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The Best Compact Car, The Wirecutter

The Best Compact Car

After weeks of researching all fifteen of the major compact cars you can buy and driving the best ones, we’re wooed that the two thousand sixteen Honda Civic EX is the best choice for most people. Simply put, it rates higher in more areas that we consider significant than any other compact car. By their nature, compacts are puny, fuel efficient, and affordable, but they’re fairly basic in how they drive, as well as in the styling and the features they suggest. The fresh Civic, however, provides the best overall driving practice of any compact, balancing joy driving and a comfy rail. It’s also one of the roomiest cars in the segment, and among the most fuel efficient. Its fresh, edgier styling helps it stand out from a mostly abate crowd, too. And for a reasonable price of about $22,000 one for the EX version, the car surrounds you with a convenient, well-crafted cabin and gives you more of the features everyone wants than any of the other cars we looked at. In fact, the Civic is the only compact that offers an epic suite of advanced safety features—called Honda Sensing—for all trim versions and for a reasonable price of only $1,000. The Civic is also among the top compacts in safety and overall value. That combination of virtues is hard to strike, even if you were to pay more.

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Honda gave the Civic a major redesign for 2016, with newer styling, a roomier interior and trunk, a quieter cabin, better treating and fuel economy, and a host of standard and available features. The result is a car that edges out our previous top pick, the Mazda3, and gives you a notably better overall package than any other compact car. While the Civic isn’t as invigorating to drive as the Mazda3 or VW Golf, it is still one of the more joy compacts to zip around in, and it balances that with a more comfy rail than you might expect in a puny car—something you’ll appreciate especially on a long tour. Other pluses for any outing are a convenient cabin, a spacious rear seat with some of the most legroom in this group, and the best fuel economy at thirty five miles per gallon in combined city and highway driving, a figure matched by only a special edition of the Toyota Corolla. The EX version we chose comes with a number of features that are hard to find in other cars at this price, including the very sought-after Apple CarPlay and Android Auto for making the most of your cell phone. When tooled with the $1,000 Honda Sensing package, which includes some advanced safety features, this is the only compact car in our test group that earned the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety’s best designation of Top Safety Pick+. And while the two thousand sixteen model is too fresh for anyone to judge reliability, the Civic in general has a good track record of low problem rates and holding its value well. All of this is why it not only became our fresh top pick but also became the two thousand sixteen North American Car of the Year according to US and Canadian auto journalists. For now, the Civic is available only as a sedan, but a hatchback version is expected later in 2016.

*At the time of publishing, the price was $21,000.

The Mazda3 is another solid choice that auto experts universally praise for its nimble treating, precise cornering, and spirited engine. Complementing its upbeat character is an eye-catching look—outside and inside—and a remarkably high-quality cabin with slew of features and comfy, nicely contoured front seats. It also ranks at the top of its class for fuel economy, safety, and overall value. And it’s available as a sedan or hatchback. The Mazda3 loses out on our top spot to the Honda Civic EX because the latter provides a roomier cabin and trunk, a more comfy rail, slightly better fuel economy, and more advanced safety features.

When we very first published this guide last year, the two thousand fifteen Mazda3 i Touring was our clear top pick. What a difference a year makes: Not only did the redesigned Honda Civic edge it out, but Mazda also shuffled its trim and feature availability enough that we now believe the lower-priced two thousand sixteen Mazda3 i Sport version to be a better overall value at a little more than $20,500 two for the sedan and $700 more for the hatchback. Compared with the two thousand fifteen model, the i Sport provides more of the features that people want for about $1,200 less than the two thousand sixteen i Touring costs.

If you like a car that’s sporty to drive, the Volkswagen Golf 1.8T S is another excellent choice. Available only as a hatchback, the Golf is a thrill to drive. It earns high praise for its sporty, fun-to-drive character; its roomy, well-finished interior; and its comfy seats. But the Golf isn’t as good of a value as the Honda Civic or Mazda3. The Golf S, which costs about $22,000 three —a little more than the Honda Civic EX (without Honda Sensing) and almost $1,500 more than the Mazda3 i Sport—doesn’t give you as many convenience or safety features as either of those cars. And its 29-mpg combined fuel economy is among the lowest in this group.

If you’re looking for a car that will spread your dollars the furthest, the specially optimized Toyota Corolla LE Eco presents a coaxing case. At less than $20,000, four it has one of the lowest prices of the group, but it’s still fairly well tooled. The base LE Eco version also ranks high in fuel economy among the cars on our list, tying the Honda Civic. There’s more: The Corolla boasts very good reliability ratings from various sources, has one of the lowest cost-to-own estimates according to Kelley Blue Book, and rates as a top performer on the retained-value lists of both ALG and Edmunds.com. This model gives you a roomy cabin, as well. While the Corolla doesn’t have any major low points, both its styling and its driving practice are rather bland, and it can’t match the safety credentials of the Honda Civic in terms of safety features or crash-test results.

If you can afford to pay almost $28,000, five the high-end version of the Honda Civic is the ultimate compact car. In addition to all of the usual virtues of our top pick, the two thousand sixteen Honda Civic Touring version provides a significantly stronger turbocharged engine that amazingly gets the same excellent fuel economy and even slightly better results on the highway—it’s one of the most powerful and most fuel-efficient cars we looked at. The Touring also treats you very well: In addition to all of the inviting convenience and safety features in the EX version with Honda Sensing, you also get such luxury items as power front seats, heated front and rear seats, a premium 10-speaker audio system, a navigation system, dual-zone climate control, and automatic high-beams. Drawbacks? Its price is pretty steep for most compact-car buyers. That said, it’s about $Two,000 less than the similarly tooled Mazda3 s Grand Touring, which we previously picked as an upgrade alternative.

If you want the added security of all-wheel drive in slimy conditions, a compact car is the least expensive way to get it. And of the two compacts that suggest it—the Subaru Impreza and the Mitsubishi Lancer—the Impreza is clearly the better choice. But AWD is only part of this car’s appeal. Available as a sedan or hatchback, the Impreza is a good all-around car, and at about $20,000 six for the Impreza Two.0i sedan (or an extra $500 for the Impreza Two.0i hatchback), it’s one of the least expensive compacts we considered. It provides a lot of interior room, boasts some of this group’s best overall scores in IIHS and NHTSA safety tests, and has a relatively low cost-to-own estimate, according to Kelley Blue Book. Where does it fall brief? The Impreza gets only middle-of-the-pack fuel economy, and the sedan version has a relatively petite trunk. This car also lacks the higher-end features of the Honda Civic and offers no reasonably priced way to upgrade to a more full-featured version. And lastly, if we’re being fair, it doesn’t look almost as good.

Table of contents

Why you should trust me

I was the automotive editor for Consumer Reports for fourteen years, so I’m used to conducting in-depth, detailed evaluations of cars of all types. Prior to that, I was the senior feature editor for Motor Trend for nine years, where I drove and wrote about everything from puny cars to SUVs to luxury and spectacle cars. I’ve driven virtually every car on the road, and I’ve learned that you can find big differences inbetween models that look essentially the same on paper. I’ve observed the compact-car market go through an amazing transformation in latest years, from one populated by cheap-feeling, boring economy cars to one packed with the solid, spirited, well-built, and well-equipped compact cars we have today. Still, I request a lot in terms of both value and spectacle, and, yes, some compact cars are undoubtedly better than others.

For this guide, I also interviewed two other experts on the field: Jack Nerad, executive editorial director of Kelley Blue Book and KBB.com, and Steven J. Ewing, managing editor of Autoblog. The recommendations I make here are the same that I would give to my family and friends in a one-on-one discussion. So, welcome to the family.

Why you might want a compact car

A compact car is a good choice for people who want an inexpensive, fuel-efficient car that’s effortless to park and maneuver yet provides good spectacle, convenience, and everyday practicality. They’re ideal for youthful drivers, or for anyone who has a limited budget or simply chooses a thrifty lifestyle.

“Compact cars can be a lot of things to a lot of people,” said Steven J. Ewing, managing editor of Autoblog in an email interview. “They’re relatively affordable, fuel-efficient, functional, and these days, can still be loaded with all of the convenience and convenience features available on more premium vehicles.”

“Compact cars are generally economical to buy and operate,” added Jack Nerad, executive editorial director and executive market analyst for Kelley Blue Book and KBB.com. “These days they can be packed with a broad multitude of options that rival those suggested by luxury cars, but going that route significantly ups the purchase price. Compacts are typically purchased by consumers who are value-oriented or are coerced to be value-oriented by their incomes and bank accounts. Youthfull marrieds and oldsters on immovable incomes are two major buying groups.”

Overall, compacts occupy a sweet spot inbetween price and functionality. Base prices for most conventional gas-powered models range from about $Eighteen,000 to $26,000, albeit slew of variants—sporty models, diesels, hybrids, and so on—can go over $30,000. The models we chose to consider, with automatic transmissions and a nice selection of features, fall in the $Nineteen,500 to $23,000 range. That’s more than $Ten,000 below the estimated average transaction price for a fresh car, according to Kelley Blue Book.

Size-wise, compact cars fall in inbetween midsize cars and even smaller subcompacts. They’re about eight to fifteen inches shorter and two to three inches narrower than a typical midsize sedan, which makes them lighter to maneuver in taut places, such as when you’re parallel parking, squeezing into a crowded parking space, or pulling a quick U-turn. They’re good choices for people who drive in cities and other congested areas.

Their smaller size, however, has disadvantages, too. “Compact cars are just that—compact,” Ewing told me. “If you need to transport lots of people, these vehicles won’t work. Towing? You’re out of luck. And while many premium features are available on these smaller cars, they aren’t going to have the same levels of refinement and available goodies as larger, more expensive offerings.”

Nerad agreed: “Though compact cars are thicker than they used to be (aren’t we all?), they are still smaller than midsize sedans, full-size sedans, and most SUVs. That means cargo- and people-hauling capabilities are constrained. Most compacts can seat just four adults cozily, tho’ a fifth adult can typically be squeezed in for brief hops. And compacts typically don’t suggest the rail quality and quiet cabins of larger vehicles.”

Due to these vehicles’ shorter, narrower dimensions, the cabins in compact sedans are generally smaller, and as a result they typically provide less rear legroom. And albeit all of the compacts we looked at can technically hold five people, the rear center position is usually a pretty awkward hump, with a stiff back and limited headroom. When I squeezed my 5-foot-10-inch figure into the rear center of each car, my head touched the roof in all but a few; in two of them (the Dodge Dart and Hyundai Elantra), I couldn’t even sit fully upright. Of the fifteen cars we looked at, the Volkswagen Golf SportWagen had the least awkward center position.

Compact sedans also have trunks that are a little smaller and narrower than those in midsize sedans. Fortunately, several compact models are available as a hatchback or wagon, which greatly improves their utility; these include the Ford Concentrate, Hyundai Elantra, Kia Forte, Mazda3, Subaru Impreza, and Volkswagen Golf and Golf SportWagen. Hatchback versions generally cost about $500 more than sedans. To get similar versatility in a midsize vehicle, you’d likely have to stir to a crossover model, as automakers hardly produce any midsize station wagons anymore.

Eventually, regardless of their crash scores, the smaller size of compacts makes them more vulnerable in a crash with a larger vehicle, as we discuss below in Small-car safety.

Compacts can help you squeeze the most from your fuel dollars. Depending on the car, the fuel economy, in miles per gallon, generally ranges from the high 20s to the mid-30s in combined city and highway driving. The most fuel-efficient cars in this guide are the Honda Civic EX (35 mpg combined), the Toyota Corolla LE Eco (35), and the Mazda3 i Sport (34, sedan; 33, hatchback). By comparison, the most fuel-efficient conventional midsize cars typically get in the low 30s. The compacts we looked at with the lowest fuel economy are the Dodge Dart SXT (27 mpg) and the Volkswagen Golf 1.8T S and Golf SportWagen 1.8T S, which both get twenty nine mpg.

All compacts suggest a broad range of features, depending on how much you spend. Lower-priced, entry-level versions can be pretty bare-bones, lacking even such expected features as power windows, cruise control, and the capability to listen to your music by way of a Bluetooth connection from your smartphone or portable music player. Some modern convenience, entertainment, and safety features, such as rearview cameras, wise keyless entry, push-button begin, and touchscreen entertainment systems, are becoming more widely available. But upscale items such as automatic climate control, blind-spot monitoring, and rear-cross-traffic alert systems are still fairly hard to find at a reasonable price. Advanced safety systems, such as forward-collision and lane-departure warning systems, are even more infrequent. Only our top pick, the two thousand sixteen Honda Civic, offers them for every trim version and at a reasonable price. On other compacts, they’re available exclusively in higher-level, more-expensive trims and as part of an option package—if they’re available at all. We found that the sweet spot for overall value is usually in the midlevel-trim versions, which account for most of the cars we chose to compare.

If you find that you need a roomier car, refer to our guide for midsize sedans. Our pick in that category, the Subaru Legacy Two.5i Premium, which costs about $25,000, comes with standard all-wheel drive, offers excellent fuel economy of thirty mpg in combined city and highway driving (which is awesome for an AWD car), and has advanced safety features that are hard to find at that price.

If you want an even smaller car—because of taut parking, congested traffic, or a restricted budget—check out our guide for subcompact hatchbacks. Our pick there, the Honda Fit EX, costs a little over $Nineteen,000 and provides excellent fuel economy of thirty five mpg combined, as well as more interior space and features than you might expect in such a puny, inexpensive car.

Sedan or hatchback?

Five of the fifteen compact cars we looked at are available as either a sedan or a hatchback.

One of your big decisions when buying a compact car is whether to get a sedan or a hatchback. A sedan, of course, has a basic “car form,” with an engine in front and a trunk in back. A hatchback substitutes the trunk with a swing-up rear door and a larger, open cargo compartment, making it in essence a smaller version of a wagon or crossover.

“A compact sedan offers a lockable trunk and a style that most Americans choose,” said Jack Nerad of Kelley Blue Book and KBB.com. “Hatchbacks are more versatile.” We tend to agree, and all things being equal, we choose hatchbacks over sedans because they’re a lot more limber when it comes to carrying people and gear.

Among the fifteen cars we include in this guide, five are available in either figure style: the Ford Concentrate, Hyundai Elantra, Kia Forte, Mazda3, and Subaru Impreza. Seven—the Chevrolet Cruze Limited, Dodge Dart, Honda Civic, Mitsubishi Lancer, Nissan Sentra, Toyota Corolla, and Volkswagen Jetta—come only as a sedan. The Scion iM and Volkswagen Golf are available only as hatchbacks, and the Volkswagen Golf SportWagen is essentially a longer, wagon version of the Golf.

Which version you choose, however, will boil down to how much you want to spend (sedans generally cost about $500 less than hatchbacks) and how much cargo space you need (hatchbacks can carry a lot more stuff). Both bod types have folding rear seats that expand the cargo space, but sedans have relatively petite openings inbetween the trunk and the rear-seat area, whereas hatchbacks let you stack things to the roof and as far forward as you want.

One compromise in choosing a hatchback, however, can be less selection. The Elantra GT hatchback, for example, is available in only one trim level. The hatchback version of the Ford Concentrate isn’t available in the least-expensive trim, as its sedan sibling is.

Small-car safety

If you’re considering a compact car, keep in mind that such models are more vulnerable in a crash with larger vehicles, regardless of how good their crash-test ratings are. Also, some puny cars are having a difficult time with a fresh crash test called the puny overlap frontal crash test, tho’ our top pick, the Honda Civic, has performed among the best in that regard. That said, petite cars are lighter and more nimble than larger vehicles, which makes avoiding an accident in the very first place lighter.

Overall, the compacts we looked at do pretty well in crash tests conducted by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety and the federal government’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. But “even if they do well in crash tests, you are at a disadvantage with a larger, stronger car,” said Gabe Shenhar, senior test engineer for Consumer Reports. “That’s just physics.” In fact, the frontal crash tests for both safety organizations measure only how well a vehicle performs against one of a similar weight. So a high rating for a compact car—four or five starlets in an NHTSA test and an Acceptable or Good rating in an IIHS test—essentially means that the vehicle will do a good job protecting its occupants if it hits, yes, another compact. A puny car that suffers a frontal collision with a larger, stronger one will likely get the worse of the encounter, regardless of its crash rating.

It might look bad, but the IIHS says the driver’s space “was maintained very well” in this two thousand sixteen Honda Civic.

One crash test that has plagued some compact models is the IIHS’s relatively fresh petite overlap frontal crash test. Introduced in 2012, this test simulates what happens when just the front corner of a car collides with another vehicle or with an object such as a tree or a utility pole. According to a two thousand nine IIHS probe, these sorts of crashes account for almost a quarter of the frontal crashes that result in serious or fatal injuries to people sitting in the front seats, even among vehicles with otherwise good frontal-crash ratings.

So far, of the fifteen compacts we looked at, only six have received the top rating of Good in the IIHS puny overlap frontal crash test: our top pick, the Honda Civic, plus the Mazda3, Nissan Sentra, Subaru Impreza, and Volkswagen Golf and Jetta. Four others, namely the Dodge Dart, Ford Concentrate, Hyundai Elantra, and Mitsubishi Lancer, got an Acceptable rating. And three—the Chevrolet Cruze, Kia Forte, and Toyota Corolla—got only a Marginal rating. The IIHS hasn’t tested the fresh Scion iM or the VW Golf SportWagen yet.

Features to look for

Despite their low prices, today’s compact cars treat you pretty well in terms of features. You can get many modern conveniences, connected entertainment systems, and advanced safety features, depending on the car you choose and how much you want to spend. For this guide, we sought cars that were well tooled with the modern features everyone wants these days but not so loaded with “nice-to-have” items as to become unaffordable.

“It makes sense to buy a mid-range compact,” Jack Nerad of Kelley Blue Book and KBB.com told me in an email interview. “I’d avoid a entirely basic car (hard to re-sell) and a fully loaded compact (you won’t get value for the extra stuff when you sell or trade). A trim level that offers connectivity plus electronic driving aids is a good middle ground.”

Except for a few of the least expensive, entry-level cars, which skimp on some basic features, virtually all compacts give you power windows, locks, and mirrors; cruise control; a tilt steering wheel; a push-button key fob that lets you lock and unlock the car from a distance; wireless Bluetooth hands-free-phone and streaming-audio capability; USB and auxiliary inputs for plugging in a individual audio player; a excursion computer with fuel-economy and miles-to-empty readouts; and a 60/40 split-folding rear seat for expanding the trunk or rear cargo space. These are the things we consider to be must-haves.

That’s only the commencing point, however. Many of these cars provide, either as standard equipment or as reasonably priced options, a number of other inviting features that can make a big difference in living with a car every day. And our pick, the two thousand sixteen Honda Civic EX, gives you more of them as standard items than any other compact car in this price range.

Such features include a rearview camera that makes backing up lighter and safer by displaying you the area behind your car on the dash screen (a government mandate will make this technology standard on all cars built after May 1, 2018); a clever keyless entry system that lets you unlock or lock the doors without having to take the key out of your pocket or bag; push-button commence, which provides a similar benefit as the brainy keyless entry; and an entertainment system with a large touchscreen display, voice control, and integrated mobile apps that work with your smartphone.

Other handy features that are available on some of the cars we looked at include automatic headlights (which turn themselves on and off), an auto-dimming rearview mirror, satellite radio, heated seats, a remote starter system, and automatic climate control, which lets you set a cabin temperature and then leave behind about it.

When it comes to safety, all fresh cars come with electronic stability control, antilock brakes, traction control, and at least six airbags (dual front bags, front side-impact bags, and side-curtain bags, which protect the passengers in both the front and rear seats from head injuries in a side influence). But more advanced safety features are still sparse in this budget-oriented category. Only a few cars we considered—the Chevrolet Cruze 1LT, Mazda3 i Sport, and Nissan Sentra SV—offer both a blind-spot warning system and a rear-cross-traffic warning system as options. The Honda Civic EX does include its unique LaneWatch blind-spot display as standard equipment.

