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Our Fleet Test Drive: Honda Civic - 5th report
Date: 30 September 2014 | Author: Tony Rock
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Our Honda Civic Tourer comes with a High Beam Support System, which automatically changes the low beam headlights to high beam when necessary, and vice versa.
It works when the light control switch is set to 'auto' and you're driving over 25mph, switching to high beam when it doesn't detect lights from oncoming or preceding vehicles, and back to low beam when it does (using the camera located behind the rear-view mirror).
It's a good idea, but seeing as I'm one of those people who's slow to trust technology when it comes to automation in cars (it took me ages to get on board with cruise control and even now I only use it on long motorway journeys and when there's next to no traffic) I didn't dare trust it to not dazzle oncoming vehicles when in full-beam mode, so found myself manually switching to low beam, particularly after one occasion when I was slow to react and the system didn't respond either.
As it happens, I was right to follow my instincts because the manual reveals there are a host of circumstances in which the system might not function properly (seven in total, so too many to list here). On that list is a road with "many curves"; so, like a country road, then - exactly the type of road I was using to carry out the test.
Fortunately, the system is easy to disengage (a dealer can even turn it off permanently), but my feeling is that maybe this is a piece of tech that could do with a little bit more development.
| Mileage | 2890 |
| P11D price | £27,405 |
| Our average consumption | 53.0mpg |
| Official combined consumption | 72.4mpg |
| Forecast CPM | 56.9p |
Verdict |
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