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Scheduled to receive my 2023 Si, debating between the Si and GR86, have a couple of concerns. Need some help.

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VLJ

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Discussion starter · #1 ·
Just received word from my dealer that my Sonic Gray Pearl Si is scheduled to be built this month, with a likely delivery ETA of late November or early December. I've been watching and reading everything possible regarding this car, the Toyoburu twins, and also the new GTI with the ridiculously awful new interior. I think I have it narrowed down to the Si and the GR86. I'm also on a list for my local dealer's next GR86 Premium 6-spd MT.

Quick pros and cons, as I see them...

GR86 pros:
-Bit more fun
-RWD
-Faster
-D-4S port/direct injection
-Naturally aspirated
-Steering-responsive headlights
-Heated seats
-Better looking

GR86 cons:
-Atrocious fuel mileage
-Fairly severe NVH
-Crap audio system
-Lack of in-cabin storage
-Awful armrest/cupholders/USB setup
-Sketchy Subaru engine reliability in general
-RVT issue

Si pros:
-Bit cheaper
-Much better fuel mileage
-Better shifter
-Less NVH
-More practical
-Far superior audio system
-Sufficient in-cabin storage
-Proper armrest and cupholders
-More user-friendly USB setup
-Wireless Car Play option
-Superior record of reliability

Si cons:
-Rev hang
-Cost-cutting throughout the cabin, particularly in the back seat
-All the things the U.S.-spec version is missing from the Canadian version, or even from last year's U.S. version
-The 2022 model was already no longer the bang-for-the-buck bargain the Si once was, and the msrp increase for the 2023 model only made it worse
-Direct injection only
-Has a turbo
-Tiny motor

Weighing all of these things, I had decided to cast my lot with the Si, mainly due to the GR86's atrocious fuel mileage. I plan on keeping this car for ten years or more, and the thought of $10-per-gallon premium-grade fuel within the next ten years scares me away from the GR86. I am genuinely blown away that a modern, naturally-aspirated 2.4L four-banger powering a sub-3,000-lb car can somehow return worse fuel mileage than your average soccer mom SUV or behemoth pickup truck.

However, something has started popping up online regarding the Si which gives me pause. Namely, that its AC is just as bad as the GR86's fuel mileage. People in warm-weather states have reported that their new Si's AC not only doesn't blow hard, it also won't blow remotely cold. "It blows semi-cool, at best." I had this same problem with a Subaru Forester, and after two attempts at diagnosing the issue the dealer told me that there was nothing they could do to make it better. Everything was within spec. Nothing was wrong.

"That's just how they are. You're going to have to live with it."

Fast-forward to the new GR86/BRZ, and people are constantly saying how wonderfully cold their AC blows. Where I live, that's a big deal. I do not want to buy another new car with tepid AC.

So, I come here asking for assistance with two concerns...

How bad is the rev hang, and is it fixable without invalidating the warranty or jeopardizing the engine's long-term reliability? I'm not interested in a Stage 87 power-increase tune that will turn my motor into a ticking timebomb. The car is plenty fast enough, stock. I just want it to shift cleanly, pass smog tests, return great fuel mileage, and last as long as my other Hondas.

Is the AC as weak as some are reporting? Is it noticeably less cold than the AC in your other cars?

By the time my Si arrives it will no longer be hot where I live, so I won't be able to test the AC properly before completing the purchase. I'm hoping you real-world Si owners who just blew through a summer's worth of 100+-degree days can help me out with some unvarnished truth.
 
#2 ·
We had the hottest summer in a long time in my region this year, never had a single issue with the Si A/C.

Fuel economy is a pretty big difference, not so much that the Subaru is really bad, but the Honda Si fuel economy is amazing, I've been pleasantly surprised. I have a Subaru WRX and my Civic Si, the Subaru costs me about $6 more to do the same 4 hour highway trip that I tend to drive weekly for my work purposes. I run 89 Octane in my Civic, you probably can't do that in your BRZ/GR86. The BRZ/GR86 is faster by quite a bit, the one thing about my Civic is that 1st gear traction is pretty bad and that slows it down quite a bit as you can't go 100% throttle without spinning the wheels, I suspect the BRZ/GR86 doesn't have traction issues on dry pavement.