On top of that, the Honda Civic EX is the only car on our list that offers a forward-collision warning system with automatic braking and a lane-departure warning system with automatic assist, both of which are part of its reasonably priced $1,000 Honda Sensing system.

A forward-collision warning system alerts you if it senses that your car may be going too rapid to avoid hitting a vehicle in front, so you can react in time to prevent or at least lessen any harm. With automatic braking, the car will automatically apply the brakes in such a situation to help slow it down in order to prevent or minimize a front-end collision. The IIHS has found that these systems cut rear-end collisions by about forty percent. A lane-departure warning system signals if your car starts drifting across a lane divider without a turn-signal activated, which could happen if you’re sleepy or dispelled. And auto assist will help nudge the car back into its lane if it drifts out. Aside from the Civic, you can find versions of these systems suggested as options on some higher-trim versions of the Mazda3, Nissan Sentra, Subaru Impreza, and VW models.

How we picked

The compact-car category covers one of the widest ranges of vehicles. For this guide, we dreamed to concentrate on the meat of the market, the models that most people think of as “compacts,” which are affordably priced four-door sedans and hatchbacks. These styles are the most popular kinds of compact cars, and they provide the best combination of value, spectacle, convenience, and practicality.

Very first I scoured automaker websites to compare the trim levels, specs, and options of the cars we determined to consider. Then I checked out their fuel-economy ratings on the US Department of Energy’s fueleconomy.gov website, as well as their safety ratings in tests conducted by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. I studied reviews and ratings from other accomplished sources, such as Autoblog, Car and Driver, Consumer Reports, Edmunds.com, Kelley Blue Book, Motor Trend, and U.S. News & World Report. I also talked to other experts and drove each of the top models, spending a week driving a two thousand sixteen Honda Civic EX that I borrowed from Honda’s press fleet.

We considered only models with automatic transmissions because many more people buy those than they do stick shifts. If you like to shift for yourself, you can typically save $800 to $1,100 by opting for a manual transmission, albeit you won’t find one suggested at every trim level. Only the least-expensive entry-level versions of the Honda Civic and the Nissan Sentra suggest a manual transmission, for example, as do a duo of versions of the Hyundai Elantra, Kia Forte, Mitsubishi Lancer, Subaru Impreza, and Toyota Corolla. Don’t think that a manual transmission will necessarily give you better fuel economy (which is one of the reasons people frequently go for one): Of the fifteen models we looked at, most provide equivalent or better gas mileage with their automatic transmission than with their manual. Only a few are more frugal with the manual transmission, and even that result depends on the trim level you choose.

Compacts we looked at

Price as configured

For each of the models, I selected the trim version that I believed provided the best value—the one that I would choose, including options or accessories, if I were buying it for myself. (The “build and price” contraption on each website makes this task effortless. Going through the trim options is also a good reality check, because you can lightly see how adding extras quickly raises the vehicle’s price.) Because of the prices of options and the limited availability of features on some models, the way I configured them could vary a bit. For example, while the Honda Civic EX gives you a brainy keyless entry system and push-button embark (through which you can unlock the doors and commence the car with the keys still in your pocket or bag) as standard equipment, most of the other cars we looked at make you stir up to a higher-priced trim level to get those features, and even then a duo of models make you pay another $1,500 to $Two,400 to get such a system as part of an option package. As a result, I configured most of the cars without these features.

Once I had configured a trim level for each car, I compared them all in terms of price, spectacle, fuel economy, interior space, features, safety ratings, warranties, reliability, and more.

Then, when I had narrowed my list to the top five, I did what I recommend every buyer do: I spent a few days going from dealership to dealership, driving each of the contenders on the brief list back to back so that I could feel the differences in acceleration, treating, convenience, versatility, and overall attention to detail. Sometimes, even the best-looking cars on paper can let you down because of something as plain as an awkward seat or difficult-to-use radio controls.

In the end, the best choice was clearly the two thousand sixteen Honda Civic EX.

Our pick

We chose the two thousand sixteen Honda Civic EX as the best compact car because no other car rises to the top in so many key areas. Costing about $22,000, seven or about $23,000 eight with the Honda Sensing suite of advanced safety features, it’s simply a better overall package than any of the other compacts out there. Very first, the Civic has received a major redesign for two thousand sixteen that brings edgier styling, better treating, and a more joy overall attitude. It’s a big step up over the so-so two thousand fifteen model, which had trouble standing out in this group. (Right brain, check.) Plus, it has one of the roomiest interiors (cabin and trunk) of any compact and provides convenience and safety features that are hard to find elsewhere; it’s also a fine value for the price, one of the most fuel-efficient cars we looked at, and one of the safest compacts on the road. (Left brain, check.) Overall, the two thousand sixteen Honda Civic successfully hits more of the category’s major touchstones than any other car in this group.

“The Civic expertly walks that line inbetween serving up safe, reliable transportation and suggesting some of the best steering, treating and driving dynamics in the segment,” writes Allyson Harwood for KBB.com. “It is sportier, more elegant and more modern at once.”

U.S. News and World Report, which aggregates car reviews, sums it up by writing that “the redesigned two thousand sixteen Honda Civic is among the best compact cars you can buy, with responsive treating, an upscale cabin and generous passenger and cargo space.”

While the Civic has a more fun-to-drive character than before, it hasn’t sacrificed a comfy rail, which is one of the best in the segment. Photo: Rik Paul

Which version should you buy? The Honda Civic is available in five trim versions, any of which you can garment with the Honda Sensing suite of safety features for a reasonable $1,000. With an eye for getting the most value for your money, we evaluated the options and found that the EX version hits the sweet spot. For a price of about $22,000, it includes all of the features we think every compact car in this price range should come with, such as Bluetooth for your phone and audio devices, USB ports, an information display inbetween the gauges, split-folding rear seats, and a tilting and telescoping steering wheel. But the Civic also goes much further than most cars in this group, providing extra standard features like a rearview camera, a large touchscreen in the dash, a wise keyless entry system that doesn’t require you to take the key out of your pocket or bag, automatic climate control, a sunroof, a blind-spot display, a remote starter, automatic headlights, alloy wheels, and Apple CarPlay and Android Autos support.

That’s a lot for your money. But we also recommend that you get the $1,000 Honda Sensing package, which includes a forward-collision warning system with automatic braking, adaptive cruise control, and a lane-departure warning system with active assist. Such features aren’t available in any other car in this price range. The Civic’s forward-collision system monitors how close you are to a vehicle in front and will automatically apply the brakes if necessary to help avoid or minimize a collision. According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, these types of auto-braking systems reduce the rate of rear-end collisions by a whopping forty percent. With the lane-departure system, if you begin to stray from your lane without activating a turn signal—as can happen if you’re sleepy or distracted—the system will alert you and even automatically use the steering to help nudge you back into your lane. I checked it out while driving on a local highway, and as I crossed the right lane divider, I could feel a slight pulse of resistance in the steering wheel as it attempted to nudge me back.

Unless you’re pinched for cash, avoid the entry-level LX version. It’s about $1,500 cheaper, but you’ll miss out on such nice items as the nifty HondaLink entertainment system with 7-inch touchscreen (the LX comes with a 5-inch LCD screen), Apple CarPlay/Android Auto, the wise keyless entry and ignition system, heated mirrors, a sunroof, the LaneWatch blind-spot display, and a remote starter. We think those features are well worth the extra money.

Spending almost $1,200 more for the EX-T version buys you a stronger turbocharged engine, a dual-zone climate system, heated front seats, satellite radio, fog lights, and larger alloy wheels. Nice additions, but that brings the price to about $23,000, which is among the highest in this group. We’d rather spend that money on adding the Honda Sensing package to the EX. The higher EX-L trim lets you get navigation for an extra $1,500, but we’d pass on that. In the end, if you want a fully loaded compact car and have some extra bucks to spend, the top-of-the-line Civic Touring is the way to go, as we describe in A full-featured choice.

The Civic was redesigned for 2016, with fresh, edgier styling that wins broad applause. Photo: Rik Paul

One of the high points of the fresh Civic is that it’s more joy and engaging to drive. It doesn’t have fairly the acute, sports-car-like feel of the Mazda3 and Volkswagen Golf, but it feels agile and responsive through turns, reacting quickly and precisely to your driving directions. It also feels very stable at highway speeds: In our tests, going seventy or higher was no problem for this compact car. You can’t say the same about many compact cars, most of which just feel like a lackluster, functional way to get from point A to point B.

KBB.com’s Allyson Harwood agrees, writing, “Handling and steering are excellent, making the Civic agile and responsive when cornering.” Edmunds.com’s reviewer also concurs: “Like the best Civics of yore, the fresh one feels sporty and joy when you’re driving it on winding back roads. Unlike its predecessors, however, it’s fairly quiet inwards at speed, and its rail is more compliant than ever.”

The Civic’s HondaLink touchscreen system provides a lot of entertainment options and is mostly effortless to use. Photo: Rik Paul

Overall, among compact cars, the Civic achieves perhaps the best balance inbetween joy treating and a comfy rail. The compliant rail soaks up petite road imperfections and takes the edge off of larger bumps, making the Civic a comfy car to spend time in whether you’re running around-town errands or spending hours behind the wheel on a long drive. It isn’t luxury-car plush, but it is among the best you’ll find here.

The Civic’s engine provides good power and ranks as one of the most fuel efficient in our group. Photo: Rik Paul

The Civic EX’s spirited 158-horsepower, Two.0-liter four-cylinder engine has slew of power for merging into highway traffic, passing other vehicles, or climbing hills. It also operates slickly with no annoying stimulations and responds well when you press the accelerator. I did find that this puny engine had to work hard in more-demanding situations, but that’s a common trait among compacts. You can get a stronger 174-hp, 1.5-liter turbo engine in higher trim versions, but we think the base engine is just fine for most people.

The fresh Civic is quieter than the previous version as well as a lot of other compacts, but you’ll still notice a fair bit of road and wind noise, especially at highway speeds or on rough roads. That just comes with the territory.

Overall, the controls are effortless to use, with large buttons in the display and on the dash. Photo: Rik Paul

The Civic’s tasteful, contemporary design carries over inwards, where you’ll find the same flowing lines and angular theme. The car also loves broad recognition for its convenient, well-crafted interior and generous list of features for the price.

When you sit in the nicely contoured front seats, you’re surrounded by rich, high-quality materials and excellent fit and finish (that is, how well the interior trim lumps look and fit together). The dash and doors have tastefully finished soft surfaces, and even the areas with hard plastic are at least nicely textured. The front seats are convenient, and I found slew of headroom for my 5-foot-10-inch assets. Reading the gauge cluster in front of the driver is ordinary, and the steering wheel includes easy-to-reach buttons for the audio system, cruise control, phone, and voice-command system.

The rear seat and trunk are particularly roomy for a compact car. With the rear seat folded, we could carry almost as many groceries as in a larger midsize sedan. Photo: Rik Paul

In the rear, the outboard seats, next to each window, are bucket-like and very comfy. Passengers get slew of headroom and among the most legroom of any car in this group. (As in all compacts, the rear-center position is an awkward hump that’s best left for the infrequent times when you have to squeeze three people into the back.) The trunk is also one of the largest of any car we looked at: We were able to fit fifteen grocery bags, only a duo fewer than in the larger Subaru Legacy, our midsize sedan pick. With the Civic’s rear seats folded down, we could lightly carry twenty seven bags, a nice amount of space for when you’re stocking up for big parties or holiday feasts.

You’ll find all kinds of entertainment opportunities in the Civic EX, including Bluetooth, two USB ports, and an entertainment system with music-streaming apps as well as the very popular Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. The roomy 7-inch touchscreen, clear graphics, and large fonts make the display effortless to read. While I was streaming Pandora from my phone, all of the usual functions were present; I could switch channels, pause, go to the next track, and give a song a thumbs-up or thumbs-down, just as I could on my phone. Our main gripe with the HondaLink system is its touch-sensitive volume control, which we describe in Flaws but not dealbreakers.

When it comes to features, the Civic EX is the best buy of the compact-car category. It gives you more of the things we consider significant as standard equipment than any other car we looked at. In addition to all of the basic items that we regard as must-haves in this type of car, it provides other nice features that you often need to pay extra for with other cars on our list (if you can get them at all).

The Civic EX comes with many extras as standard, including push-button begin, wise keyless entry, automatic climate control, a rearview camera, and a touchscreen system with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. Photo: Rik Paul

As mentioned earlier, this car includes a rearview camera, a clever entry system, a push-button starter, automatic climate control, a sunroof, heated mirrors, alloy wheels, and an up-to-date touchscreen entertainment system.

Also standard in the Civic EX is Honda’s LaneWatch blind-spot display, which is a mixed bliss. When you activate the right-side turn signal, the in-dash display shows a large picture of the area to the right rear of the car, so you can lightly see if any cars are in your blind spot before you switch lanes. This works well on the highway, especially with in-screen guidelines that let you know when it’s safe to stir over. But LaneWatch can become distracting at other times, such as when the screen shows only a line of trees, a fence alongside the road, or parked cars. You can turn the LaneWatch display off temporarily by pressing a button on the end of the turn-signal stalk. You can also keep the system from automatically activating with the turn signal by adjusting the settings in the on-screen menus; you’ll still be able to turn it on with the stalk button if you want to.

While people may not be watching pump prices as closely these days, fuel economy is still significant to many drivers. And the Civic EX gets better gas mileage than any compact car except a specially optimized version of the Toyota Corolla, the base LE Eco; both get thirty five miles per gallon in combined city and highway driving (the Civic is slightly more efficient in city driving while the Corolla LE Eco has a 1-mpg edge on the highway).

The acute and aerodynamic exterior design looks superb and saves fuel. Notice the petite camera on the right mirror for Honda’s LaneWatch blind-spot display. Photo: Rik Paul

To put that into perspective, half of the compact cars we looked at get only thirty one mpg combined or less, with the most fuel-thirsty being the Dodge Dart SXT at twenty seven mpg. In other words, the Dart would cost you about $250 eleven more in fuel each year than the Civic, even with gas at a low $Two.00 per gallon.

The Civic is also one of the safest compact cars you can buy. It has earned the highest rating of Good in all Insurance Institute for Highway Safety tests, and when tooled with the Honda Sensing package of advanced safety features, it’s the only car in this group to earn the institute’s highest designation of Top Safety Pick+. As of this writing, the two thousand sixteen Civic hasn’t yet gone through National Highway Traffic Safety Administration crash tests, but the two thousand fifteen model earned an excellent overall rating of five out of five starlets.

Other highlights? The Honda Civic holds its value well and is relatively economical to drive. According to Kelley Blue Book, its estimated total cost to own over the very first five years averages to about $34,000, or forty five cents per mile, which is one of the lowest in the group. (And keep in mind that compacts generally cost less to own than larger, higher-priced models.) On the other palm, the Dodge Dart SXT and Mitsubishi Lancer ES are each estimated to cost about fifty cents per mile. (As of this writing, Kelley Blue Book doesn’t have owner-cost data for the two thousand sixteen Volkswagen Golf SportWagen or Jetta.)

Is the Honda Civic ideal? No car is, especially in this price range. And we’ll tell you about our few gripes next. But considering its spirited character, eye-catching style, welcoming and convenient interior, superb value, frugal fuel economy, inviting features, and high safety factor, we lightly found it to be the best compact car for most people. No other car can match its list of achievements.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

Albeit the Civic EX is the best compact car overall, it can use improvement in a few areas. The touch-sensitive volume control for the HondaLink entertainment system, for example, can be particularly frustrating. And the cabin can get noisy, especially during hard acceleration, at higher speeds, and on tougher roads, but that’s symptomatic of compacts cars in general.

The touch-sensitive volume control, to the left of the display, can be difficult to use without taking your eyes off the road for too long. The steering wheel buttons are lighter. Photo: Rik Paul

The Civic’s touch-sensitive audio volume control might have seemed like a good idea on the drawing board, but it’s cumbersome to use while driving. Next to the touchscreen is a vertical-scale-like marking with + and – symbols at the top and bottom. You can press those markings, or slide your finger up or down the scale, to switch volume, but the control is so unresponsive that setting the level you want is difficult. I found that I had to look over to see what was happening, which took my eyes and attention off the road. If you just touch the scale, however, a 2nd volume scale pops up on the touchscreen itself, and this one is more responsive to touch: You can slide your finger up or down that scale to switch the volume (which is, again, lighter to do), but this is a two-step process that still takes your eyes off the road for too long. Moreover, neither method is effortless to perform sleekly on a rough road, when your arm may be moving around. Fortunately, you can avoid that control altogether by using the volume buttons on the left side of the steering wheel.

Like many compact cars, the Civic can be a bit noisy. It’s commendably quiet on slick roads or at lower speeds; in our tests, however, when the car was cruising on the highway or on a coarser surface, road and wind noise became more apparent. The Civic is quieter than a lot of compact cars, but the truth is, good sound insulation is hard to find in this budget-oriented category—soundproofing costs money and adds weight, which in turn increases the car’s price and lowers its fuel economy.

Right before we finished updating this guide, Honda issued a stop sale and safety recall of 34,000 two thousand sixteen Civics with the Two.0-liter engine in light of a manufacturing defect that could make the engine stall or fail, causing the car to all of a sudden lose power. This recall includes the EX trim version that we’ve chosen as our top pick, and it means that Honda dealers can’t sell the affected cars until they’ve undergone repairs, which may not happen until mid-March, according to Honda. If you already own a two thousand sixteen Civic with that engine, look for an official notification from Honda around that time and take your car in for the free service ASAP. (If you can’t wait that long to buy a fresh compact car, see our runner-up and previous top pick, the Mazda3.)

What others say about our pick

When buying a car, it’s significant to check out accomplished reviews and ratings; the more, the better, so you get a range of opinions. So we dug in and read compact-car reviews from a number of recognized auto experts. Across the board, they reinforced our positive assessment of the two thousand sixteen Honda Civic.

On the Best Cars website for U.S. News and World Report, which consolidates reviews from a number of other sources, the Civic presently has an excellent overall score of 9.Two out of Ten, which puts it in very first place in both the Affordable Compact Cars and Affordable Puny Cars categories. “Critics say the redesigned two thousand sixteen Honda Civic is among the best compact cars you can buy, with responsive treating, an upscale cabin and generous passenger and cargo space,” says the site. “It rails sleekly, treats responsively and produces adequate acceleration.” The website also adds that “the Civic is remarkably quiet and has spacious rear seats. Trunk space is generous for the class.”

Car and Driver named the Civic as one of its Editors’ Choice selections for the Best Petite Cars of 2016, alongside the Mazda3, the Kia Soul, and the Volkswagen Golf. The site says, “Sweet-handling and joy to drive, the Civic is worth serious consideration from enthusiasts and non-enthusiasts alike.”

In its review of the two thousand sixteen Civic, Edmunds.com says, “From the Civic’s edgy yet upscale looks to its mature cabin (no more two-tiered dash!) with nifty touchscreen-based tech, it’s clear that Honda’s innovative spirit has been revived.”

Kelley Blue Book chose the two thousand sixteen Civic as its overall winner in naming its Best Buys of 2016, telling, “‘Game-changing’ isn’t a term we use lightly, but it’s apt for the two thousand sixteen Honda Civic. All-new and now in its 10th generation, Honda’s venerable compact car has thrown down the gauntlet for the rest of the segment.” And in the KBB review of the car, Allyson Harwood writes, “The Civic is known for its reliability, resale value and safety, yet injects entertaining driving dynamics into the equation.”

A group of some fifty US and Canadian auto journalists also dubbed the Civic the two thousand sixteen North American Car of the Year.

Runner-up (and best hatchback)

*At the time of publishing, the price was $21,000.

