Current generation (2020) Civic headlamps - how good are they?

[jaycee88]

My sister was rear ended recently - she's okay but her car (2008 Civic) was totalled. She's in the market for a new car, and seems intent on purchasing another Civic (her past 2 cars were Civics).
It's very unlikely she will buy anything other than the base model - LED headlamps don't appear to be an option here - so how are the Civic's halogen headlamps?

(Looks like 2021 is a facelift year - let's say for the sake of this discussion she gets a 2020 leftover.)

 

[turbodog]

Don't own that one specifically, but if they are anything like my 4 hondas they are excellent.

Honda appears to use some sort of voltage regulation so the lights are run at optimum brightness and color temp regardless of battery state or engine rpm. I had a link verifying this one time but lost it.

 

[-Virgil-]

Looks like the halogen headlamps get a P (Poor) grade on the IIHS tests, whether we're talking about the hatchback, the sedan or the coupe. However: (1) these test results -- short seeing distance in all the tests, no glare demerits -- fairly scream "lamps aimed too low". And (2) they're projector low beams with H11 bulbs plus reflector high beams with HB3 (9005) bulbs, so you can effectively, safely and cheaply upgrade with well-picked H9s in the low beams and HIR1s in the high beams. That plus a real aim job should make them work well.

 

[jaycee88]

Thanks for the info Virgil. Good to know that there are effective and safe upgrades for the bulbs.

 

[jaycee88]

We went to the local Honda dealership a few nights ago and took a 2020 Civic LX out for a test drive. Can't really comment much on the headlamps though, as there was too much ambient light (city).
Noticed it had automatic headlamps - do automatic systems generally work pretty well, or are there gotchas to be aware of?

Funny side note - on the way there, my sis said that the car that rearended her was a brand spanking new (literally 1 day old!) Honda CR-V. As most (maybe all?) current Hondas have some form of emergency brake assist, we thought we'd mention this to the sales guy. He laughed, shook his head, and said that the feature could have either been turned off (I didn't think this too likely as the driver was young and unlicensed and presumably inexperienced), or the CR-V was simply travelling too fast to come to a complete stop but could at least slow itself to reduce the severity of the collision. I thought there was third possibility as well - that the system simply failed to work in that instance - but I kept that to myself.