I have not had a single Subaru reliability issue on my cars, and I pound the miles on my vehicles for work purposes, no complaints from me. The BRZ/GR86 motor should be pretty reliable, I would not hesitate to buy one.
I didn't like the armrest in my Subaru WRX but I bought a Subaru accessory replacement armrest that is perfect, they may offer one for the BRZ too, it made a big difference for me.
 
Discussion starter · #3 ·
If you don't mind my asking, where in Canada do you live, and does it ever get all that hot there? I found that my Forester's AC was fine too...to a point. That point being 100+-degree days, including the occasional 115-degree scorcher. We see 100+ temps for weeks on end here, and having meh AC really sucks on those days.

I used to work for Subaru, so of course I considered the WRX. Can't beat its utility, and I live close enough to the Sierras that the Subie's AWD would be a fantastic addition. I know the new WRX has much better tuning than the previous gen. From all accounts, they really ironed out all the glitches.

Man, though, did they beat the new WRX with an ugly stick. Also, its fuel mileage is every bit as poor as the GR86's, if not worse. Its interior is pretty lousy, too. Far too many cheap plastic surfaces, and I hate that giant touchscreen.

Pretty sure that if I were going for a sporty Subaru or Toyota it'd have to be the GR86, not the WRX. I'd rather have the pure, lightweight sports car. I loved my NC and ND2 Miatas, and to me the GR86 is a more daily-livable, flatter cornering, crappy fuel-mileage Miata that can be parked outside at work without the top getting torn apart by thieves and destructive sunlight. I could get an RF Miata, but I'm not a fan of the retractable targa top. If it's a Miata, I want it to be a convertible, not a targa top.

This next one won't be another Miata, and I'm 99% certain it won't be a WRX. I'm almost equally certain that it won't be a new GTI S, either.

I'm fairly set now. It's come down to the Si vs the GR86.
 
#4 ·
If I wasn't Canadian, it would be a harder decision between these two cars. Likely I would lean towards the 86 (I had a BRZ before). The Canadian Si is too good.

Rev hang isn't bad on my car it doesn't interfere with my asshole driving.
 
#7 ·
VLJ said:
If you don't mind my asking, where in Canada do you live, and does it ever get all that hot there? I found that my Forester's AC was fine too...to a point. That point being 100+-degree days, including the occasional 115-degree scorcher. We see 100+ temps for weeks on end here, and having meh AC really sucks on those days.

I used to work for Subaru, so of course I considered the WRX. Can't beat its utility, and I live close enough to the Sierras that the Subie's AWD would be a fantastic addition. I know the new WRX has much better tuning than the previous gen. From all accounts, they really ironed out all the glitches.

Man, though, did they beat the new WRX with an ugly stick. Also, its fuel mileage is every bit as poor as the GR86's, if not worse. Its interior is pretty lousy, too. Far too many cheap plastic surfaces, and I hate that giant touchscreen.

Pretty sure that if I were going for a sporty Subaru or Toyota it'd have to be the GR86, not the WRX. I'd rather have the pure, lightweight sports car. I loved my NC and ND2 Miatas, and to me the GR86 is a more daily-livable, flatter cornering, crappy fuel-mileage Miata that can be parked outside at work without the top getting torn apart by thieves and destructive sunlight. I could get an RF Miata, but I'm not a fan of the retractable targa top. If it's a Miata, I want it to be a convertible, not a targa top.

This next one won't be another Miata, and I'm 99% certain it won't be a WRX. I'm almost equally certain that it won't be a new GTI S, either.

I'm fairly set now. It's come down to the Si vs the GR86.
Click to expand...
I live in southern Ontario, about 2 hours from Detroit and Buffalo. Believe it or not our summers can be brutally hot, extreme humidity combines with the hot temps. My wife and I always vacation in summer by going south, we've been doing it for decades to escape our summers. We have gone to Florida in summer and it felt more comfortable there than at home when we leave. I would compare our summers to what you may find in Orlando Florida, hot and humid.
This August we went to Cuba and it was more comfortable in Cuba compared to Canada. So we have no issues with the Civic A/C.