When we very first published this guide last year, the Mazda3 i Touring was our clear top pick. What a difference a year makes. Not only did the redesigned Civic edge it out, but Mazda also shuffled its trim and feature availability, to the point that we now think the lower-priced i Sport version is a slightly better overall value. Regardless, it’s hard to go wrong with the Mazda3. One of the most fun-to-drive and stylish compacts, this car offers excellent fuel economy; a well-crafted, luxury-like interior; slew of nifty features; and excellent crash-test results. It’s also available as a sedan or hatchback, whereas the Civic comes only as a sedan for now. While the Mazda3 i Sport sedan is priced about $1,100 less than the Civic EX, it doesn’t suggest as many features. On top of that, its rear seat is tighter than the Civic’s, the rail is a little less convenient, and the trunk is a bit smaller.

The way we configured it, the i Sport sedan costs under $21,000 nine for the sedan and about $21,500 ten for the hatchback, yet you still get a fairly well-equipped car with the Mazda Connect entertainment system, a 7-inch touchscreen, a rearview camera, blind-spot monitoring, rear cross-traffic alert, automatic headlights, alloy wheels, heated mirrors, and push-button commence. When you equip it with the $1,000 Preferred Equipment Package, which we did, all that the i Sport gives up compared with the $1,200-higher i Touring is a sunroof and fog lights.

You can’t read a professional review of the Mazda3 without learning about how joy it is to drive. That’s one of its signature traits. And we discovered that firsthand during our time with the car, too. Don’t get us wrong: It doesn’t suggest blazingly prompt speed, tire-squealing acceleration, or the capability to take on the serpentine forms of a track like a Formula one racer. But it does feel like a natural extension of yourself as you take on the twists and turns of the road. It responds quickly and precisely to your driving guidelines. Doing your morning commute, running around-town errands, or, better yet, taking the long way home becomes something you look forward to. It feels like you’re driving a car that’s worth more than what you spent.

“The Mazda three is a good choice for any compact-car shopper who loves driving,” writes Edmunds.com. “Strong acceleration, acute steering and a well-tuned suspension make the three truly come alive when you want it to, even if it’s just zipping around town for errands.”

In addition, the Mazda3 also excels in more practical areas. With its Two.0-liter, four-cylinder engine, the sedan version gets an excellent EPA-estimated thirty four miles per gallon in combined city and highway driving (the hatchback gets one mpg less). In this regard, it surpasses all other compacts we looked at except for the Honda Civic and a special edition of the Toyota Corolla that’s optimized for higher fuel economy (and both edge the Mazda3 by only one mpg). The Mazda3 is also the only car in this group to earn the highest rating (Good) in all safety tests conducted by the requiring Insurance Institute for Highway Safety as well as the highest rating (five starlets) in all crash tests performed by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Ultimately, the Mazda3 produces solid quality that holds its value well. It’s one of the top three compacts in the ALG two thousand sixteen Residual Value Awards and the top puny car in Strategic Vision’s two thousand fifteen Total Quality Awards, which reflect all aspects of the buying, possessing, and driving practice.

Next to the fresh two thousand sixteen Honda Civic EX, however, the Mazda3 has a tighter rear seat and a somewhat stiffer rail, which together make it a little less convenient to spend time in. We noticed the effect most on longer trips. And the i Sport version lacks such features as automatic climate control, a sunroof, wise keyless entry, remote embark, Apple CarPlay, and Android Auto, as well as the availability of such advanced safety features as forward-collision warning, auto braking, and lane-departure warning, which come as part of the Civic’s $1,000 Honda Sensing package.

For a sportier drive

Redesigned for the two thousand fifteen model year, the Volkswagen Golf is another solid choice, with a fun-to-drive character; a convenient, well-finished interior; and some nice features that aren’t available on similarly priced cars. The Golf, however, doesn’t rate very in as many areas as the Civic does. It has notably lower fuel economy, fewer features for the price, and a higher estimated cost of ownership.

Albeit the Golf line of cars includes two- and four-door hatchbacks, the sporty GTI hot hatch, and electrified and diesel versions, we considered only the gasoline-powered four-door version because it provides the best value for the money. Over the past year or so, the Golf family has received a lot of recognition from auto experts, and it has one of the most crowded trophy cases we’ve seen in a while. Along with the Mazda3, it ranked in Car and Driver’s two thousand sixteen 10Best list; it also appeared as one of the best compacts in Car and Driver’s Editors’ Choice awards, and it presently stands as one of the top picks in U.S. News and World Report’s Affordable Compact Cars list. In addition, the Golf family rated as the Motor Trend two thousand fifteen Car of the Year and the two thousand fifteen North American Car of the Year, and the Golf/GTI won the Best Puny Car category in MotorWeek’s two thousand fifteen Drivers’ Choice Awards.

“No matter which Golf variant we hopped into, we emerged with smiles on our faces,” writes Motor Trend’s Rory Jurnecka in that publication’s two thousand fifteen Car of the Year article. “And while each obviously catered to different priorities, they all share the same solid build quality, taut structure, and remarkable rail that make them feel like a premium vehicle in an entry-level segment.”

High praise. While several awards and reviews concentrate on the enthusiastic appeal of the high-performance VW GTI, we think the entry-level 1.8T S version, which costs about $22,000, twelve is the better choice for most people. It has exceptionally agile treating and fine steering, and its 170-hp engine is one of the strongest in the category. The Golf also offers a well-finished interior and comfy seats, along with slew of rear-seat room and cargo space. And even the S trim comes with most of the features we look for in this type of car, as well as partially powered front seats (a feature you won’t find in any non-VW compacts on our list) plus Apple CarPlay and Android Auto.

Where the Golf falls brief of the Honda Civic is in its overall value. The Golf S costs a little more than the Civic EX (without Honda Sensing), but it doesn’t give you as many conveniences or safety features such as a sunroof, wise keyless entry, push-button begin, automatic climate control, or a blind-spot monitoring system. Its twenty nine mpg in combined city and highway driving is among the lowest in this group, too. And according to Kelley Blue Book, it will cost more to own over the very first five years, at about $36,500, or forty nine cents per mile. That said, while Volkswagens are often noted for having hit-or-miss reliability, the Golf has held up well in latest years.

A lower-priced value

If you’re a dollars-and-cents person, we have another recommendation for you. Opening up your hard-earned bucks is what the specially optimized Toyota Corolla LE Eco is best at. At just under $20,000, thirteen it has one of the lowest prices of the group yet it’s still fairly well tooled and blessed with a roomy cabin. The base LE Eco we chose gets the best fuel economy—35 mpg combined—of any of the cars on our list, tying only with the Honda Civic. Plus, the Corolla has very good reliability ratings, it has one of the lowest cost-to-own estimates according to Kelley Blue Book, and both the ALG and Edmunds.com retained-value lists name it as a top performer. On the other palm, it isn’t particularly thrilling or joy to drive, and it doesn’t have the safety credentials of the Civic, in either features or crash-test results.

“The two thousand sixteen Toyota Corolla isn’t intended to thrill,” writes Edmunds.com, “but its sensible blend of fuel economy, features, versatility and value make it a compelling choice for most puny sedan shoppers.” KBB.com agrees: “Toyota’s two thousand sixteen Corolla compact sedan won’t light fires in the hearts of most driving enthusiasts, but just about everyone else will find a lot to like in this not-so-compact 4-door.”

The Corolla has a convenient, spacious cabin with a generous amount of rear legroom, among the most of any of the cars we considered. And even at its sub-$20,000 price, the base LE Eco comes with such nice standard features as a rearview camera, a touchscreen entertainment system, heated mirrors, and automatic climate control (only the Honda Civic and Scion iM also provide that feature as standard).

Its thirty five mpg in combined city and highway driving ties it with the Honda Civic for the high mark in this group, albeit its forty two mpg on the highway slightly edges out the Civic’s forty one mpg. (If you go for the more expensive LE Eco Plus or Premium trim, however, the fuel economy dips to thirty four mpg combined and forty on the highway.) According to Kelley Blue Book, the Corolla’s cost-to-own estimate is one of the lowest of the group, at a little over $33,000 for the very first five years, or forty four cents per mile. And according to U.S. News and World Report, the Corolla has earned excellent reliability ratings in J.D. Power’s predicted-reliability score as well as on TrueDelta. So the Corolla is likely to remain cheap to own well down the road.

Aside from its relatively bland character, however, the Corolla is one of only three cars in this group to score only a Marginal rating in the IIHS’s small-overlap frontal crash test. Also, the Corolla doesn’t suggest any advanced safety features, another area in which it lags behind the Honda Civic.

A full-featured choice

If you want a no-compromise compact car and can tolerate a higher sticker price, we believe that the top-of-the-line Honda Civic Touring is the way to go. Considering its price tag of about $28,000, fourteen you can think of this car as our top pick with an extra shot of spectacle and luxury features. In addition to all of the virtues of the Civic EX—stylish looks, a driver-friendly character, a well-crafted interior, fine fuel economy, high safety ratings, and a class-leading array of available safety features—you get a significantly stronger 174-hp turbo engine (instead of the EX’s 158-hp motor) and a host of luxury features.

The Civic Touring’s 1.5-liter turbo four-cylinder engine, which offers sixteen hp more than the EX’s engine, provides quicker acceleration while still getting the same stellar thirty five mpg combined and even one mpg more on the highway (42 versus 41). In brief, it’s both one of the strongest and one of the most fuel efficient in this class.

The Touring is loaded with the luxury items you’d expect for this price. In addition to all of the features on the EX with Honda Sensing, which is pretty well tooled itself, the Touring gives you powered front seats, navigation, dual-zone automatic climate control, a premium 10-speaker audio system, heated front and rear seats, automatic headlights with auto high planks, fog lights, and larger, 17-inch alloy wheels. In our configuration we also added an optional auto-dimming rearview mirror for about $200 and a wireless phone charger for about $300, which is a rarity in this class.

You may be wondering how the Civic Touring compares with the Mazda3 s Grand Touring, our previous pick for an upgrade alternative. The Civic Touring is about $Two,000 less expensive. It has a little less horsepower (184 versus 174), but it produces two more mpg (35 versus 33). The Civic Touring also has a more convenient rail and more rear-seat and trunk space. You’ll find some give and take with the features: The Civic Touring has a better auto-braking system, lane-departure assist, an eight-way power driver’s seat (versus a six-way for the Mazda), a powered front passenger seat, rear heated seats, and Apple CarPlay and Android Auto systems. On the other mitt, the Mazda3 has a better blind-spot monitoring system, rear cross-traffic alert, and an easier-to-use entertainment system. With their forward-collision warning and auto-braking systems, these cars are two of only five compact models designated as IIHS Top Safety Pick+, the others being the Subaru Impreza (when tooled with its optional EyeSight system) and the Volkswagen Golf and Jetta (when tooled with VW’s optional Front Assist system).

If all-wheel drive is significant

A compact car represents the least expensive way to get all-wheel drive, which gives you extra security in greasy conditions. But the truth is, you don’t have many choices in this price range. Inbetween the two compacts that suggest it—the Subaru Impreza and the Mitsubishi Lancer—the Impreza is an effortless choice. Very first, it gives you AWD as standard equipment on every model. The two thousand sixteen Lancer offers it on three trims in this price range, but only with Mitsubishi’s Two.4-liter engine, which is among the more powerful in this group but is also one of the least fuel efficient. 2nd, the Impreza is a good all-around car, regardless of its AWD. Available as a sedan or a hatchback, it offers pleasant driving, provides a lot of interior room, has some of the best overall crash-test scores in this group, and imposes relatively low proprietor costs according to Kelley Blue Book. On top of that, the version we chose—priced at about $20,000 fifteen for the Impreza Two.0i sedan or with an extra $500 for the Impreza Two.0i hatchback—is one of the least expensive cars of the fifteen we considered.

Unluckily, the Impreza gets only middle-of-the-pack fuel economy, and the sedan has a relatively petite trunk. This car also lacks many of the higher-end features you get with the Honda Civic EX, and it doesn’t give you a reasonably priced way to upgrade to a more full-featured version. Eventually, the Impreza’s bland styling is, well, what you might expect of an inexpensive car. It’s undoubtedly lacking the flair of the Civic or Mazda3.

Consumer Reports, which named the Impreza as its two thousand fifteen Top Pick for compact cars, writes: “A convenient rail, responsive treating, good visibility, plain controls, and a relatively spacious rear seat all combine to make the Impreza effortless to live with.” The Impreza also earned some of the best overall scores of this group in IIHS and NHTSA safety tests, albeit the Two.0i version lacks the advanced safety features of the Civic with Honda Sensing, and according to Kelley Blue Book it has a relatively low cost of ownership of about $33,700 (or forty five cents per mile). But albeit the Impreza’s thirty one mpg in combined city and highway driving is good for an AWD car, it’s only middling in this group.

We chose the base Two.0i trim level because it provides most of the features we look for in a compact car at a low price. The catch is, you can’t get some of the higher-end features that are commonly available in other cars, such as satellite radio, clever keyless entry, push-button commence, heated seats and mirrors, or automatic headlights. Yes, you can budge up to the next higher trim, Premium, for about another $1,800, but in total that car would cost you about the same as the Honda Civic EX yet give you only larger alloy wheels, heated seats and mirrors, and an audio system a little nicer than that of the Two.0i. This situation is especially frustrating because Subaru has a superb advanced safety package, EyeSight, that we’d open up our budget for if it were available. To get that, however, you have to opt for the still more expensive Limited or Sport model, and even then EyeSight is available only as part of an option package that adds even more to the price. At that point, you’re looking at a total price of more than $25,000. To us, this is how an automaker puts valuable safety features out of reach—something Subaru doesn’t do on our midsize-sedan pick, the Legacy—and it’s another reason why we like the Civic more.

The competition

2016 Volkswagen Jetta 1.4T SE

The Volkswagen Jetta 1.4T SE sedan, which costs about $21,000, sixteen is a nice car to drive, with a spirited engine and a roomy rear seat and trunk. However, our pick, the Honda Civic EX, represents a better overall value, with much better fuel economy and more features for a similar price.

Experts generally like how the Jetta drives, albeit they don’t give it stellar ratings. The two thousand sixteen Jetta received a modest 7.7 from U.S. News and World Report and a C from Edmunds.com. “[T]he Jetta’s engine lineup is uniquely sophisticated and compelling in this generally value-oriented segment,” writes Edmunds.com. Later, the review notes: “But given how competitive some other compact sedans have become, it’s hard to overlook the Jetta’s lackluster treating and bland interior design. Top-rated competitors like the Ford Concentrate, Honda Civic and Mazda three have aped the old Jetta playbook while in some cases providing more features for the money.”

The Jetta is very spacious for a compact car, with convenient seats, slew of rear legroom, and the largest trunk in this group. Fresh for two thousand sixteen is a 1.4-liter turbo four-cylinder engine that produces a thrifty thirty two mpg in combined city and highway driving, along with a competitive one hundred fifty hp. We found the Jetta 1.4T SE version to be the best value, with alloy wheels, heated seats, push-button begin, and a 6½-inch touchscreen. With its new-for-2016 Car-Net App-Connect system, you can use your iPhone or Android device to connect to Apple CarPlay or Android Auto, respectively, for access to your phone’s apps, music, and maps. This makes paying about $Two,000 more for the navigation-equipped SE w/ Connectivity trim less appealing, despite that trim’s inclusion of leatherette upholstery, a sunroof, and an eight-way (instead of six-way) driver’s seat.

Like the Mazda3, the Ford Concentrate is available as a sedan or a hatchback, and professional reviews commonly praise it for being one of the more fun-to-drive compact cars. But it has a tighter cabin than many compacts do, and it has exhibited relatively poor reliability in surveys. In addition, some common features are either unavailable or come only as part of an expensive package.

U.S. News and World Report sums up the Concentrate this way: “Auto writers are pleased with the Ford Concentrate’ nimble treating, crisp steering and strong brakes.” It also adds, “Test drivers praise the Ford Concentrate’ high-end cabin materials and attractive interior styling. The front seats are roomy and supportive, reviewers say, but the back seats have poor legroom for adults.”

The Focus’s cabin is the smallest of the group, and this car’s poor reliability is reflected in subpar survey showings, including a J.D. Power predicted-reliability score of only two out of five for the two thousand fifteen version. The trim we chose to consider brought the price to a little under $21,000 seventeen for the Concentrate SE sedan and almost $21,500 eighteen for the Concentrate SE hatchback. Those prices are among the lowest of the cars we considered, but that’s partly because some features we would have added aren’t available on the SE, and getting a touchscreen entertainment system is too expensive: To obtain the fresh SYNC three system, we found that we needed to commit to a duo of pricey option packages that totaled about $Three,500. That was a dealbreaker. And moving up to the next-higher Titanium trim is a leap in price of more than $Three,000. You indeed have no reason to do that when you can find well-equipped cars like the Honda Civic in this price range.

2016 Volkswagen Golf SportWagen 1.8T S

If you need a compact car with a lot of room for carrying stuff, the Volkswagen Golf SportWagen could fit the bill. Whereas the other cars we looked at are either sedans or hatchbacks, this model is a legit compact-size station wagon. You’ll pay for that extra versatility, however, in both a higher price and lower fuel economy. Overall, the Golf SportWagen is an amazing car, but it isn’t as good of an overall value as the Honda Civic.

Previously called the Jetta SportWagen, the Golf SportWagen was introduced for two thousand fifteen and provides most of the virtues of the standard Golf, along with more cargo space than any of the compact cars we looked at. The SportWagen “carries on the Golf family reputation as a joy, ergonomic, and practical rail, only now with enlargened utility,” writes Autoblog’s Matthew Askari. And Car and Driver named the Golf SportWagen as its number one pick among station wagons, with Erik Johnson writing, “The VW is comfy, looks good, hauls a ton of stuff, is reasonably priced, is one of the best highway cruisers available anywhere, and can more than hold its own if you determine to onslaught a local back road.”

In addition, the Golf SportWagen has a well-crafted interior, with a partially powered driver’s seat, one of the most comfy rear seats of the cars we considered, slew of legroom and headroom, and even a usable rear center position. The 1.8-liter turbocharged four-cylinder engine produces slew of power—170 hp—but its fuel economy, at twenty nine mpg combined, is one of the lowest in this group. And as we configured it, even the entry-level Golf SportWagen 1.8T S has the highest price of this group at about $23,500. Nineteen Lastly, while Kelley Blue Book doesn’t have an owner-cost estimate for the Golf SportWagen, the previous Jetta SportWagen had a relatively high figure of about $39,500, or fifty three cents per mile.

2016 Hyundai Elantra Value Edition

The Elantra, which is available as a sedan or a hatchback, is a good all-around car with a long warranty. It doesn’t truly stand out from the crowd in any other respect, however, and it doesn’t match our picks in features, fuel economy, safety ratings, or joy factor.

This car has received good but not stellar ratings from the media, with a B from Edmunds.com and an 8.0 from U.S. News and World Report. Motor Trend says that in its compact-sedan comparison test (conducted in 2014), the “smooth, mild-mannered” Elantra “scores well in the instant gratification areas like styling, features, initial touch and feel, and price point.” But it sums up the Hyundai as goes after: “Jack of all compact virtues, master of none — a solid-C all-arounder.”

In terms of ownership, the Elantra hits the right notes. It provides the longest warranty in the class: a 60-month/60,000-mile basic warranty and a 120-month/100,000-mile powertrain warranty. Only the Kia Forte and Mitsubishi Lancer suggest similar coverage. It was also one of the top compact cars in the J.D. Power two thousand fifteen Initial Quality Investigate, and it has a low owner-cost estimate of almost $35,500, or forty seven cents per mile, according to Kelley Blue Book.

The roomy interior provides decent rear legroom and one of the largest trunks in the class. The Elantra Value Edition sedan we chose, which was fresh for 2016, provides all of the main features we look for at a good price of about $20,500 twenty (the Elantra GT hatchback costs only $100 more but doesn’t come with many of the Value Edition’s standard features). It doesn’t suggest any advanced safety features, however. And the Elantra comes with only a tire-repair kit, not a spare tire; a local dealer rep told us that we could buy a spare tire and kit as an add-on for about $300, including installation.

