough to maintain speed without sacrificing fuel economy. When taking an 06 Camry up one of my favorite hills (the 160-mile test loop described earlier), it was terrible because it was repeatedly hunting between gears. The Civic, like my Accord and Odyssey, picks the perfect gear and doesn't hunt at all. The uninitiated might get concerned hearing the engine wail at high rpm climbing a long hill, especially in the Civic because the engine noise is more noticeable than in the Accord or Odyssey. There are no adverse effects from this sustained high rpm, however, and the drop in fuel economy is less than you might expect.

Downhill is where Honda's automatic transmissions really shine, and will actually outperform a stick. When coasting downhill in an 06 Camry, it will continue to accelerate unless the driver rides the brake or manually selects a lower gear. With a Honda automatic, a light tap on the brake while going downhill signals the transmission to shift down to help control speed, and it does this more quickly and smoothly than with a stick. During transitions from on-throttle to off-throttle in hilly terrain, the transmission will actually hold a lower gear as if you are driving a stick. When braking downhill on winding roads and subsequently letting off the brake, the transmission is still smart enough to hold a lower gear to prevent unwanted acceleration, just like a stick. Of course, if you step on the gas downhill the transmission will shift up accordingly. Honda's automatics are programmed to shift on hilly terrain – both downhill and uphill – so as to emulate a stick, but they're even better than a stick because they always pick the perfect gear.

The real magic begins on hilly terrain with the cruise control engaged. In this case, the transmission shifts down to control speed downhill without ever touching the brake. In certain cases if the downhill grade is just right to maintain speed, fuel is reduced to the engine and the rpm drops as if shifting to a higher gear. The first picture shows power on; the second shows the lower rpm and reduced fuel while maintaining speed downhill with the cruise control engaged.

While all Honda automatics operate the way I've described, the Civic is the smoothest of them all. With my 05 Odyssey, there is a slight thump going from a downgrade back to level terrain as the transmission changes from power off to power on, but the 06 Civic makes this transition so smoothly I can't feel it at all. Similarly, downshifts, even at WOT, are so smooth they can barely be felt. Before the 06 Civic, I wished for an automatic transmission with the grade-logic of my Accord and Odyssey and the smoothness of my Frontier. With the Civic, I now have that transmission. The gear selector on Odyssey stops in D, which is better than the selector on Accord/Civic that stops in D3 if you're not paying attention.

While still not as smooth as my Frontier, the resume feature of the cruise control is the best of any Honda I have driven. There is still a slight lag after hitting the resume button before the cruise control takes over, but it is less than with my Accord and Odyssey. More importantly, the Civic has less of a tendency to shift down when resuming to a higher speed than my Accord and Odyssey do, and will more patiently accelerate in a higher gear. This has the advantage of saving fuel and giving a smoother acceleration experience.

The tap-up, tap-down feature of the cruise control is very precise and changes in exact 1 MPH increments as verified with my GPS. There are occasions where it will appear your speed has not changed on the digital speedometer, but that is because of the filtering effect I described earlier that is programmed into the display.