I would have bought the BRZ over the Si in December 2022, but the BRZ wait time was 8 months, and my Civic Si was in the dealer showroom. It only took 4 days to get my Si vs. 8+ months for the BRZ, so far we have been pretty happy with the Si. Being in Canada the BRZ RWD would have been a bit more tricky in our winters, as our son drives our cars the Si and WRX were the best options in terms of winter safety. Black-ice is everywhere in our region, hitting black-ice in a RWD vehicle is guaranteed to send you into the center median or right hand ditch with zero control, not a fun scenario. I feel safer with FWD and AWD.
 
Discussion starter · #8 ·
Black ice is the worst. The absolute worst. As a motorcyclist, nothing scares me more.

I feel like I may let fate overtake common sense here, as in, whichever dealer calls me first to let me know that either my Si or GR86 has arrived, that's the one I'll take. Left brain says fun yet sensible Si, all day long. Right brain says RWD sportscar GR86.
 
#9 ·
To me it comes down to whether you need four doors and a trunk or not.

I love my Si but I would have gone 86 if I didn't care about practicality.

Rev hang is a non-issue on the Si. Yes it is there if you are looking for it, i.e. shifting very slowly at high RPM, but who shifts slowly at high RPM? If you're just putting around town shifting casually at 3k or so, it isn't there, and if you are hauling butt you're shifting so fast there's no time for it to "hang". Apparently it was bad on the 10th gen but not the 11th.

Also, I notice you put cost-cutting on the interior as a con for the Si, but the Si's interior is so much better looking than the 86, so I'm not sure that's fair.
 
Discussion starter · #10 ·
The thing is, the Si's cost-cutting is so much more obvious than the GR86's, due to Honda's decision to gut the Si of all the Canadian/previous-gen U.S. items while simultaneously increasing the price $2,000 ($2,600 for the 2023 model), in addition to ditching soft-touch materials on the top of the front doors, and failing to extend the red theme of the front seats and doors to the back seats and doors.

Meanwhile, the new 86's interior design and materials easily surpass the previous 86's in every way. No obvious cost-cutting there, of the sort Honda threw in the faces of American Si customers.

To your other point, no, I don't specifically need four doors and the Si's larger trunk. I can manage with the GR86's miniscule back seats and smaller trunk. It'd be tight when I have to tote around my guitar gear, but everything would still fit. The Si's extra roominess is a definite plus for the Honda, as is its better shifter and transmission, easier ingress/egress, superior stereo system, much greater user-friendliness in the cabin, and reduced NVH, but its most important advantage to me is its vastly superior fuel mileage. Long-term, that one is going to be an increasingly important factor in the Si's favor.

Clearly, the Si offers many advantages over the GR86, nearly all of them landing on the side of daily livability and practicality.

On the flipside, the GR's most important advantages to me vs the Honda are its larger, naturally aspirated motor, and Toyota's D-4S fueling system. No worries regarding turbo complexity and heat, or carbon buildup on the intake valves. Plus, obviously, RWD, lighter weight, more power, and a dedicated sportscar chassis combine to make for a higher fun factor.

You're going to pay for that higher fun factor at the pump, however, and in daily practicality.

Regarding the Si's rev hang, I haven't been able to test drive an 11th-gen Si. All I can go by are the countless reviewers mentioning that it's not nearly as bad as the 10th gen's, but it's still there above 5,000 rpm, and still annoying. Some people make it sound really irritating, while others mention it merely in passing, as if they're duty-bound to do so, but aren't genuinely bothered by it. I suspect that it's a nonfactor during routine daily driving, but if that's all we ever intended to do with our Civics then we probably would've opted for the more luxurious Touring or cheaper Sport models, not the Si. I'd like to think that most of us prize the Si for its superior performance, a large part of which means winding out the tach and having fun with the shifter.

That is the essence of the Si experience, right?
 