The Kia Forte LX is an overall pleasant sedan to drive that has one of the lowest prices of the group and the same long warranty as the Hyundai Elantra. The Forte also has a spacious interior plus one of the largest trunks in the class. But it doesn’t truly stand out in other areas, and in features, fuel economy, safety ratings, and joy factor, it fails to measure up to the Honda Civic.

Available as the Forte sedan or the Forte5 hatchback, this car has been generally well received among auto reviewers. Presently it has a respectable mark of 8.Trio on the U.S. News and World Report Best Cars website. Consumer Reports writes that the Forte has “a quiet cabin and one of the most convenient rails in its class.” Keith Buglewicz of KBB.com writes, “The Forte has good power and a decent suspension, but it’s not as joy to drive as competitors like the Mazda3 and Volkswagen Jetta.”

Like its corporate cousin, the Elantra, the Forte comes with the longest warranty in the class: a 60-month/60,000-mile basic warranty and a 120-month/100,000-mile powertrain warranty. According to Kelley Blue Book, tho’, its estimated cost of ownership, a little more than $35,500 or forty eight cents per mile, isn’t fairly as low as the Elantra’s.

With either the sedan or the hatchback, we think the best value is the entry-level LX trim. The sedan comes to only about $Nineteen,500 twenty one with the $1,000 Popular Package, which includes a rearview camera, automatic headlights, cruise control, and a touchscreen display. The Forte5 LX hatchback is about $700 more. Both versions provide the basic features we look for in a compact car but few frills. To get Kia’s nifty UVO entertainment and telematics system, you have to stir up to the EX level (for $1,000 or more) and then get an expensive option package ($Trio,000 for the sedan, $Four,500 for the hatch). That gives you a nicely tooled car, but at a price that’s unnecessarily high. We passed.

Like the Elantra, the Forte comes with a tire-repair kit instead of a spare tire. A dealer rep told us that we could buy a spare tire and kit as an add-on for $260, including installation.

The Scion iM is a brand-new hatchback from Scion, Toyota’s youth-oriented brand. But this will be its only year: Toyota is pulling the ass-plug on the Scion brand later this year, and the two thousand seventeen iM will be rebadged as a Toyota car. You may be able to find some good deals on the iM as a result, and Toyota will proceed to service it and honor its warranty down the road.

Despite having one of the lowest prices of our group—about $20,000 twenty two —the iM comes with some awesome features for this class. It also rails and treats fairly well, provides roomy and comfy front seats, and, like the Toyota Corolla, comes with two years of free maintenance, a rarity in this economy-oriented class. But the iM has one of the weakest engines of the group, along with only average fuel economy. Its rear seats aren’t very comfy and afford limited legroom. And it doesn’t suggest any advanced safety systems. The Mazda3 i Touring costs about $1,500 more but represents a better overall value, providing you a zippier engine, better fuel economy and treating, more features, and a generally nicer driving practice.

Like all Scions, the iM is available in only one trim version, but it’s well stocked for its accessible price with such features as dual-zone automatic climate control, automatic headlights, alloy wheels, heated mirrors, and a 7-inch touchscreen entertainment system. On the other palm, it doesn’t even suggest a number of features that are standard on the Honda Civic EX, such as a blind-spot warning system, a sunroof, and a wise keyless entry system, and it doesn’t give you the option of purchasing more advanced safety features, such as forward-collision and lane-departure warning.

The iM isn’t as joy to drive as the Mazda3 and VW Golf, but we found its rail convenience, treating, and steering to be fine for everyday driving. “The Scion iM doesn’t have the cornering agility or acute steering of competitors like the Mazda3 or Volkswagen Golf … but it treats predictably around corners and has strong brakes,” writes U.S News and World Report.

Albeit the engine is adequate for normal driving, it’s nothing special. For its lack of power, you’d expect stellar fuel economy, but the iM supplies only thirty two mpg in combined driving, which is two to three mpg less than the Honda Civic, Toyota Corolla LE Eco, and Mazda3 suggest. Edmunds.com, which gave it a B rating, sums it up by telling, “The iM is not only considerably slower than its rivals, it’s in a virtual tie for class slowest. At the same time, fuel economy is certainly thrifty but also comparatively unremarkable.”

We had slew of room in the comfy front seats but found the rear to be awkward with a stiff seatback. While other reviewers have complained about a lack of rear legroom, we found it average for this class. A constant bombardment of noise—especially on rough roads and while accelerating—was one of our thickest complaints.

Edmunds.com sums up the iM by writing, “Even tho’ the fresh two thousand sixteen Scion iM comes loaded with features, its shortcomings in spectacle, convenience and convenience are too hard to overlook. Most other compact hatchbacks will be better choices.”

The Nissan Sentra SV has its strong points, including a roomy cabin and trunk, good fuel economy, low proprietor cost, and a fairly low price even when tooled with optional safety features, coming in at about $20,500. Twenty three But it isn’t competitive with the best models in any other way. Compared with the Honda Civic, the Sentra SV falls brief in engine power, fuel economy, safety ratings, and its driving practice.

Overall, the Sentra has received only moderate ratings from critics, including a B from Edmunds.com and a 7.Four from U.S. News and World Report. “The Sentra looks good on paper,” says Consumer Reports, “but then doesn’t fairly live up to expectations.” Edmunds.com writes: “The two thousand sixteen Nissan Sentra doesn’t necessarily stand out in the compact sedan segment, but that doesn’t mean it’s a penalty box. Perhaps most notably, the Sentra’s backseat produces space and convenience that rival some midsize sedans, and the trunk is just as generous.” J.D. Power’s two thousand fifteen Initial Quality Examine names the Sentra as the top compact car.

The Sentra has a spacious cabin, with lots of rear legroom (among the most we spotted in this class) as well as one of the largest trunks. According to Kelley Blue Book, it also has a low holder cost of only about $34,600, or forty six cents per mile. Suggesting thirty two mpg combined, it’s thrifty, if not one of the standouts among the compacts we considered; the Honda Civic EX gets thirty five mpg. But the trade-off is that the 1.8-liter four-cylinder engine produces only one hundred thirty hp, making it the weakest of the group, which is something you’ll notice when you’ve packed the car with people and it feels like it’s fighting. In addition, while the Sentra has a Good rating in all IIHS crash tests, it has only a four-star overall rating in NHTSA crash tests.

2016 Chevrolet Cruze Limited 1LT

For the two thousand sixteen model year, Chevrolet switched the name of the Cruze to the Cruze Limited, albeit that label seems to be a placeholder while the company prepares for a utter redesign of the Cruze to premiere in early 2016. Other than slightly higher prices, the Cruze Limited is essentially the same car.

The Cruze Limited drives nicely, has a large trunk, and offers a lot of features, but it doesn’t stand out in this category. Next to our pick, the Honda Civic, the Cruze Limited 1LT costs more to buy and own, and it has a weaker engine that gets worse fuel economy.

“The two thousand fifteen Chevrolet Cruze deftly combines responsive treating with a comfy, compliant rail,” writes Edmunds.com. U.S. News and World Report agrees, noting that “Test drivers report that the Cruze rails conveniently and has composed treating, however a few mention that rivals like the Mazda3 feel more agile.” Neither site has a review of the redesigned two thousand sixteen model yet.

For about $23,000, twenty four we were able to get most of the features we consider significant, along with blind-spot warning and rear-cross-traffic alert systems, which are uncommon for the category. But many of the Cruze Limited’s features are available only in option packages, including some basic ones like Bluetooth audio, a rearview camera, and a touchscreen entertainment system. Adding them makes the Cruze Limited one of the highest-priced cars we considered for this guide.

In addition, the 1.4-liter turbocharged four-cylinder engine isn’t very astounding. It gets only middle-of-the-pack fuel economy of thirty mpg combined while producing only one hundred thirty eight hp, the second-lowest horsepower in this group (right after the Nissan Sentra’s one hundred thirty hp). Such an engine is low-powered enough to notice in situations like injecting or passing on the highway. In addition, the Cruze Limited has a high estimated cost of ownership of almost $36,500, or forty nine cents per mile, according to Kelley Blue Book.

At almost $23,000, twenty five the Dodge Dart SXT costs almost $1,000 more than the Honda Civic EX, but overall it’s a fairly mediocre car that has received lackluster ratings and reviews from auto experts. It also gets much worse fuel economy than the Civic. For that extra grand, we’d gladly add the Honda Sensing package to the Civic EX and get a suite of advanced safety features that the Dart SXT doesn’t suggest at all.

One of the Dart’s high points is its 184-hp engine, which is the most powerful of this group. But the Dart SXT’s twenty seven mpg combined is the lowest of this group; many larger, midsize cars are actually more fuel efficient. U.S. News and World Report gave the Dart a lukewarm score of 7.7. Edmunds.com writes: “The two thousand sixteen Dodge Dart offers roominess, able treating and a sporty appearance for not much money. But in other areas many competitors outclass it.” In addition, the Dart has one of the tighter rear seats and, according to Kelley Blue Book, a high estimated owner-cost of about $37,300, or fifty cents per mile. Like a duo of the other cars in this group, the Dart comes with only a tire-repair kit; a spare tire is a $395 option.

Fiat Chrysler recently said that the Dodge Dart will be discontinued sometime over the next five years. Considering that the Dart was introduced for the two thousand thirteen year, it may still have a few years of life left.

2016 Mitsubishi Lancer ES Two.0

A low price of about $Nineteen,500, twenty six a long warranty, and a roomy rear seat are the highlights of this otherwise mediocre car. Compared with our pick, the Mazda3, the Mitsubishi Lancer ES Two.0 provides fewer features, gets much worse fuel economy, and costs more to own over time (according to estimates). Its experienced reviews have been much more critical, too.

The Lancer received a freshening for 2016, with a duo of fresh all-wheel-drive trims and a shuffling of features and packages. But it’s essentially the same as the two thousand fifteen model, which has the most lukewarm experienced ratings of any car we looked at. Consumer Reports says, “While it’s an improvement over the old model, the redesigned Lancer still scores only midpack in its class.” The 6.8 score for the two thousand sixteen Lancer from U.S. News and World Report is the lowest of this group, and the site sums it up by noting, “Reviewers say that, aside from its athletic treating, the two thousand sixteen Mitsubishi Lancer offers few benefits over most cars in the class.”

The Lancer has a roomy rear seat, but one of the smallest trunks of the group. And with a fuel economy rating of thirty mpg combined, the Lancer ES grounds only in the middle of the pack. According to Kelley Blue Book, it has one of the highest estimated possessor costs at about $37,500, or fifty cents per mile.

In terms of features, the Lancer ES Two.0 is a mixed bag. On one palm, it provides some items that you can’t typically find at this price, including fog lights, alloy wheels, heated mirrors, and automatic climate control. But it lacks a standard touchscreen entertainment system and rearview camera. And the Lancer is the only model here that doesn’t provide a telescoping steering wheel on any trim. You can get an entertainment system and a rearview camera only as part of a $1,750 option package, which also includes a sunroof, premium audio system, and satellite radio. So, while the inexpensive ES Two.0 isn’t a particularly compelling choice, higher trim versions don’t provide a wooing case for spending more money. For another $1,400, you can get the ES Two.Four AWC trim, which brings AWD and twenty extra horsepower (168 hp versus one hundred forty eight hp), but fuel economy takes a dive to twenty seven mpg combined, among the worst in this group. If we indeed desired a Lancer with AWD, we’d go up another trim to the SE Two.Four AWC, which adds a number of inviting features for a little under $22,000. Better yet, however, we’d get either a two-wheel-drive Honda Civic EX for about the same price or an all-wheel-drive Subaru Impreza Two.0i for less money.

What to look forward to

Over the next few months, we’ll see several fresh or redesigned compact cars become available. Here’s what we know so far.

While the sedan version of the two thousand sixteen Honda Civic was the very first to arrive, more versions are on the way, including a coupe—which appeared at this year’s North American International Auto Show—and a hatchback, both of which are expected later in 2016. For driving enthusiasts, Honda will also release a sporty Si version and a turbocharged Type-R hot hatch.

The redesigned two thousand seventeen Hyundai Elantra is due in dealerships in early 2016. Measuring about an inch longer and broader than last year’s model, it also provides more headroom. In fact, it’s officially classified as a midsize car now instead of a compact car. The styling is simpler, and, to be fair, we think it’s a step backward compared with the curvy personality of last year’s Elantra. The interior is also redesigned, and the entertainment systems now support Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. Hyundai is suggesting fresh engines, including a Two.0-liter four-cylinder that’s standard and capable of achieving thirty three mpg combined, as well as an Eco model—due out in the spring—with a 1.4-liter turbocharged four-cylinder that gets thirty five mpg, which would tie it for the best in class. The car itself is now stronger and stiffer, and advanced safety systems such as auto emergency braking, adaptive cruise control, lane-keep assist, and blind-spot detection are optional.

A redesigned two thousand sixteen Chevrolet Cruze is also expected to go on sale this spring. It will be larger than the current model and powered by a fresh 1.4-liter turbocharged four-cylinder engine that, similar to a hybrid, will turn off when the car comes to a stop and automatically turn on again when you’re ready to drive. This design is intended to improve fuel economy, especially in congested, stop-and-go traffic. Chevy estimates that the fresh Cruze will get forty mpg on the highway, which is two mpg better than what the current Cruze’s 1.4-liter turbo four offers. The Cruze will also suggest such advanced safety systems as blind-spot warning, rear-cross-traffic alert, forward-collision warning, and lane-keep assist. We don’t know, however, on which trim versions these systems will be available or how much you’ll have to pay to get them. Also for 2016, the Cruze’s MyLink entertainment system will be compatible with both Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. A diesel-powered version of the redesigned Cruze is expected in 2017. And in addition to the fresh Cruze sedan, Chevy will be releasing a hatchback version in the fall.

Kia is freshening up the Forte sedan and Forte5 hatchback for two thousand seventeen with fresh exterior styling, a 7-inch touchscreen with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, and a fresh Two.0-liter four-cylinder engine for the sedan. The Forte will also join the growing number of compact cars suggesting such advanced safety features as forward collision warning, autonomous emergency braking, blind-spot detection, lane-change warning and assist, and rear cross-traffic alert. Both versions will be coming from a fresh plant in Monterrey, Mexico, and are expected to go on sale in the very first half of 2016.

Subaru has shown a concept car that previews the design of the next-generation two thousand seventeen Impreza sedan, which will arrive in late 2016. It’s expected to have a fresh, most likely more fuel-efficient engine, but we don’t know much else about it yet.

Ultimately, Toyota will have a fresh hatchback for two thousand seventeen that is the rebadged version of the soon-to-be-eliminated Scion iM. The Corolla hatch, perhaps?

Wrapping it up

In a category that many buyers turn to for value, the two thousand sixteen Honda Civic EX provides the best overall value of any compact car. This is particularly the case when it’s tooled with Honda’s reasonably priced $1,000 Honda Sensing package of advanced safety features (which aren’t available at all on any other cars on our list). Your emotional side will still love the Civic’s eye-catching styling, comfy and roomy interior, spirited engine, and fun-to-drive character long after you’ve made the last car payment. And your logical side will be affected by its long feature list, stellar fuel economy, high safety ratings, and solid value. Simply put, no other car in this category hits as many high notes in so many different areas. And that’s why we’re wooed that the two thousand sixteen Honda Civic EX is the best compact car for most people.

Footnotes:

1. Two thousand sixteen Honda Civic EX base MSRP is $21,040 with automatic transmission, plus an $835 destination charge. Leap back.

Two. Two thousand sixteen Mazda3 i Sport sedan base MSRP is $Eighteen,895 with automatic transmission, plus the $1,000 Preferred Equipment Package and an $820 destination charge. Hop back.

Trio. Two thousand sixteen Volkswagen Golf 1.8T 4-Door S base MSRP is $21,275 with automatic transmission, plus an $820 destination charge. Hop back.

Four. Two thousand sixteen Toyota Corolla LE Eco base MSRP is $Nineteen,065, plus an $835 destination charge. Hop back.

Five. Two thousand sixteen Honda Civic Touring base MSRP is $26,500 with automatic transmission, plus a $185 automatic dimming mirror, $305 wireless phone charger, and $835 destination charge. Hop back.

6. Two thousand sixteen Subaru Impreza Two.0i sedan base MSRP is $Nineteen,295 with continuously variable transmission, plus a $795 destination charge. Leap back.

7. Two thousand sixteen Honda Civic EX base MSRP is $21,040 with automatic transmission, plus an $835 destination charge. Leap back.

8. Two thousand sixteen Honda Civic EX with Honda Sensing base MSRP is $22,040 with automatic transmission, plus an $835 destination charge. Hop back.

9. Two thousand sixteen Mazda3 i Sport sedan base MSRP is $Legal,895 with automatic transmission, plus the $1,000 Preferred Equipment Package and an $820 destination charge. Hop back.

Ten. Two thousand sixteen Mazda3 i Sport hatchback base MSRP is $Nineteen,595 with automatic transmission, plus the $1,000 Preferred Equipment Package and an $820 destination charge. Hop back.

11. Based on driving 15,000 miles per year and gas costing $Two per gallon. Leap back.

12. Two thousand sixteen Volkswagen Golf 1.8T 4-Door S base MSRP is $21,275 with automatic transmission, plus an $820 destination charge. Hop back.

13. Two thousand sixteen Toyota Corolla LE Eco base MSRP is $Nineteen,065, plus an $835 destination charge. Leap back.

14. Two thousand sixteen Honda Civic Touring base MSRP is $26,500 with automatic transmission, plus a $185 automatic dimming mirror, $305 wireless phone charger, and $835 destination charge. Leap back.

15. Two thousand sixteen Subaru Impreza Two.0i sedan base MSRP is $Nineteen,295 with continuously variable transmission, plus a $795 destination charge. Hop back.

16. Two thousand sixteen Volkswagen Jetta 1.4T SE base MSRP is $20,095, plus an $820 destination charge. Hop back.

17. Two thousand sixteen Ford Concentrate SE Sedan base MSRP is $Nineteen,610 with automatic transmission, plus a $295 power seat package and an $875 destination charge. Leap back.

Eighteen. Two thousand sixteen Ford Concentrate SE Hatch base MSRP is $20,110 with automatic transmission, plus a $295 power seat package and an $825 destination charge. Leap back.

Nineteen. Two thousand sixteen Volkswagen Golf SportWagen 1.8T S base MSRP is $22,725 with automatic transmission, plus an $820 destination charge. Hop back.

20. Two thousand sixteen Hyundai Elantra Value Edition base MSRP is $Nineteen,700, plus an $825 destination charge. Leap back.

21. Two thousand sixteen Kia Forte LX sedan base MSRP is $17,700 with automatic transmission, plus the $1,000 Popular package and an $825 destination charge. Hop back.

22. Two thousand sixteen Scion iM base MSRP is $Nineteen,200 with automatic transmission, plus a $795 destination charge. Hop back.

23. Two thousand sixteen Nissan Sentra SV base MSRP is $Legitimate,550, with the $1,020 Driver Assist Package and a $835 destination charge. Leap back.

24. Two thousand sixteen Chevrolet Cruze Limited 1LT base MSRP is $20,195 with automatic transmission, plus the $550 Technology Package, the $790 Enhanced Safety Package, the $680 Driver Convenience Package, and an $825 destination charge. Hop back.

25. Two thousand sixteen Dodge Dart SXT base MSRP is $20,645 with automatic transmission, plus the $595 8.4-inch Uconnect Touch Screen Group (which also adds the $195 satellite radio package), a $395 Compact Spare Tire, and a $995 destination charge. Leap back.

26. Two thousand sixteen Mitsubishi Lancer ES base MSRP is $Legal,595 with automatic transmission, plus an $810 destination charge. Leap back.

