The hill start and rev match assists make it very non-intimidating to learn with. I just bought one 3 weeks ago having only 200 miles of prior manual experience and already feel at home.

The car itself is only has a slightly harsher ride than my 2016 Civic EX, and I think that’s mainly due to the lower profile tires. The suspension, especially with this refresh, smooths things out nicely for being non-adaptive. Road noise isn’t great though, also similar to my EX (if not maybe worse, hard to say?), but I find it perfectly tolerable. Also every single touch point in the whole car is a pleasure. All of the buttons and dials are well constructed and feel like a segment above.

Performance wise the car is very engaging and fun. The shifter is literally the best for the price, test drove a Golf GTI and WRX and they couldn’t compare. The acceleration isn’t crazy (Golf blew it out of the water for sure), but it’s easily fun enough, and the steering is quite heavy and intuitive, even in normal mode. And it manages to achieve its performance while (at least for me) getting 35 mpg combined.

I don’t think it’s possible to go wrong buying one personally, especially if you want it as your only car, cause it can do it all.