#11 ·
VLJ said:
The thing is, the Si's cost-cutting is so much more obvious than the GR86's, due to Honda's decision to gut the Si of all the Canadian/previous-gen U.S. items while simultaneously increasing the price $2,000 ($2,600 for the 2023 model), in addition to ditching soft-touch materials on the top of the front doors, and failing to extend the red theme of the front seats and doors to the back seats and doors.

Meanwhile, the new 86's interior design and materials easily surpass the previous 86's in every way. No obvious cost-cutting there, of the sort Honda threw in the faces of American Si customers.

To your other point, no, I don't specifically need four doors and the Si's larger trunk. I can manage with the GR86's miniscule back seats and smaller trunk. It'd be tight when I have to tote around my guitar gear, but everything would still fit. The Si's extra roominess is a definite plus for the Honda, as is its better shifter and transmission, easier ingress/egress, superior stereo system, much greater user-friendliness in the cabin, and reduced NVH, but its most important advantage to me is its vastly superior fuel mileage. Long-term, that one is going to be an increasingly important factor in the Si's favor.

Clearly, the Si offers many advantages over the GR86, nearly all of them landing on the side of daily livability and practicality.

On the flipside, the GR's most important advantages to me vs the Honda are its larger, naturally aspirated motor, and Toyota's D-4S fueling system. No worries regarding turbo complexity and heat, or carbon buildup on the intake valves. Plus, obviously, RWD, lighter weight, more power, and a dedicated sportscar chassis combine to make for a higher fun factor.

You're going to pay for that higher fun factor at the pump, however, and in daily practicality.

Regarding the Si's rev hang, I haven't been able to test drive an 11th-gen Si. All I can go by are the countless reviewers mentioning that it's not nearly as bad as the 10th gen's, but it's still there above 5,000 rpm, and still annoying. Some people make it sound really irritating, while others mention it merely in passing, as if they're duty-bound to do so, but aren't genuinely bothered by it. I suspect that it's a nonfactor during routine daily driving, but if that's all we ever intended to do with our Civics then we probably would've opted for the more luxurious Touring or cheaper Sport models, not the Si. I'd like to think that most of us prize the Si for its superior performance, a large part of which means winding out the tach and having fun with the shifter.

That is the essence of the Si experience, right?
Click to expand...
For what it’s worth, the rev hang is absolutely there, but the more I drove with it, the less it was a factor. If you want to shift, you shift, and rev hang doesn’t slow that down.

If you’re cautiously waiting for the RPM to fall naturally between shifts, it can take a little extra time, but when you’re revving out to 5k+, are you really going to just wait anyway? Below that, at lower RPM, it barely even shows itself. It just takes a little to get used to.

The Si is also supported extremely well in the aftermarket scene, with many tunes available that can increase torque, power, mileage, remove rev hang, and any combination of those. If you just want to remove rev hang, it’s quite easy and not that expensive to remove, without having to touch the car’s power output much at all, if any.
 
Discussion starter · #12 ·
Does removing the rev hang invalidate the warranty? Also, what about passing smog checks down the the road, and long-term reliability? I know the rev hang is only there because of ever-tightening emissions requirements.
 
#13 ·
VLJ said:
Does removing the rev hang invalidate the warranty? Also, what about passing smog checks down the the road, and long-term reliability? I know the rev hang is only there because of ever-tightening emissions requirements.
Click to expand...
It depends, but you’re often protected as long as they can’t prove your modification is the cause of the damage to the car. With that said, yes it can void some warranties, depending on different factors. There are tunes that are smog legal, but removing rev hang, from my understanding, can invalidate it in emissions testing. I have heard from someone that they kept the tune on sport mode, and factory tune on normal mode, so that way they can pass emissions. I don’t know if you’d have the same experience though
 
#15 ·
I do not notice the rev hang at all. I was between GR86 and SI. I went SI due to price, practicality and then likelihood that the Honda would be a more reliable vehicle. The trunk in the GR is a joke and the back seat couldn't fit my 6 year old. The SI transmission is just so good. The SI seats are so much more comfortable and the interior and infotainment are much better. That center console for the GR86 was annoying just sitting in it. It would drive me crazy long term. Honestly, the only thing I miss that the Canadian version has is the fog lights and that is being easily rectified. It helps that I already had weather tech mats from my 2022 sport and a ktuner.
 