The Best Compact Car, The Wirecutter

The Best Compact Car

After weeks of researching all fifteen of the major compact cars you can buy and driving the best ones, we’re coaxed that the two thousand sixteen Honda Civic EX is the best choice for most people. Simply put, it rates higher in more areas that we consider significant than any other compact car. By their nature, compacts are puny, fuel efficient, and affordable, but they’re fairly basic in how they drive, as well as in the styling and the features they suggest. The fresh Civic, however, provides the best overall driving practice of any compact, balancing joy driving and a convenient rail. It’s also one of the roomiest cars in the segment, and among the most fuel efficient. Its fresh, edgier styling helps it stand out from a mostly abate crowd, too. And for a reasonable price of about $22,000 one for the EX version, the car surrounds you with a convenient, well-crafted cabin and gives you more of the features everyone wants than any of the other cars we looked at. In fact, the Civic is the only compact that offers an epic suite of advanced safety features—called Honda Sensing—for all trim versions and for a reasonable price of only $1,000. The Civic is also among the top compacts in safety and overall value. That combination of virtues is hard to hit, even if you were to pay more.

The Wirecutter is experimenting with car recommendations, using research from the best sources and veteran car testers who aren’t sated with the status quo in automotive journalism. Let us know what you think of our work so far and sign up to be notified when we publish a fresh guide.

Honda gave the Civic a major redesign for 2016, with newer styling, a roomier interior and trunk, a quieter cabin, better treating and fuel economy, and a host of standard and available features. The result is a car that edges out our previous top pick, the Mazda3, and gives you a notably better overall package than any other compact car. While the Civic isn’t as invigorating to drive as the Mazda3 or VW Golf, it is still one of the more joy compacts to zip around in, and it balances that with a more comfy rail than you might expect in a puny car—something you’ll appreciate especially on a long excursion. Other pluses for any outing are a comfy cabin, a spacious rear seat with some of the most legroom in this group, and the best fuel economy at thirty five miles per gallon in combined city and highway driving, a figure matched by only a special edition of the Toyota Corolla. The EX version we chose comes with a number of features that are hard to find in other cars at this price, including the very sought-after Apple CarPlay and Android Auto for making the most of your cell phone. When tooled with the $1,000 Honda Sensing package, which includes some advanced safety features, this is the only compact car in our test group that earned the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety’s best designation of Top Safety Pick+. And while the two thousand sixteen model is too fresh for anyone to judge reliability, the Civic in general has a superb track record of low problem rates and holding its value well. All of this is why it not only became our fresh top pick but also became the two thousand sixteen North American Car of the Year according to US and Canadian auto journalists. For now, the Civic is available only as a sedan, but a hatchback version is expected later in 2016.

*At the time of publishing, the price was $21,000.

The Mazda3 is another solid choice that auto experts universally praise for its nimble treating, precise cornering, and spirited engine. Complementing its upbeat character is an eye-catching look—outside and inside—and a remarkably high-quality cabin with slew of features and convenient, nicely contoured front seats. It also ranks at the top of its class for fuel economy, safety, and overall value. And it’s available as a sedan or hatchback. The Mazda3 loses out on our top spot to the Honda Civic EX because the latter provides a roomier cabin and trunk, a more comfy rail, slightly better fuel economy, and more advanced safety features.

When we very first published this guide last year, the two thousand fifteen Mazda3 i Touring was our clear top pick. What a difference a year makes: Not only did the redesigned Honda Civic edge it out, but Mazda also shuffled its trim and feature availability enough that we now believe the lower-priced two thousand sixteen Mazda3 i Sport version to be a better overall value at a little more than $20,500 two for the sedan and $700 more for the hatchback. Compared with the two thousand fifteen model, the i Sport provides more of the features that people want for about $1,200 less than the two thousand sixteen i Touring costs.

If you like a car that’s sporty to drive, the Volkswagen Golf 1.8T S is another fine choice. Available only as a hatchback, the Golf is a thrill to drive. It earns high praise for its sporty, fun-to-drive character; its roomy, well-finished interior; and its convenient seats. But the Golf isn’t as good of a value as the Honda Civic or Mazda3. The Golf S, which costs about $22,000 three —a little more than the Honda Civic EX (without Honda Sensing) and almost $1,500 more than the Mazda3 i Sport—doesn’t give you as many convenience or safety features as either of those cars. And its 29-mpg combined fuel economy is among the lowest in this group.

If you’re looking for a car that will open up your dollars the furthest, the specially optimized Toyota Corolla LE Eco presents a persuading case. At less than $20,000, four it has one of the lowest prices of the group, but it’s still fairly well tooled. The base LE Eco version also ranks high in fuel economy among the cars on our list, tying the Honda Civic. There’s more: The Corolla boasts very good reliability ratings from various sources, has one of the lowest cost-to-own estimates according to Kelley Blue Book, and rates as a top performer on the retained-value lists of both ALG and Edmunds.com. This model gives you a roomy cabin, as well. While the Corolla doesn’t have any major low points, both its styling and its driving practice are rather bland, and it can’t match the safety credentials of the Honda Civic in terms of safety features or crash-test results.

If you can afford to pay almost $28,000, five the high-end version of the Honda Civic is the ultimate compact car. In addition to all of the usual virtues of our top pick, the two thousand sixteen Honda Civic Touring version provides a significantly stronger turbocharged engine that amazingly gets the same good fuel economy and even slightly better results on the highway—it’s one of the most powerful and most fuel-efficient cars we looked at. The Touring also treats you very well: In addition to all of the inviting convenience and safety features in the EX version with Honda Sensing, you also get such luxury items as power front seats, heated front and rear seats, a premium 10-speaker audio system, a navigation system, dual-zone climate control, and automatic high-beams. Drawbacks? Its price is pretty steep for most compact-car buyers. That said, it’s about $Two,000 less than the similarly tooled Mazda3 s Grand Touring, which we previously picked as an upgrade alternative.

If you want the added security of all-wheel drive in slimy conditions, a compact car is the least expensive way to get it. And of the two compacts that suggest it—the Subaru Impreza and the Mitsubishi Lancer—the Impreza is clearly the better choice. But AWD is only part of this car’s appeal. Available as a sedan or hatchback, the Impreza is a good all-around car, and at about $20,000 six for the Impreza Two.0i sedan (or an extra $500 for the Impreza Two.0i hatchback), it’s one of the least expensive compacts we considered. It provides a lot of interior room, boasts some of this group’s best overall scores in IIHS and NHTSA safety tests, and has a relatively low cost-to-own estimate, according to Kelley Blue Book. Where does it fall brief? The Impreza gets only middle-of-the-pack fuel economy, and the sedan version has a relatively petite trunk. This car also lacks the higher-end features of the Honda Civic and offers no reasonably priced way to upgrade to a more full-featured version. And lastly, if we’re being fair, it doesn’t look almost as good.

Table of contents

Why you should trust me

I was the automotive editor for Consumer Reports for fourteen years, so I’m used to conducting in-depth, detailed evaluations of cars of all types. Prior to that, I was the senior feature editor for Motor Trend for nine years, where I drove and wrote about everything from puny cars to SUVs to luxury and spectacle cars. I’ve driven virtually every car on the road, and I’ve learned that you can find big differences inbetween models that look essentially the same on paper. I’ve observed the compact-car market go through an amazing transformation in latest years, from one populated by cheap-feeling, boring economy cars to one packed with the solid, spirited, well-built, and well-equipped compact cars we have today. Still, I request a lot in terms of both value and spectacle, and, yes, some compact cars are certainly better than others.

For this guide, I also interviewed two other experts on the field: Jack Nerad, executive editorial director of Kelley Blue Book and KBB.com, and Steven J. Ewing, managing editor of Autoblog. The recommendations I make here are the same that I would give to my family and friends in a one-on-one discussion. So, welcome to the family.

Why you might want a compact car

A compact car is a excellent choice for people who want an inexpensive, fuel-efficient car that’s effortless to park and maneuver yet provides good spectacle, convenience, and everyday practicality. They’re ideal for youthful drivers, or for anyone who has a limited budget or simply chooses a thrifty lifestyle.

“Compact cars can be a lot of things to a lot of people,” said Steven J. Ewing, managing editor of Autoblog in an email interview. “They’re relatively affordable, fuel-efficient, functional, and these days, can still be loaded with all of the convenience and convenience features available on more premium vehicles.”

“Compact cars are generally economical to buy and operate,” added Jack Nerad, executive editorial director and executive market analyst for Kelley Blue Book and KBB.com. “These days they can be packed with a broad multitude of options that rival those suggested by luxury cars, but going that route significantly ups the purchase price. Compacts are typically purchased by consumers who are value-oriented or are coerced to be value-oriented by their incomes and bank accounts. Youthfull marrieds and oldsters on motionless incomes are two major buying groups.”

Overall, compacts occupy a sweet spot inbetween price and functionality. Base prices for most conventional gas-powered models range from about $Legal,000 to $26,000, albeit slew of variants—sporty models, diesels, hybrids, and so on—can go over $30,000. The models we chose to consider, with automatic transmissions and a nice selection of features, fall in the $Nineteen,500 to $23,000 range. That’s more than $Ten,000 below the estimated average transaction price for a fresh car, according to Kelley Blue Book.

Size-wise, compact cars fall in inbetween midsize cars and even smaller subcompacts. They’re about eight to fifteen inches shorter and two to three inches narrower than a typical midsize sedan, which makes them lighter to maneuver in taut places, such as when you’re parallel parking, squeezing into a crowded parking space, or pulling a quick U-turn. They’re good choices for people who drive in cities and other congested areas.

Their smaller size, however, has disadvantages, too. “Compact cars are just that—compact,” Ewing told me. “If you need to transport lots of people, these vehicles won’t work. Towing? You’re out of luck. And while many premium features are available on these smaller cars, they aren’t going to have the same levels of refinement and available goodies as larger, more expensive offerings.”

Nerad agreed: “Though compact cars are fatter than they used to be (aren’t we all?), they are still smaller than midsize sedans, full-size sedans, and most SUVs. That means cargo- and people-hauling capabilities are constrained. Most compacts can seat just four adults conveniently, however a fifth adult can typically be squeezed in for brief hops. And compacts typically don’t suggest the rail quality and quiet cabins of larger vehicles.”

Due to these vehicles’ shorter, narrower dimensions, the cabins in compact sedans are generally smaller, and as a result they typically provide less rear legroom. And albeit all of the compacts we looked at can technically hold five people, the rear center position is usually a pretty awkward hump, with a stiff back and limited headroom. When I squeezed my 5-foot-10-inch figure into the rear center of each car, my head touched the roof in all but a few; in two of them (the Dodge Dart and Hyundai Elantra), I couldn’t even sit fully upright. Of the fifteen cars we looked at, the Volkswagen Golf SportWagen had the least awkward center position.

Compact sedans also have trunks that are a little smaller and narrower than those in midsize sedans. Fortunately, several compact models are available as a hatchback or wagon, which greatly improves their utility; these include the Ford Concentrate, Hyundai Elantra, Kia Forte, Mazda3, Subaru Impreza, and Volkswagen Golf and Golf SportWagen. Hatchback versions generally cost about $500 more than sedans. To get similar versatility in a midsize vehicle, you’d likely have to stir to a crossover model, as automakers hardly produce any midsize station wagons anymore.

Eventually, regardless of their crash scores, the smaller size of compacts makes them more vulnerable in a crash with a larger vehicle, as we discuss below in Small-car safety.

Compacts can help you squeeze the most from your fuel dollars. Depending on the car, the fuel economy, in miles per gallon, generally ranges from the high 20s to the mid-30s in combined city and highway driving. The most fuel-efficient cars in this guide are the Honda Civic EX (35 mpg combined), the Toyota Corolla LE Eco (35), and the Mazda3 i Sport (34, sedan; 33, hatchback). By comparison, the most fuel-efficient conventional midsize cars typically get in the low 30s. The compacts we looked at with the lowest fuel economy are the Dodge Dart SXT (27 mpg) and the Volkswagen Golf 1.8T S and Golf SportWagen 1.8T S, which both get twenty nine mpg.

All compacts suggest a broad range of features, depending on how much you spend. Lower-priced, entry-level versions can be pretty bare-bones, lacking even such expected features as power windows, cruise control, and the capability to listen to your music by way of a Bluetooth connection from your smartphone or portable music player. Some modern convenience, entertainment, and safety features, such as rearview cameras, wise keyless entry, push-button begin, and touchscreen entertainment systems, are becoming more widely available. But upscale items such as automatic climate control, blind-spot monitoring, and rear-cross-traffic alert systems are still fairly hard to find at a reasonable price. Advanced safety systems, such as forward-collision and lane-departure warning systems, are even more infrequent. Only our top pick, the two thousand sixteen Honda Civic, offers them for every trim version and at a reasonable price. On other compacts, they’re available exclusively in higher-level, more-expensive trims and as part of an option package—if they’re available at all. We found that the sweet spot for overall value is usually in the midlevel-trim versions, which account for most of the cars we chose to compare.

If you find that you need a roomier car, refer to our guide for midsize sedans. Our pick in that category, the Subaru Legacy Two.5i Premium, which costs about $25,000, comes with standard all-wheel drive, offers excellent fuel economy of thirty mpg in combined city and highway driving (which is astounding for an AWD car), and has advanced safety features that are hard to find at that price.

If you want an even smaller car—because of taut parking, congested traffic, or a restricted budget—check out our guide for subcompact hatchbacks. Our pick there, the Honda Fit EX, costs a little over $Nineteen,000 and provides excellent fuel economy of thirty five mpg combined, as well as more interior space and features than you might expect in such a petite, inexpensive car.

Sedan or hatchback?

Five of the fifteen compact cars we looked at are available as either a sedan or a hatchback.

One of your big decisions when buying a compact car is whether to get a sedan or a hatchback. A sedan, of course, has a basic “car form,” with an engine in front and a trunk in back. A hatchback substitutes the trunk with a swing-up rear door and a larger, open cargo compartment, making it in essence a smaller version of a wagon or crossover.

“A compact sedan offers a lockable trunk and a style that most Americans choose,” said Jack Nerad of Kelley Blue Book and KBB.com. “Hatchbacks are more versatile.” We tend to agree, and all things being equal, we choose hatchbacks over sedans because they’re a lot more pliable when it comes to carrying people and gear.

Among the fifteen cars we include in this guide, five are available in either bod style: the Ford Concentrate, Hyundai Elantra, Kia Forte, Mazda3, and Subaru Impreza. Seven—the Chevrolet Cruze Limited, Dodge Dart, Honda Civic, Mitsubishi Lancer, Nissan Sentra, Toyota Corolla, and Volkswagen Jetta—come only as a sedan. The Scion iM and Volkswagen Golf are available only as hatchbacks, and the Volkswagen Golf SportWagen is essentially a longer, wagon version of the Golf.

Which version you choose, however, will boil down to how much you want to spend (sedans generally cost about $500 less than hatchbacks) and how much cargo space you need (hatchbacks can carry a lot more stuff). Both figure types have folding rear seats that expand the cargo space, but sedans have relatively puny openings inbetween the trunk and the rear-seat area, whereas hatchbacks let you stack things to the roof and as far forward as you want.

One compromise in choosing a hatchback, however, can be less selection. The Elantra GT hatchback, for example, is available in only one trim level. The hatchback version of the Ford Concentrate isn’t available in the least-expensive trim, as its sedan sibling is.

Small-car safety

If you’re considering a compact car, keep in mind that such models are more vulnerable in a crash with larger vehicles, regardless of how good their crash-test ratings are. Also, some petite cars are having a difficult time with a fresh crash test called the puny overlap frontal crash test, tho’ our top pick, the Honda Civic, has performed among the best in that regard. That said, petite cars are lighter and more nimble than larger vehicles, which makes avoiding an accident in the very first place lighter.

Overall, the compacts we looked at do pretty well in crash tests conducted by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety and the federal government’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. But “even if they do well in crash tests, you are at a disadvantage with a larger, stronger car,” said Gabe Shenhar, senior test engineer for Consumer Reports. “That’s just physics.” In fact, the frontal crash tests for both safety organizations measure only how well a vehicle performs against one of a similar weight. So a high rating for a compact car—four or five starlets in an NHTSA test and an Acceptable or Good rating in an IIHS test—essentially means that the vehicle will do a good job protecting its occupants if it hits, yes, another compact. A puny car that suffers a frontal collision with a larger, stronger one will likely get the worse of the encounter, regardless of its crash rating.

It might look bad, but the IIHS says the driver’s space “was maintained very well” in this two thousand sixteen Honda Civic.

One crash test that has plagued some compact models is the IIHS’s relatively fresh puny overlap frontal crash test. Introduced in 2012, this test simulates what happens when just the front corner of a car collides with another vehicle or with an object such as a tree or a utility pole. According to a two thousand nine IIHS probe, these sorts of crashes account for almost a quarter of the frontal crashes that result in serious or fatal injuries to people sitting in the front seats, even among vehicles with otherwise good frontal-crash ratings.

So far, of the fifteen compacts we looked at, only six have received the top rating of Good in the IIHS puny overlap frontal crash test: our top pick, the Honda Civic, plus the Mazda3, Nissan Sentra, Subaru Impreza, and Volkswagen Golf and Jetta. Four others, namely the Dodge Dart, Ford Concentrate, Hyundai Elantra, and Mitsubishi Lancer, got an Acceptable rating. And three—the Chevrolet Cruze, Kia Forte, and Toyota Corolla—got only a Marginal rating. The IIHS hasn’t tested the fresh Scion iM or the VW Golf SportWagen yet.

Features to look for

Despite their low prices, today’s compact cars treat you pretty well in terms of features. You can get many modern conveniences, connected entertainment systems, and advanced safety features, depending on the car you choose and how much you want to spend. For this guide, we sought cars that were well tooled with the modern features everyone wants these days but not so loaded with “nice-to-have” items as to become unaffordable.

“It makes sense to buy a mid-range compact,” Jack Nerad of Kelley Blue Book and KBB.com told me in an email interview. “I’d avoid a entirely basic car (hard to re-sell) and a fully loaded compact (you won’t get value for the extra stuff when you sell or trade). A trim level that offers connectivity plus electronic driving aids is a good middle ground.”

Except for a few of the least expensive, entry-level cars, which skimp on some basic features, virtually all compacts give you power windows, locks, and mirrors; cruise control; a tilt steering wheel; a push-button key fob that lets you lock and unlock the car from a distance; wireless Bluetooth hands-free-phone and streaming-audio capability; USB and auxiliary inputs for plugging in a individual audio player; a tour computer with fuel-economy and miles-to-empty readouts; and a 60/40 split-folding rear seat for expanding the trunk or rear cargo space. These are the things we consider to be must-haves.

That’s only the embarking point, however. Many of these cars provide, either as standard equipment or as reasonably priced options, a number of other inviting features that can make a big difference in living with a car every day. And our pick, the two thousand sixteen Honda Civic EX, gives you more of them as standard items than any other compact car in this price range.

Such features include a rearview camera that makes backing up lighter and safer by displaying you the area behind your car on the dash screen (a government mandate will make this technology standard on all cars built after May 1, 2018); a clever keyless entry system that lets you unlock or lock the doors without having to take the key out of your pocket or bag; push-button embark, which provides a similar benefit as the brainy keyless entry; and an entertainment system with a large touchscreen display, voice control, and integrated mobile apps that work with your smartphone.

Other handy features that are available on some of the cars we looked at include automatic headlights (which turn themselves on and off), an auto-dimming rearview mirror, satellite radio, heated seats, a remote starter system, and automatic climate control, which lets you set a cabin temperature and then leave behind about it.

When it comes to safety, all fresh cars come with electronic stability control, antilock brakes, traction control, and at least six airbags (dual front bags, front side-impact bags, and side-curtain bags, which protect the passengers in both the front and rear seats from head injuries in a side influence). But more advanced safety features are still sparse in this budget-oriented category. Only a few cars we considered—the Chevrolet Cruze 1LT, Mazda3 i Sport, and Nissan Sentra SV—offer both a blind-spot warning system and a rear-cross-traffic warning system as options. The Honda Civic EX does include its unique LaneWatch blind-spot display as standard equipment.

