Aww snaps, I be rollin'

In plain english, I got my car back, fixed up and done ahead of schedule. Felt good to get back behind the wheel of it and start it up. Wendy and her mom graciously let me have use of her car while mine was in the shop, so I have decided to do a write up about my 3 day test drive of the 2004 Honda Civic (attention Car & Driver and any other car magazine, feel free to hire me out to test drive anything). Well, for starters its a 4 door model, and for its size it is a great car for what it was built to do: get you around. 4 Adults can sit comfortably, the seats hold you well, and the trunk space is nice. The look of the car seems a bit bloated from recent years, and while there are some style changes you can easily spot it coming from a mile away and know it is a civic. Hopefully in the future they might try to jazz up the appearance like they are doing with the Accord, which looks sleeker and sportier. Gas mileage is nice, and extra rewarding to a driver who has a light right foot, but obviously the power from the 4 cylinder is less then spectacular. While I may make fun of its lack of power, the gear ratios help keep the car moving along through traffic, and it was built to be an economy car, not a drag racer. One major drawback is rear-viewing. For starters I noticed a big difference in the perceived depth between the side mirrors and the rear view mirror, the side mirrors made it seem like I was far away, the rear view made it seem like I was within inches, after parking a few times I learned that the side mirrors where telling more of the actual story. Also, could the back window be any smaller? The distance between the rear deck and the top of the window is very short, that combined with the fact the back glass does not wrap around makes for very nervous lane changing, even with looking over your shoulder. One thing that helped this situation was removing the rear head rests. I would rate this car a 7 out of ten, and would only buy it if the rear window offered more of a view.