#18 ·
Just wanted to share, I have a 2022 Aegean blue SI, 5,000 miles, 6 months old with a full Phoenix,Az summer under its belt. Don’t see the air conditioning as an issue, during 115 days the interior of car per heat gun, and thermometer will see 140-150 degrees. That’s with tint and heat shield sun screens on every window. The dark blue paint absorbs heat just like black. Car starts blowing cold air immediately and within 3 minutes it gets tolerable. I will admit that if car is moving it does cool down quicker, lot of heat under hood with turbo and cat side by side. We still have 110 degrees at 10 pm, but when the sun goes down you don’t need the fan on high, which blows plenty hard.
As far as rev hang if you want a fast 0-60, I never lift off the gas just flat floor shifting, ask Doug with Hondata.
This car has totally exceeded expectations, fun to drive, incredible fuel mileage, and between the handling and six speed, tremendous value for the money. The 86 is a great car, especially if your want to track it, and for some a great daily driver, but at best it’s a 2 seater and room for the dog in back.
I am supposedly in line for an R at msrp, but if that doesn’t happen, the SI will be in the driveway for a long time.
Good luck in whatever decision you make, but I don’t think you will be disappointed with an SI, and for sure the front interior is second only to the R.
 
Discussion starter · #19 ·
The GTI S (the base model) is only $31K, and it has basically all the same things as the Canadian-spec Si. It also has volume and tuning knobs, plus a few other buttons and switches that are missing from the higher GTI trims with their abominable new VW infotainment. The GTI S offers a strong argument. It's a hatch, for one thing. Kinda goofy looking, but effective nonetheless. If the Civic Hatchback was available as an Si, and it had all the Canadian things, there would be no debate. That'd be the one.

I don't like the Integra's hatch design. Load floor and the hatch opening are much too high. The basic Civic hatchback design is so much better.

Type R, Z, and Supra are all too expensive, and I have no need for that much power. I've learned that overly powerful motorcycles and cars are simply not as fun in the real world as less powerful things that handle great while allowing full use of the throttle. Small, light, and sufficiently fast is almost always more fun than large, heavy, and excessively powerful. The thing simply needs to have enough power, which I'm sure the Si and GR86 both do. No worries there.

The GR Corolla won't be attainable. The Circuit and Moriso models may as well be vaporware. The Core model will be somewhat available, eventually, with crazy markups, but I just had a 6-spd manual Corolla XSE hatchback. I don't want that body shape and interior again, even with 300 hp and AWD. I'd rather have an Si or GR86, which are both much more affordable.

I really wish the new Si at least had the 10th Gen's heated seats and fog lights. Since the Si now offers wireless Car Play, the wireless charger from the Canadian model should have also been a given. Can't believe they cheaped out on those three things. I'd be fine without the rest of the Canadian-spec omissions, but those three things are glaring misses. As silly as it is, I really hate the idea of black plastic circles where the fog lights are supposed to go. What an eyesore. Heated seats? Come on. Half of America is really cold.
 
Discussion starter · #20 ·
1K3racer, that's what I wanted to hear. Phoenix heat. I can relate to that. If you're saying the Si's AC worked for a Phoenix summer, then I ought to be okay.

Aegean Blue. Dammit. I had a choice of Aegean Blue or Sonic Gray Pearl. I seriously could not decide. It was so bad, I almost let my salesperson flip a coin. I ended up choosing Aegean Blue, my first choice, based on Honda's builder pics, and some online images. Then I went outside and walked the dealership's inventory. After checking out both colors on other vehicles, I decided that Aegean Blue looked too...young? Less classy? Not as Audi-esque special?

I couldn't put my finger on it, but after seeing a Civic Touring in Sonic Gray Pearl I walked right back inside and switched my Si order to the gray one.

No matter which color I chose, I was always going to think I should have chosen the other one. Now, every time I see an Aegean Blue, I'm going to have instant pangs of regret. This much, I know. I'm exactly that type of idiot.
 
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