On top of that, the Honda Civic EX is the only car on our list that offers a forward-collision warning system with automatic braking and a lane-departure warning system with automatic assist, both of which are part of its reasonably priced $1,000 Honda Sensing system.

A forward-collision warning system alerts you if it senses that your car may be going too swift to avoid hitting a vehicle in front, so you can react in time to prevent or at least lessen any harm. With automatic braking, the car will automatically apply the brakes in such a situation to help slow it down in order to prevent or minimize a front-end collision. The IIHS has found that these systems cut rear-end collisions by about forty percent. A lane-departure warning system signals if your car starts drifting across a lane divider without a turn-signal activated, which could happen if you’re sleepy or dissipated. And auto assist will help nudge the car back into its lane if it drifts out. Aside from the Civic, you can find versions of these systems suggested as options on some higher-trim versions of the Mazda3, Nissan Sentra, Subaru Impreza, and VW models.

How we picked

The compact-car category covers one of the widest ranges of vehicles. For this guide, we wished to concentrate on the meat of the market, the models that most people think of as “compacts,” which are affordably priced four-door sedans and hatchbacks. These styles are the most popular kinds of compact cars, and they provide the best combination of value, spectacle, convenience, and practicality.

Very first I scoured automaker websites to compare the trim levels, specs, and options of the cars we determined to consider. Then I checked out their fuel-economy ratings on the US Department of Energy’s fueleconomy.gov website, as well as their safety ratings in tests conducted by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. I studied reviews and ratings from other accomplished sources, such as Autoblog, Car and Driver, Consumer Reports, Edmunds.com, Kelley Blue Book, Motor Trend, and U.S. News & World Report. I also talked to other experts and drove each of the top models, spending a week driving a two thousand sixteen Honda Civic EX that I borrowed from Honda’s press fleet.

We considered only models with automatic transmissions because many more people buy those than they do stick shifts. If you like to shift for yourself, you can typically save $800 to $1,100 by opting for a manual transmission, albeit you won’t find one suggested at every trim level. Only the least-expensive entry-level versions of the Honda Civic and the Nissan Sentra suggest a manual transmission, for example, as do a duo of versions of the Hyundai Elantra, Kia Forte, Mitsubishi Lancer, Subaru Impreza, and Toyota Corolla. Don’t think that a manual transmission will necessarily give you better fuel economy (which is one of the reasons people frequently go for one): Of the fifteen models we looked at, most provide equivalent or better gas mileage with their automatic transmission than with their manual. Only a few are more frugal with the manual transmission, and even that result depends on the trim level you choose.

Compacts we looked at

Price as configured

For each of the models, I selected the trim version that I believed provided the best value—the one that I would choose, including options or accessories, if I were buying it for myself. (The “build and price” instrument on each website makes this task effortless. Going through the trim options is also a good reality check, because you can lightly see how adding extras quickly raises the vehicle’s price.) Because of the prices of options and the limited availability of features on some models, the way I configured them could vary a bit. For example, while the Honda Civic EX gives you a wise keyless entry system and push-button commence (through which you can unlock the doors and embark the car with the keys still in your pocket or bag) as standard equipment, most of the other cars we looked at make you stir up to a higher-priced trim level to get those features, and even then a duo of models make you pay another $1,500 to $Two,400 to get such a system as part of an option package. As a result, I configured most of the cars without these features.

Once I had configured a trim level for each car, I compared them all in terms of price, spectacle, fuel economy, interior space, features, safety ratings, warranties, reliability, and more.

Then, when I had narrowed my list to the top five, I did what I recommend every buyer do: I spent a few days going from dealership to dealership, driving each of the contenders on the brief list back to back so that I could feel the differences in acceleration, treating, convenience, versatility, and overall attention to detail. Periodically, even the best-looking cars on paper can let you down because of something as ordinary as an awkward seat or difficult-to-use radio controls.

In the end, the best choice was clearly the two thousand sixteen Honda Civic EX.

Our pick

We chose the two thousand sixteen Honda Civic EX as the best compact car because no other car rises to the top in so many key areas. Costing about $22,000, seven or about $23,000 eight with the Honda Sensing suite of advanced safety features, it’s simply a better overall package than any of the other compacts out there. Very first, the Civic has received a major redesign for two thousand sixteen that brings edgier styling, better treating, and a more joy overall attitude. It’s a big step up over the so-so two thousand fifteen model, which had trouble standing out in this group. (Right brain, check.) Plus, it has one of the roomiest interiors (cabin and trunk) of any compact and provides convenience and safety features that are hard to find elsewhere; it’s also a superb value for the price, one of the most fuel-efficient cars we looked at, and one of the safest compacts on the road. (Left brain, check.) Overall, the two thousand sixteen Honda Civic successfully hits more of the category’s major touchstones than any other car in this group.

“The Civic expertly walks that line inbetween serving up safe, reliable transportation and suggesting some of the best steering, treating and driving dynamics in the segment,” writes Allyson Harwood for KBB.com. “It is sportier, more elegant and more modern at once.”

U.S. News and World Report, which aggregates car reviews, sums it up by writing that “the redesigned two thousand sixteen Honda Civic is among the best compact cars you can buy, with responsive treating, an upscale cabin and generous passenger and cargo space.”

While the Civic has a more fun-to-drive character than before, it hasn’t sacrificed a comfy rail, which is one of the best in the segment. Photo: Rik Paul

Which version should you buy? The Honda Civic is available in five trim versions, any of which you can garment with the Honda Sensing suite of safety features for a reasonable $1,000. With an eye for getting the most value for your money, we evaluated the options and found that the EX version hits the sweet spot. For a price of about $22,000, it includes all of the features we think every compact car in this price range should come with, such as Bluetooth for your phone and audio devices, USB ports, an information display inbetween the gauges, split-folding rear seats, and a tilting and telescoping steering wheel. But the Civic also goes much further than most cars in this group, providing extra standard features like a rearview camera, a large touchscreen in the dash, a clever keyless entry system that doesn’t require you to take the key out of your pocket or bag, automatic climate control, a sunroof, a blind-spot display, a remote starter, automatic headlights, alloy wheels, and Apple CarPlay and Android Autos support.

That’s a lot for your money. But we also recommend that you get the $1,000 Honda Sensing package, which includes a forward-collision warning system with automatic braking, adaptive cruise control, and a lane-departure warning system with active assist. Such features aren’t available in any other car in this price range. The Civic’s forward-collision system monitors how close you are to a vehicle in front and will automatically apply the brakes if necessary to help avoid or minimize a collision. According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, these types of auto-braking systems reduce the rate of rear-end collisions by a whopping forty percent. With the lane-departure system, if you begin to stray from your lane without activating a turn signal—as can happen if you’re sleepy or distracted—the system will alert you and even automatically use the steering to help nudge you back into your lane. I checked it out while driving on a local highway, and as I crossed the right lane divider, I could feel a slight pulse of resistance in the steering wheel as it attempted to nudge me back.

Unless you’re pinched for cash, avoid the entry-level LX version. It’s about $1,500 cheaper, but you’ll miss out on such nice items as the nifty HondaLink entertainment system with 7-inch touchscreen (the LX comes with a 5-inch LCD screen), Apple CarPlay/Android Auto, the brainy keyless entry and ignition system, heated mirrors, a sunroof, the LaneWatch blind-spot display, and a remote starter. We think those features are well worth the extra money.

Spending almost $1,200 more for the EX-T version buys you a stronger turbocharged engine, a dual-zone climate system, heated front seats, satellite radio, fog lights, and larger alloy wheels. Nice additions, but that brings the price to about $23,000, which is among the highest in this group. We’d rather spend that money on adding the Honda Sensing package to the EX. The higher EX-L trim lets you get navigation for an extra $1,500, but we’d pass on that. In the end, if you want a fully loaded compact car and have some extra bucks to spend, the top-of-the-line Civic Touring is the way to go, as we describe in A full-featured choice.

The Civic was redesigned for 2016, with fresh, edgier styling that wins broad applause. Photo: Rik Paul

One of the high points of the fresh Civic is that it’s more joy and engaging to drive. It doesn’t have fairly the acute, sports-car-like feel of the Mazda3 and Volkswagen Golf, but it feels agile and responsive through turns, reacting quickly and precisely to your driving guidelines. It also feels very stable at highway speeds: In our tests, going seventy or higher was no problem for this compact car. You can’t say the same about many compact cars, most of which just feel like a lackluster, functional way to get from point A to point B.

KBB.com’s Allyson Harwood agrees, writing, “Handling and steering are excellent, making the Civic agile and responsive when cornering.” Edmunds.com’s reviewer also concurs: “Like the best Civics of yore, the fresh one feels sporty and joy when you’re driving it on winding back roads. Unlike its predecessors, however, it’s fairly quiet inwards at speed, and its rail is more compliant than ever.”

The Civic’s HondaLink touchscreen system provides a lot of entertainment options and is mostly effortless to use. Photo: Rik Paul

Overall, among compact cars, the Civic achieves perhaps the best balance inbetween joy treating and a convenient rail. The compliant rail soaks up petite road imperfections and takes the edge off of larger bumps, making the Civic a convenient car to spend time in whether you’re running around-town errands or spending hours behind the wheel on a long drive. It isn’t luxury-car plush, but it is among the best you’ll find here.

The Civic’s engine provides good power and ranks as one of the most fuel efficient in our group. Photo: Rik Paul

The Civic EX’s spirited 158-horsepower, Two.0-liter four-cylinder engine has slew of power for merging into highway traffic, passing other vehicles, or climbing hills. It also operates sleekly with no annoying stimulations and responds well when you press the accelerator. I did find that this petite engine had to work hard in more-demanding situations, but that’s a common trait among compacts. You can get a stronger 174-hp, 1.5-liter turbo engine in higher trim versions, but we think the base engine is just fine for most people.

The fresh Civic is quieter than the previous version as well as a lot of other compacts, but you’ll still notice a fair bit of road and wind noise, especially at highway speeds or on rough roads. That just comes with the territory.

Overall, the controls are effortless to use, with large buttons in the display and on the dash. Photo: Rik Paul

The Civic’s tasteful, contemporary design carries over inwards, where you’ll find the same flowing lines and angular theme. The car also likes broad recognition for its comfy, well-crafted interior and generous list of features for the price.

When you sit in the nicely contoured front seats, you’re surrounded by rich, high-quality materials and good fit and finish (that is, how well the interior trim chunks look and fit together). The dash and doors have tastefully finished soft surfaces, and even the areas with hard plastic are at least nicely textured. The front seats are convenient, and I found slew of headroom for my 5-foot-10-inch bod. Reading the gauge cluster in front of the driver is plain, and the steering wheel includes easy-to-reach buttons for the audio system, cruise control, phone, and voice-command system.

The rear seat and trunk are particularly roomy for a compact car. With the rear seat folded, we could carry almost as many groceries as in a larger midsize sedan. Photo: Rik Paul

In the rear, the outboard seats, next to each window, are bucket-like and very comfy. Passengers get slew of headroom and among the most legroom of any car in this group. (As in all compacts, the rear-center position is an awkward hump that’s best left for the infrequent times when you have to squeeze three people into the back.) The trunk is also one of the largest of any car we looked at: We were able to fit fifteen grocery bags, only a duo fewer than in the larger Subaru Legacy, our midsize sedan pick. With the Civic’s rear seats folded down, we could lightly carry twenty seven bags, a nice amount of space for when you’re stocking up for big parties or holiday feasts.

You’ll find all kinds of entertainment opportunities in the Civic EX, including Bluetooth, two USB ports, and an entertainment system with music-streaming apps as well as the very popular Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. The roomy 7-inch touchscreen, clear graphics, and large fonts make the display effortless to read. While I was streaming Pandora from my phone, all of the usual functions were present; I could switch channels, pause, go to the next track, and give a song a thumbs-up or thumbs-down, just as I could on my phone. Our main gripe with the HondaLink system is its touch-sensitive volume control, which we describe in Flaws but not dealbreakers.

When it comes to features, the Civic EX is the best buy of the compact-car category. It gives you more of the things we consider significant as standard equipment than any other car we looked at. In addition to all of the basic items that we regard as must-haves in this type of car, it provides other nice features that you often need to pay extra for with other cars on our list (if you can get them at all).

The Civic EX comes with many extras as standard, including push-button commence, clever keyless entry, automatic climate control, a rearview camera, and a touchscreen system with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. Photo: Rik Paul

As mentioned earlier, this car includes a rearview camera, a clever entry system, a push-button starter, automatic climate control, a sunroof, heated mirrors, alloy wheels, and an up-to-date touchscreen entertainment system.

Also standard in the Civic EX is Honda’s LaneWatch blind-spot display, which is a mixed bliss. When you activate the right-side turn signal, the in-dash display shows a large photo of the area to the right rear of the car, so you can lightly see if any cars are in your blind spot before you switch lanes. This works well on the highway, especially with in-screen guidelines that let you know when it’s safe to budge over. But LaneWatch can become distracting at other times, such as when the screen shows only a line of trees, a fence alongside the road, or parked cars. You can turn the LaneWatch display off temporarily by pressing a button on the end of the turn-signal stalk. You can also keep the system from automatically activating with the turn signal by adjusting the settings in the on-screen menus; you’ll still be able to turn it on with the stalk button if you want to.

While people may not be watching pump prices as closely these days, fuel economy is still significant to many drivers. And the Civic EX gets better gas mileage than any compact car except a specially optimized version of the Toyota Corolla, the base LE Eco; both get thirty five miles per gallon in combined city and highway driving (the Civic is slightly more efficient in city driving while the Corolla LE Eco has a 1-mpg edge on the highway).

The acute and aerodynamic exterior design looks fine and saves fuel. Notice the puny camera on the right mirror for Honda’s LaneWatch blind-spot display. Photo: Rik Paul

To put that into perspective, half of the compact cars we looked at get only thirty one mpg combined or less, with the most fuel-thirsty being the Dodge Dart SXT at twenty seven mpg. In other words, the Dart would cost you about $250 eleven more in fuel each year than the Civic, even with gas at a low $Two.00 per gallon.

The Civic is also one of the safest compact cars you can buy. It has earned the highest rating of Good in all Insurance Institute for Highway Safety tests, and when tooled with the Honda Sensing package of advanced safety features, it’s the only car in this group to earn the institute’s highest designation of Top Safety Pick+. As of this writing, the two thousand sixteen Civic hasn’t yet gone through National Highway Traffic Safety Administration crash tests, but the two thousand fifteen model earned an excellent overall rating of five out of five starlets.

Other highlights? The Honda Civic holds its value well and is relatively economical to drive. According to Kelley Blue Book, its estimated total cost to own over the very first five years averages to about $34,000, or forty five cents per mile, which is one of the lowest in the group. (And keep in mind that compacts generally cost less to own than larger, higher-priced models.) On the other mitt, the Dodge Dart SXT and Mitsubishi Lancer ES are each estimated to cost about fifty cents per mile. (As of this writing, Kelley Blue Book doesn’t have owner-cost data for the two thousand sixteen Volkswagen Golf SportWagen or Jetta.)

Is the Honda Civic ideal? No car is, especially in this price range. And we’ll tell you about our few gripes next. But considering its spirited character, eye-catching style, welcoming and convenient interior, fine value, frugal fuel economy, inviting features, and high safety factor, we lightly found it to be the best compact car for most people. No other car can match its list of achievements.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

Albeit the Civic EX is the best compact car overall, it can use improvement in a few areas. The touch-sensitive volume control for the HondaLink entertainment system, for example, can be particularly frustrating. And the cabin can get noisy, especially during hard acceleration, at higher speeds, and on harsher roads, but that’s symptomatic of compacts cars in general.

The touch-sensitive volume control, to the left of the display, can be difficult to use without taking your eyes off the road for too long. The steering wheel buttons are lighter. Photo: Rik Paul

The Civic’s touch-sensitive audio volume control might have seemed like a good idea on the drawing board, but it’s cumbersome to use while driving. Next to the touchscreen is a vertical-scale-like marking with + and – symbols at the top and bottom. You can press those markings, or slide your finger up or down the scale, to switch volume, but the control is so unresponsive that setting the level you want is difficult. I found that I had to look over to see what was happening, which took my eyes and attention off the road. If you just touch the scale, however, a 2nd volume scale pops up on the touchscreen itself, and this one is more responsive to touch: You can slide your finger up or down that scale to switch the volume (which is, again, lighter to do), but this is a two-step process that still takes your eyes off the road for too long. Moreover, neither method is effortless to perform slickly on a rough road, when your mitt may be moving around. Fortunately, you can avoid that control altogether by using the volume buttons on the left side of the steering wheel.

Like many compact cars, the Civic can be a bit noisy. It’s commendably quiet on sleek roads or at lower speeds; in our tests, however, when the car was cruising on the highway or on a coarser surface, road and wind noise became more apparent. The Civic is quieter than a lot of compact cars, but the truth is, good sound insulation is hard to find in this budget-oriented category—soundproofing costs money and adds weight, which in turn increases the car’s price and lowers its fuel economy.

Right before we finished updating this guide, Honda issued a stop sale and safety recall of 34,000 two thousand sixteen Civics with the Two.0-liter engine in light of a manufacturing defect that could make the engine stall or fail, causing the car to abruptly lose power. This recall includes the EX trim version that we’ve chosen as our top pick, and it means that Honda dealers can’t sell the affected cars until they’ve undergone repairs, which may not happen until mid-March, according to Honda. If you already own a two thousand sixteen Civic with that engine, look for an official notification from Honda around that time and take your car in for the free service ASAP. (If you can’t wait that long to buy a fresh compact car, see our runner-up and previous top pick, the Mazda3.)

What others say about our pick

When buying a car, it’s significant to check out experienced reviews and ratings; the more, the better, so you get a range of opinions. So we dug in and read compact-car reviews from a number of recognized auto experts. Across the board, they reinforced our positive assessment of the two thousand sixteen Honda Civic.

On the Best Cars website for U.S. News and World Report, which consolidates reviews from a number of other sources, the Civic presently has an excellent overall score of 9.Two out of Ten, which puts it in very first place in both the Affordable Compact Cars and Affordable Petite Cars categories. “Critics say the redesigned two thousand sixteen Honda Civic is among the best compact cars you can buy, with responsive treating, an upscale cabin and generous passenger and cargo space,” says the site. “It rails sleekly, treats responsively and supplies adequate acceleration.” The website also adds that “the Civic is remarkably quiet and has spacious rear seats. Trunk space is generous for the class.”

Car and Driver named the Civic as one of its Editors’ Choice selections for the Best Puny Cars of 2016, alongside the Mazda3, the Kia Soul, and the Volkswagen Golf. The site says, “Sweet-handling and joy to drive, the Civic is worth serious consideration from enthusiasts and non-enthusiasts alike.”

In its review of the two thousand sixteen Civic, Edmunds.com says, “From the Civic’s edgy yet upscale looks to its mature cabin (no more two-tiered dash!) with nifty touchscreen-based tech, it’s clear that Honda’s innovative spirit has been revived.”

Kelley Blue Book chose the two thousand sixteen Civic as its overall winner in naming its Best Buys of 2016, telling, “‘Game-changing’ isn’t a term we use lightly, but it’s apt for the two thousand sixteen Honda Civic. All-new and now in its 10th generation, Honda’s venerable compact car has thrown down the gauntlet for the rest of the segment.” And in the KBB review of the car, Allyson Harwood writes, “The Civic is known for its reliability, resale value and safety, yet injects entertaining driving dynamics into the equation.”

A group of some fifty US and Canadian auto journalists also dubbed the Civic the two thousand sixteen North American Car of the Year.

Runner-up (and best hatchback)

*At the time of publishing, the price was $21,000.

When we very first published this guide last year, the Mazda3 i Touring was our clear top pick. What a difference a year makes. Not only did the redesigned Civic edge it out, but Mazda also shuffled its trim and feature availability, to the point that we now think the lower-priced i Sport version is a slightly better overall value. Regardless, it’s hard to go wrong with the Mazda3. One of the most fun-to-drive and stylish compacts, this car offers excellent fuel economy; a well-crafted, luxury-like interior; slew of nifty features; and excellent crash-test results. It’s also available as a sedan or hatchback, whereas the Civic comes only as a sedan for now. While the Mazda3 i Sport sedan is priced about $1,100 less than the Civic EX, it doesn’t suggest as many features. On top of that, its rear seat is tighter than the Civic’s, the rail is a little less comfy, and the trunk is a bit smaller.

The way we configured it, the i Sport sedan costs under $21,000 nine for the sedan and about $21,500 ten for the hatchback, yet you still get a fairly well-equipped car with the Mazda Connect entertainment system, a 7-inch touchscreen, a rearview camera, blind-spot monitoring, rear cross-traffic alert, automatic headlights, alloy wheels, heated mirrors, and push-button commence. When you equip it with the $1,000 Preferred Equipment Package, which we did, all that the i Sport gives up compared with the $1,200-higher i Touring is a sunroof and fog lights.

You can’t read a professional review of the Mazda3 without learning about how joy it is to drive. That’s one of its signature traits. And we discovered that firsthand during our time with the car, too. Don’t get us wrong: It doesn’t suggest blazingly swift speed, tire-squealing acceleration, or the capability to take on the serpentine kinks of a track like a Formula one racer. But it does feel like a natural extension of yourself as you take on the twists and turns of the road. It responds quickly and precisely to your driving directions. Doing your morning commute, running around-town errands, or, better yet, taking the long way home becomes something you look forward to. It feels like you’re driving a car that’s worth more than what you spent.

“The Mazda three is a fine choice for any compact-car shopper who loves driving,” writes Edmunds.com. “Strong acceleration, acute steering and a well-tuned suspension make the three truly come alive when you want it to, even if it’s just zipping around town for errands.”

In addition, the Mazda3 also excels in more practical areas. With its Two.0-liter, four-cylinder engine, the sedan version gets an excellent EPA-estimated thirty four miles per gallon in combined city and highway driving (the hatchback gets one mpg less). In this regard, it surpasses all other compacts we looked at except for the Honda Civic and a special edition of the Toyota Corolla that’s optimized for higher fuel economy (and both edge the Mazda3 by only one mpg). The Mazda3 is also the only car in this group to earn the highest rating (Good) in all safety tests conducted by the requesting Insurance Institute for Highway Safety as well as the highest rating (five starlets) in all crash tests performed by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Eventually, the Mazda3 produces solid quality that holds its value well. It’s one of the top three compacts in the ALG two thousand sixteen Residual Value Awards and the top puny car in Strategic Vision’s two thousand fifteen Total Quality Awards, which reflect all aspects of the buying, possessing, and driving practice.

Next to the fresh two thousand sixteen Honda Civic EX, however, the Mazda3 has a tighter rear seat and a somewhat stiffer rail, which together make it a little less convenient to spend time in. We noticed the effect most on longer trips. And the i Sport version lacks such features as automatic climate control, a sunroof, clever keyless entry, remote commence, Apple CarPlay, and Android Auto, as well as the availability of such advanced safety features as forward-collision warning, auto braking, and lane-departure warning, which come as part of the Civic’s $1,000 Honda Sensing package.

For a sportier drive

Redesigned for the two thousand fifteen model year, the Volkswagen Golf is another solid choice, with a fun-to-drive character; a convenient, well-finished interior; and some nice features that aren’t available on similarly priced cars. The Golf, however, doesn’t rate very in as many areas as the Civic does. It has notably lower fuel economy, fewer features for the price, and a higher estimated cost of ownership.

Albeit the Golf line of cars includes two- and four-door hatchbacks, the sporty GTI hot hatch, and electrical and diesel versions, we considered only the gasoline-powered four-door version because it provides the best value for the money. Over the past year or so, the Golf family has received a lot of recognition from auto experts, and it has one of the most crowded trophy cases we’ve seen in a while. Along with the Mazda3, it ranked in Car and Driver’s two thousand sixteen 10Best list; it also appeared as one of the best compacts in Car and Driver’s Editors’ Choice awards, and it presently stands as one of the top picks in U.S. News and World Report’s Affordable Compact Cars list. In addition, the Golf family rated as the Motor Trend two thousand fifteen Car of the Year and the two thousand fifteen North American Car of the Year, and the Golf/GTI won the Best Puny Car category in MotorWeek’s two thousand fifteen Drivers’ Choice Awards.

“No matter which Golf variant we leaped into, we emerged with smiles on our faces,” writes Motor Trend’s Rory Jurnecka in that publication’s two thousand fifteen Car of the Year article. “And while each obviously catered to different priorities, they all share the same solid build quality, taut structure, and remarkable rail that make them feel like a premium vehicle in an entry-level segment.”

High praise. While several awards and reviews concentrate on the enthusiastic appeal of the high-performance VW GTI, we think the entry-level 1.8T S version, which costs about $22,000, twelve is the better choice for most people. It has exceptionally agile treating and superb steering, and its 170-hp engine is one of the strongest in the category. The Golf also offers a well-finished interior and comfy seats, along with slew of rear-seat room and cargo space. And even the S trim comes with most of the features we look for in this type of car, as well as partially powered front seats (a feature you won’t find in any non-VW compacts on our list) plus Apple CarPlay and Android Auto.

Where the Golf falls brief of the Honda Civic is in its overall value. The Golf S costs a little more than the Civic EX (without Honda Sensing), but it doesn’t give you as many conveniences or safety features such as a sunroof, wise keyless entry, push-button begin, automatic climate control, or a blind-spot monitoring system. Its twenty nine mpg in combined city and highway driving is among the lowest in this group, too. And according to Kelley Blue Book, it will cost more to own over the very first five years, at about $36,500, or forty nine cents per mile. That said, while Volkswagens are often noted for having hit-or-miss reliability, the Golf has held up well in latest years.

A lower-priced value

If you’re a dollars-and-cents person, we have another recommendation for you. Opening up your hard-earned bucks is what the specially optimized Toyota Corolla LE Eco is best at. At just under $20,000, thirteen it has one of the lowest prices of the group yet it’s still fairly well tooled and blessed with a roomy cabin. The base LE Eco we chose gets the best fuel economy—35 mpg combined—of any of the cars on our list, tying only with the Honda Civic. Plus, the Corolla has very good reliability ratings, it has one of the lowest cost-to-own estimates according to Kelley Blue Book, and both the ALG and Edmunds.com retained-value lists name it as a top performer. On the other palm, it isn’t particularly thrilling or joy to drive, and it doesn’t have the safety credentials of the Civic, in either features or crash-test results.

“The two thousand sixteen Toyota Corolla isn’t intended to thrill,” writes Edmunds.com, “but its sensible blend of fuel economy, features, versatility and value make it a compelling choice for most puny sedan shoppers.” KBB.com agrees: “Toyota’s two thousand sixteen Corolla compact sedan won’t light fires in the hearts of most driving enthusiasts, but just about everyone else will find a lot to like in this not-so-compact 4-door.”

The Corolla has a convenient, spacious cabin with a generous amount of rear legroom, among the most of any of the cars we considered. And even at its sub-$20,000 price, the base LE Eco comes with such nice standard features as a rearview camera, a touchscreen entertainment system, heated mirrors, and automatic climate control (only the Honda Civic and Scion iM also provide that feature as standard).

Its thirty five mpg in combined city and highway driving ties it with the Honda Civic for the high mark in this group, albeit its forty two mpg on the highway slightly edges out the Civic’s forty one mpg. (If you go for the more expensive LE Eco Plus or Premium trim, however, the fuel economy dips to thirty four mpg combined and forty on the highway.) According to Kelley Blue Book, the Corolla’s cost-to-own estimate is one of the lowest of the group, at a little over $33,000 for the very first five years, or forty four cents per mile. And according to U.S. News and World Report, the Corolla has earned excellent reliability ratings in J.D. Power’s predicted-reliability score as well as on TrueDelta. So the Corolla is likely to remain cheap to own well down the road.

Aside from its relatively bland character, tho’, the Corolla is one of only three cars in this group to score only a Marginal rating in the IIHS’s small-overlap frontal crash test. Also, the Corolla doesn’t suggest any advanced safety features, another area in which it lags behind the Honda Civic.

A full-featured choice

If you want a no-compromise compact car and can tolerate a higher sticker price, we believe that the top-of-the-line Honda Civic Touring is the way to go. Considering its price tag of about $28,000, fourteen you can think of this car as our top pick with an extra shot of spectacle and luxury features. In addition to all of the virtues of the Civic EX—stylish looks, a driver-friendly character, a well-crafted interior, fine fuel economy, high safety ratings, and a class-leading array of available safety features—you get a significantly stronger 174-hp turbo engine (instead of the EX’s 158-hp motor) and a host of luxury features.

The Civic Touring’s 1.5-liter turbo four-cylinder engine, which offers sixteen hp more than the EX’s engine, provides quicker acceleration while still getting the same stellar thirty five mpg combined and even one mpg more on the highway (42 versus 41). In brief, it’s both one of the strongest and one of the most fuel efficient in this class.

The Touring is loaded with the luxury items you’d expect for this price. In addition to all of the features on the EX with Honda Sensing, which is pretty well tooled itself, the Touring gives you powered front seats, navigation, dual-zone automatic climate control, a premium 10-speaker audio system, heated front and rear seats, automatic headlights with auto high planks, fog lights, and larger, 17-inch alloy wheels. In our configuration we also added an optional auto-dimming rearview mirror for about $200 and a wireless phone charger for about $300, which is a rarity in this class.

You may be wondering how the Civic Touring compares with the Mazda3 s Grand Touring, our previous pick for an upgrade alternative. The Civic Touring is about $Two,000 less expensive. It has a little less horsepower (184 versus 174), but it supplies two more mpg (35 versus 33). The Civic Touring also has a more comfy rail and more rear-seat and trunk space. You’ll find some give and take with the features: The Civic Touring has a better auto-braking system, lane-departure assist, an eight-way power driver’s seat (versus a six-way for the Mazda), a powered front passenger seat, rear heated seats, and Apple CarPlay and Android Auto systems. On the other mitt, the Mazda3 has a better blind-spot monitoring system, rear cross-traffic alert, and an easier-to-use entertainment system. With their forward-collision warning and auto-braking systems, these cars are two of only five compact models designated as IIHS Top Safety Pick+, the others being the Subaru Impreza (when tooled with its optional EyeSight system) and the Volkswagen Golf and Jetta (when tooled with VW’s optional Front Assist system).

If all-wheel drive is significant

A compact car represents the least expensive way to get all-wheel drive, which gives you extra security in lubricious conditions. But the truth is, you don’t have many choices in this price range. Inbetween the two compacts that suggest it—the Subaru Impreza and the Mitsubishi Lancer—the Impreza is an effortless choice. Very first, it gives you AWD as standard equipment on every model. The two thousand sixteen Lancer offers it on three trims in this price range, but only with Mitsubishi’s Two.4-liter engine, which is among the more powerful in this group but is also one of the least fuel efficient. 2nd, the Impreza is a good all-around car, regardless of its AWD. Available as a sedan or a hatchback, it offers pleasant driving, provides a lot of interior room, has some of the best overall crash-test scores in this group, and imposes relatively low holder costs according to Kelley Blue Book. On top of that, the version we chose—priced at about $20,000 fifteen for the Impreza Two.0i sedan or with an extra $500 for the Impreza Two.0i hatchback—is one of the least expensive cars of the fifteen we considered.

Unluckily, the Impreza gets only middle-of-the-pack fuel economy, and the sedan has a relatively puny trunk. This car also lacks many of the higher-end features you get with the Honda Civic EX, and it doesn’t give you a reasonably priced way to upgrade to a more full-featured version. Eventually, the Impreza’s bland styling is, well, what you might expect of an inexpensive car. It’s certainly lacking the flair of the Civic or Mazda3.

Consumer Reports, which named the Impreza as its two thousand fifteen Top Pick for compact cars, writes: “A comfy rail, responsive treating, good visibility, elementary controls, and a relatively spacious rear seat all combine to make the Impreza effortless to live with.” The Impreza also earned some of the best overall scores of this group in IIHS and NHTSA safety tests, albeit the Two.0i version lacks the advanced safety features of the Civic with Honda Sensing, and according to Kelley Blue Book it has a relatively low cost of ownership of about $33,700 (or forty five cents per mile). But albeit the Impreza’s thirty one mpg in combined city and highway driving is good for an AWD car, it’s only middling in this group.

We chose the base Two.0i trim level because it provides most of the features we look for in a compact car at a low price. The catch is, you can’t get some of the higher-end features that are commonly available in other cars, such as satellite radio, clever keyless entry, push-button commence, heated seats and mirrors, or automatic headlights. Yes, you can stir up to the next higher trim, Premium, for about another $1,800, but in total that car would cost you about the same as the Honda Civic EX yet give you only larger alloy wheels, heated seats and mirrors, and an audio system a little nicer than that of the Two.0i. This situation is especially frustrating because Subaru has a excellent advanced safety package, EyeSight, that we’d open up our budget for if it were available. To get that, however, you have to opt for the still more expensive Limited or Sport model, and even then EyeSight is available only as part of an option package that adds even more to the price. At that point, you’re looking at a total price of more than $25,000. To us, this is how an automaker puts valuable safety features out of reach—something Subaru doesn’t do on our midsize-sedan pick, the Legacy—and it’s another reason why we like the Civic more.

The competition

2016 Volkswagen Jetta 1.4T SE

The Volkswagen Jetta 1.4T SE sedan, which costs about $21,000, sixteen is a nice car to drive, with a spirited engine and a roomy rear seat and trunk. However, our pick, the Honda Civic EX, represents a better overall value, with much better fuel economy and more features for a similar price.

Experts generally like how the Jetta drives, albeit they don’t give it stellar ratings. The two thousand sixteen Jetta received a modest 7.7 from U.S. News and World Report and a C from Edmunds.com. “[T]he Jetta’s engine lineup is uniquely sophisticated and compelling in this generally value-oriented segment,” writes Edmunds.com. Later, the review notes: “But given how competitive some other compact sedans have become, it’s hard to overlook the Jetta’s lackluster treating and bland interior design. Top-rated competitors like the Ford Concentrate, Honda Civic and Mazda three have aped the old Jetta playbook while in some cases providing more features for the money.”

The Jetta is very spacious for a compact car, with comfy seats, slew of rear legroom, and the largest trunk in this group. Fresh for two thousand sixteen is a 1.4-liter turbo four-cylinder engine that produces a thrifty thirty two mpg in combined city and highway driving, along with a competitive one hundred fifty hp. We found the Jetta 1.4T SE version to be the best value, with alloy wheels, heated seats, push-button embark, and a 6½-inch touchscreen. With its new-for-2016 Car-Net App-Connect system, you can use your iPhone or Android device to connect to Apple CarPlay or Android Auto, respectively, for access to your phone’s apps, music, and maps. This makes paying about $Two,000 more for the navigation-equipped SE w/ Connectivity trim less appealing, despite that trim’s inclusion of leatherette upholstery, a sunroof, and an eight-way (instead of six-way) driver’s seat.

Like the Mazda3, the Ford Concentrate is available as a sedan or a hatchback, and professional reviews commonly praise it for being one of the more fun-to-drive compact cars. But it has a tighter cabin than many compacts do, and it has exhibited relatively poor reliability in surveys. In addition, some common features are either unavailable or come only as part of an expensive package.

U.S. News and World Report sums up the Concentrate this way: “Auto writers are pleased with the Ford Concentrate’ nimble treating, crisp steering and strong brakes.” It also adds, “Test drivers praise the Ford Concentrate’ high-end cabin materials and attractive interior styling. The front seats are roomy and supportive, reviewers say, but the back seats have poor legroom for adults.”

The Focus’s cabin is the smallest of the group, and this car’s poor reliability is reflected in subpar survey showings, including a J.D. Power predicted-reliability score of only two out of five for the two thousand fifteen version. The trim we chose to consider brought the price to a little under $21,000 seventeen for the Concentrate SE sedan and almost $21,500 eighteen for the Concentrate SE hatchback. Those prices are among the lowest of the cars we considered, but that’s partly because some features we would have added aren’t available on the SE, and getting a touchscreen entertainment system is too expensive: To obtain the fresh SYNC three system, we found that we needed to commit to a duo of pricey option packages that totaled about $Trio,500. That was a dealbreaker. And moving up to the next-higher Titanium trim is a leap in price of more than $Three,000. You truly have no reason to do that when you can find well-equipped cars like the Honda Civic in this price range.

2016 Volkswagen Golf SportWagen 1.8T S

If you need a compact car with a lot of room for carrying stuff, the Volkswagen Golf SportWagen could fit the bill. Whereas the other cars we looked at are either sedans or hatchbacks, this model is a legit compact-size station wagon. You’ll pay for that extra versatility, however, in both a higher price and lower fuel economy. Overall, the Golf SportWagen is an outstanding car, but it isn’t as good of an overall value as the Honda Civic.

Previously called the Jetta SportWagen, the Golf SportWagen was introduced for two thousand fifteen and provides most of the virtues of the standard Golf, along with more cargo space than any of the compact cars we looked at. The SportWagen “carries on the Golf family reputation as a joy, ergonomic, and practical rail, only now with enhanced utility,” writes Autoblog’s Matthew Askari. And Car and Driver named the Golf SportWagen as its number one pick among station wagons, with Erik Johnson writing, “The VW is comfy, looks good, hauls a ton of stuff, is reasonably priced, is one of the best highway cruisers available anywhere, and can more than hold its own if you determine to brunt a local back road.”

In addition, the Golf SportWagen has a well-crafted interior, with a partially powered driver’s seat, one of the most comfy rear seats of the cars we considered, slew of legroom and headroom, and even a usable rear center position. The 1.8-liter turbocharged four-cylinder engine produces slew of power—170 hp—but its fuel economy, at twenty nine mpg combined, is one of the lowest in this group. And as we configured it, even the entry-level Golf SportWagen 1.8T S has the highest price of this group at about $23,500. Nineteen Lastly, while Kelley Blue Book doesn’t have an owner-cost estimate for the Golf SportWagen, the previous Jetta SportWagen had a relatively high figure of about $39,500, or fifty three cents per mile.

2016 Hyundai Elantra Value Edition

The Elantra, which is available as a sedan or a hatchback, is a good all-around car with a long warranty. It doesn’t truly stand out from the crowd in any other respect, tho’, and it doesn’t match our picks in features, fuel economy, safety ratings, or joy factor.

This car has received good but not stellar ratings from the media, with a B from Edmunds.com and an 8.0 from U.S. News and World Report. Motor Trend says that in its compact-sedan comparison test (conducted in 2014), the “smooth, mild-mannered” Elantra “scores well in the instant gratification areas like styling, features, initial touch and feel, and price point.” But it sums up the Hyundai as goes after: “Jack of all compact virtues, master of none — a solid-C all-arounder.”

In terms of ownership, the Elantra hits the right notes. It provides the longest warranty in the class: a 60-month/60,000-mile basic warranty and a 120-month/100,000-mile powertrain warranty. Only the Kia Forte and Mitsubishi Lancer suggest similar coverage. It was also one of the top compact cars in the J.D. Power two thousand fifteen Initial Quality Examine, and it has a low owner-cost estimate of almost $35,500, or forty seven cents per mile, according to Kelley Blue Book.

The roomy interior provides decent rear legroom and one of the largest trunks in the class. The Elantra Value Edition sedan we chose, which was fresh for 2016, provides all of the main features we look for at a good price of about $20,500 twenty (the Elantra GT hatchback costs only $100 more but doesn’t come with many of the Value Edition’s standard features). It doesn’t suggest any advanced safety features, however. And the Elantra comes with only a tire-repair kit, not a spare tire; a local dealer rep told us that we could buy a spare tire and kit as an add-on for about $300, including installation.

The Kia Forte LX is an overall pleasant sedan to drive that has one of the lowest prices of the group and the same long warranty as the Hyundai Elantra. The Forte also has a spacious interior plus one of the largest trunks in the class. But it doesn’t truly stand out in other areas, and in features, fuel economy, safety ratings, and joy factor, it fails to measure up to the Honda Civic.

Available as the Forte sedan or the Forte5 hatchback, this car has been generally well received among auto reviewers. Presently it has a respectable mark of 8.Three on the U.S. News and World Report Best Cars website. Consumer Reports writes that the Forte has “a quiet cabin and one of the most convenient rails in its class.” Keith Buglewicz of KBB.com writes, “The Forte has good power and a decent suspension, but it’s not as joy to drive as competitors like the Mazda3 and Volkswagen Jetta.”

Like its corporate cousin, the Elantra, the Forte comes with the longest warranty in the class: a 60-month/60,000-mile basic warranty and a 120-month/100,000-mile powertrain warranty. According to Kelley Blue Book, however, its estimated cost of ownership, a little more than $35,500 or forty eight cents per mile, isn’t fairly as low as the Elantra’s.

With either the sedan or the hatchback, we think the best value is the entry-level LX trim. The sedan comes to only about $Nineteen,500 twenty one with the $1,000 Popular Package, which includes a rearview camera, automatic headlights, cruise control, and a touchscreen display. The Forte5 LX hatchback is about $700 more. Both versions provide the basic features we look for in a compact car but few frills. To get Kia’s nifty UVO entertainment and telematics system, you have to stir up to the EX level (for $1,000 or more) and then get an expensive option package ($Three,000 for the sedan, $Four,500 for the hatch). That gives you a nicely tooled car, but at a price that’s unnecessarily high. We passed.

Like the Elantra, the Forte comes with a tire-repair kit instead of a spare tire. A dealer rep told us that we could buy a spare tire and kit as an add-on for $260, including installation.

The Scion iM is a brand-new hatchback from Scion, Toyota’s youth-oriented brand. But this will be its only year: Toyota is pulling the buttplug on the Scion brand later this year, and the two thousand seventeen iM will be rebadged as a Toyota car. You may be able to find some good deals on the iM as a result, and Toyota will proceed to service it and honor its warranty down the road.

Despite having one of the lowest prices of our group—about $20,000 twenty two —the iM comes with some amazing features for this class. It also rails and treats fairly well, provides roomy and comfy front seats, and, like the Toyota Corolla, comes with two years of free maintenance, a rarity in this economy-oriented class. But the iM has one of the weakest engines of the group, along with only average fuel economy. Its rear seats aren’t very convenient and afford limited legroom. And it doesn’t suggest any advanced safety systems. The Mazda3 i Touring costs about $1,500 more but represents a better overall value, providing you a zippier engine, better fuel economy and treating, more features, and a generally nicer driving practice.

Like all Scions, the iM is available in only one trim version, but it’s well stocked for its accessible price with such features as dual-zone automatic climate control, automatic headlights, alloy wheels, heated mirrors, and a 7-inch touchscreen entertainment system. On the other mitt, it doesn’t even suggest a number of features that are standard on the Honda Civic EX, such as a blind-spot warning system, a sunroof, and a clever keyless entry system, and it doesn’t give you the option of purchasing more advanced safety features, such as forward-collision and lane-departure warning.

The iM isn’t as joy to drive as the Mazda3 and VW Golf, but we found its rail convenience, treating, and steering to be fine for everyday driving. “The Scion iM doesn’t have the cornering agility or acute steering of competitors like the Mazda3 or Volkswagen Golf … but it treats predictably around corners and has strong brakes,” writes U.S News and World Report.

Albeit the engine is adequate for normal driving, it’s nothing special. For its lack of power, you’d expect stellar fuel economy, but the iM supplies only thirty two mpg in combined driving, which is two to three mpg less than the Honda Civic, Toyota Corolla LE Eco, and Mazda3 suggest. Edmunds.com, which gave it a B rating, sums it up by telling, “The iM is not only considerably slower than its rivals, it’s in a virtual tie for class slowest. At the same time, fuel economy is certainly thrifty but also comparatively unremarkable.”

We had slew of room in the comfy front seats but found the rear to be awkward with a stiff seatback. While other reviewers have complained about a lack of rear legroom, we found it average for this class. A constant bombardment of noise—especially on rough roads and while accelerating—was one of our thickest complaints.

Edmunds.com sums up the iM by writing, “Even tho’ the fresh two thousand sixteen Scion iM comes loaded with features, its shortcomings in spectacle, convenience and convenience are too hard to overlook. Most other compact hatchbacks will be better choices.”

The Nissan Sentra SV has its strong points, including a roomy cabin and trunk, good fuel economy, low possessor cost, and a fairly low price even when tooled with optional safety features, coming in at about $20,500. Twenty three But it isn’t competitive with the best models in any other way. Compared with the Honda Civic, the Sentra SV falls brief in engine power, fuel economy, safety ratings, and its driving practice.

Overall, the Sentra has received only moderate ratings from critics, including a B from Edmunds.com and a 7.Four from U.S. News and World Report. “The Sentra looks good on paper,” says Consumer Reports, “but then doesn’t fairly live up to expectations.” Edmunds.com writes: “The two thousand sixteen Nissan Sentra doesn’t necessarily stand out in the compact sedan segment, but that doesn’t mean it’s a penalty box. Perhaps most notably, the Sentra’s backseat produces space and convenience that rival some midsize sedans, and the trunk is just as generous.” J.D. Power’s two thousand fifteen Initial Quality Probe names the Sentra as the top compact car.

The Sentra has a spacious cabin, with lots of rear legroom (among the most we spotted in this class) as well as one of the largest trunks. According to Kelley Blue Book, it also has a low possessor cost of only about $34,600, or forty six cents per mile. Suggesting thirty two mpg combined, it’s thrifty, if not one of the standouts among the compacts we considered; the Honda Civic EX gets thirty five mpg. But the trade-off is that the 1.8-liter four-cylinder engine produces only one hundred thirty hp, making it the weakest of the group, which is something you’ll notice when you’ve packed the car with people and it feels like it’s fighting. In addition, while the Sentra has a Good rating in all IIHS crash tests, it has only a four-star overall rating in NHTSA crash tests.

2016 Chevrolet Cruze Limited 1LT

For the two thousand sixteen model year, Chevrolet switched the name of the Cruze to the Cruze Limited, albeit that label seems to be a placeholder while the company prepares for a total redesign of the Cruze to premiere in early 2016. Other than slightly higher prices, the Cruze Limited is essentially the same car.

The Cruze Limited drives nicely, has a large trunk, and offers a lot of features, but it doesn’t stand out in this category. Next to our pick, the Honda Civic, the Cruze Limited 1LT costs more to buy and own, and it has a weaker engine that gets worse fuel economy.

“The two thousand fifteen Chevrolet Cruze deftly combines responsive treating with a convenient, compliant rail,” writes Edmunds.com. U.S. News and World Report agrees, noting that “Test drivers report that the Cruze rails conveniently and has composed treating, however a few mention that rivals like the Mazda3 feel more agile.” Neither site has a review of the redesigned two thousand sixteen model yet.

For about $23,000, twenty four we were able to get most of the features we consider significant, along with blind-spot warning and rear-cross-traffic alert systems, which are infrequent for the category. But many of the Cruze Limited’s features are available only in option packages, including some basic ones like Bluetooth audio, a rearview camera, and a touchscreen entertainment system. Adding them makes the Cruze Limited one of the highest-priced cars we considered for this guide.

In addition, the 1.4-liter turbocharged four-cylinder engine isn’t very amazing. It gets only middle-of-the-pack fuel economy of thirty mpg combined while producing only one hundred thirty eight hp, the second-lowest horsepower in this group (right after the Nissan Sentra’s one hundred thirty hp). Such an engine is low-powered enough to notice in situations like coming in or passing on the highway. In addition, the Cruze Limited has a high estimated cost of ownership of almost $36,500, or forty nine cents per mile, according to Kelley Blue Book.

At almost $23,000, twenty five the Dodge Dart SXT costs almost $1,000 more than the Honda Civic EX, but overall it’s a fairly mediocre car that has received lackluster ratings and reviews from auto experts. It also gets much worse fuel economy than the Civic. For that extra grand, we’d gladly add the Honda Sensing package to the Civic EX and get a suite of advanced safety features that the Dart SXT doesn’t suggest at all.

One of the Dart’s high points is its 184-hp engine, which is the most powerful of this group. But the Dart SXT’s twenty seven mpg combined is the lowest of this group; many larger, midsize cars are actually more fuel efficient. U.S. News and World Report gave the Dart a lukewarm score of 7.7. Edmunds.com writes: “The two thousand sixteen Dodge Dart offers roominess, able treating and a sporty appearance for not much money. But in other areas many competitors outclass it.” In addition, the Dart has one of the tighter rear seats and, according to Kelley Blue Book, a high estimated owner-cost of about $37,300, or fifty cents per mile. Like a duo of the other cars in this group, the Dart comes with only a tire-repair kit; a spare tire is a $395 option.

Fiat Chrysler recently said that the Dodge Dart will be discontinued sometime over the next five years. Considering that the Dart was introduced for the two thousand thirteen year, it may still have a few years of life left.

2016 Mitsubishi Lancer ES Two.0

A low price of about $Nineteen,500, twenty six a long warranty, and a roomy rear seat are the highlights of this otherwise mediocre car. Compared with our pick, the Mazda3, the Mitsubishi Lancer ES Two.0 provides fewer features, gets much worse fuel economy, and costs more to own over time (according to estimates). Its experienced reviews have been much more critical, too.

The Lancer received a freshening for 2016, with a duo of fresh all-wheel-drive trims and a shuffling of features and packages. But it’s essentially the same as the two thousand fifteen model, which has the most lukewarm pro ratings of any car we looked at. Consumer Reports says, “While it’s an improvement over the old model, the redesigned Lancer still scores only midpack in its class.” The 6.8 score for the two thousand sixteen Lancer from U.S. News and World Report is the lowest of this group, and the site sums it up by noting, “Reviewers say that, aside from its athletic treating, the two thousand sixteen Mitsubishi Lancer offers few benefits over most cars in the class.”

The Lancer has a roomy rear seat, but one of the smallest trunks of the group. And with a fuel economy rating of thirty mpg combined, the Lancer ES grounds only in the middle of the pack. According to Kelley Blue Book, it has one of the highest estimated holder costs at about $37,500, or fifty cents per mile.

In terms of features, the Lancer ES Two.0 is a mixed bag. On one mitt, it provides some items that you can’t typically find at this price, including fog lights, alloy wheels, heated mirrors, and automatic climate control. But it lacks a standard touchscreen entertainment system and rearview camera. And the Lancer is the only model here that doesn’t provide a telescoping steering wheel on any trim. You can get an entertainment system and a rearview camera only as part of a $1,750 option package, which also includes a sunroof, premium audio system, and satellite radio. So, while the inexpensive ES Two.0 isn’t a particularly compelling choice, higher trim versions don’t provide a wooing case for spending more money. For another $1,400, you can get the ES Two.Four AWC trim, which brings AWD and twenty extra horsepower (168 hp versus one hundred forty eight hp), but fuel economy takes a dive to twenty seven mpg combined, among the worst in this group. If we truly dreamed a Lancer with AWD, we’d go up another trim to the SE Two.Four AWC, which adds a number of inviting features for a little under $22,000. Better yet, however, we’d get either a two-wheel-drive Honda Civic EX for about the same price or an all-wheel-drive Subaru Impreza Two.0i for less money.

What to look forward to

Over the next few months, we’ll see several fresh or redesigned compact cars become available. Here’s what we know so far.

While the sedan version of the two thousand sixteen Honda Civic was the very first to arrive, more versions are on the way, including a coupe—which appeared at this year’s North American International Auto Show—and a hatchback, both of which are expected later in 2016. For driving enthusiasts, Honda will also release a sporty Si version and a turbocharged Type-R hot hatch.

The redesigned two thousand seventeen Hyundai Elantra is due in dealerships in early 2016. Measuring about an inch longer and broader than last year’s model, it also provides more headroom. In fact, it’s officially classified as a midsize car now instead of a compact car. The styling is simpler, and, to be fair, we think it’s a step backward compared with the curvy personality of last year’s Elantra. The interior is also redesigned, and the entertainment systems now support Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. Hyundai is suggesting fresh engines, including a Two.0-liter four-cylinder that’s standard and capable of achieving thirty three mpg combined, as well as an Eco model—due out in the spring—with a 1.4-liter turbocharged four-cylinder that gets thirty five mpg, which would tie it for the best in class. The car itself is now stronger and stiffer, and advanced safety systems such as auto emergency braking, adaptive cruise control, lane-keep assist, and blind-spot detection are optional.

A redesigned two thousand sixteen Chevrolet Cruze is also expected to go on sale this spring. It will be larger than the current model and powered by a fresh 1.4-liter turbocharged four-cylinder engine that, similar to a hybrid, will turn off when the car comes to a stop and automatically turn on again when you’re ready to drive. This design is intended to improve fuel economy, especially in congested, stop-and-go traffic. Chevy estimates that the fresh Cruze will get forty mpg on the highway, which is two mpg better than what the current Cruze’s 1.4-liter turbo four offers. The Cruze will also suggest such advanced safety systems as blind-spot warning, rear-cross-traffic alert, forward-collision warning, and lane-keep assist. We don’t know, however, on which trim versions these systems will be available or how much you’ll have to pay to get them. Also for 2016, the Cruze’s MyLink entertainment system will be compatible with both Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. A diesel-powered version of the redesigned Cruze is expected in 2017. And in addition to the fresh Cruze sedan, Chevy will be releasing a hatchback version in the fall.

Kia is freshening up the Forte sedan and Forte5 hatchback for two thousand seventeen with fresh exterior styling, a 7-inch touchscreen with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, and a fresh Two.0-liter four-cylinder engine for the sedan. The Forte will also join the growing number of compact cars suggesting such advanced safety features as forward collision warning, autonomous emergency braking, blind-spot detection, lane-change warning and assist, and rear cross-traffic alert. Both versions will be coming from a fresh plant in Monterrey, Mexico, and are expected to go on sale in the very first half of 2016.

Subaru has shown a concept car that previews the design of the next-generation two thousand seventeen Impreza sedan, which will arrive in late 2016. It’s expected to have a fresh, very likely more fuel-efficient engine, but we don’t know much else about it yet.

Eventually, Toyota will have a fresh hatchback for two thousand seventeen that is the rebadged version of the soon-to-be-eliminated Scion iM. The Corolla hatch, perhaps?

Wrapping it up

In a category that many buyers turn to for value, the two thousand sixteen Honda Civic EX provides the best overall value of any compact car. This is particularly the case when it’s tooled with Honda’s reasonably priced $1,000 Honda Sensing package of advanced safety features (which aren’t available at all on any other cars on our list). Your emotional side will still love the Civic’s eye-catching styling, convenient and roomy interior, spirited engine, and fun-to-drive character long after you’ve made the last car payment. And your logical side will be struck by its long feature list, stellar fuel economy, high safety ratings, and solid value. Simply put, no other car in this category hits as many high notes in so many different areas. And that’s why we’re persuaded that the two thousand sixteen Honda Civic EX is the best compact car for most people.

Footnotes:

1. Two thousand sixteen Honda Civic EX base MSRP is $21,040 with automatic transmission, plus an $835 destination charge. Hop back.

Two. Two thousand sixteen Mazda3 i Sport sedan base MSRP is $Legitimate,895 with automatic transmission, plus the $1,000 Preferred Equipment Package and an $820 destination charge. Hop back.

Trio. Two thousand sixteen Volkswagen Golf 1.8T 4-Door S base MSRP is $21,275 with automatic transmission, plus an $820 destination charge. Leap back.

Four. Two thousand sixteen Toyota Corolla LE Eco base MSRP is $Nineteen,065, plus an $835 destination charge. Hop back.

Five. Two thousand sixteen Honda Civic Touring base MSRP is $26,500 with automatic transmission, plus a $185 automatic dimming mirror, $305 wireless phone charger, and $835 destination charge. Hop back.

6. Two thousand sixteen Subaru Impreza Two.0i sedan base MSRP is $Nineteen,295 with continuously variable transmission, plus a $795 destination charge. Hop back.

7. Two thousand sixteen Honda Civic EX base MSRP is $21,040 with automatic transmission, plus an $835 destination charge. Leap back.

8. Two thousand sixteen Honda Civic EX with Honda Sensing base MSRP is $22,040 with automatic transmission, plus an $835 destination charge. Leap back.

9. Two thousand sixteen Mazda3 i Sport sedan base MSRP is $Eighteen,895 with automatic transmission, plus the $1,000 Preferred Equipment Package and an $820 destination charge. Hop back.

Ten. Two thousand sixteen Mazda3 i Sport hatchback base MSRP is $Nineteen,595 with automatic transmission, plus the $1,000 Preferred Equipment Package and an $820 destination charge. Leap back.

11. Based on driving 15,000 miles per year and gas costing $Two per gallon. Hop back.

12. Two thousand sixteen Volkswagen Golf 1.8T 4-Door S base MSRP is $21,275 with automatic transmission, plus an $820 destination charge. Hop back.

13. Two thousand sixteen Toyota Corolla LE Eco base MSRP is $Nineteen,065, plus an $835 destination charge. Hop back.

14. Two thousand sixteen Honda Civic Touring base MSRP is $26,500 with automatic transmission, plus a $185 automatic dimming mirror, $305 wireless phone charger, and $835 destination charge. Leap back.

15. Two thousand sixteen Subaru Impreza Two.0i sedan base MSRP is $Nineteen,295 with continuously variable transmission, plus a $795 destination charge. Hop back.

16. Two thousand sixteen Volkswagen Jetta 1.4T SE base MSRP is $20,095, plus an $820 destination charge. Hop back.

17. Two thousand sixteen Ford Concentrate SE Sedan base MSRP is $Nineteen,610 with automatic transmission, plus a $295 power seat package and an $875 destination charge. Leap back.

Legitimate. Two thousand sixteen Ford Concentrate SE Hatch base MSRP is $20,110 with automatic transmission, plus a $295 power seat package and an $825 destination charge. Hop back.

Nineteen. Two thousand sixteen Volkswagen Golf SportWagen 1.8T S base MSRP is $22,725 with automatic transmission, plus an $820 destination charge. Leap back.

20. Two thousand sixteen Hyundai Elantra Value Edition base MSRP is $Nineteen,700, plus an $825 destination charge. Hop back.

21. Two thousand sixteen Kia Forte LX sedan base MSRP is $17,700 with automatic transmission, plus the $1,000 Popular package and an $825 destination charge. Leap back.

22. Two thousand sixteen Scion iM base MSRP is $Nineteen,200 with automatic transmission, plus a $795 destination charge. Hop back.

23. Two thousand sixteen Nissan Sentra SV base MSRP is $Eighteen,550, with the $1,020 Driver Assist Package and a $835 destination charge. Hop back.

24. Two thousand sixteen Chevrolet Cruze Limited 1LT base MSRP is $20,195 with automatic transmission, plus the $550 Technology Package, the $790 Enhanced Safety Package, the $680 Driver Convenience Package, and an $825 destination charge. Leap back.

25. Two thousand sixteen Dodge Dart SXT base MSRP is $20,645 with automatic transmission, plus the $595 8.4-inch Uconnect Touch Screen Group (which also adds the $195 satellite radio package), a $395 Compact Spare Tire, and a $995 destination charge. Hop back.

26. Two thousand sixteen Mitsubishi Lancer ES base MSRP is $Legitimate,595 with automatic transmission, plus an $810 destination charge. Hop back.

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