This Storage Compartment From An Old Civic Has A Nifty Little Feature

It turns out the seventh-generation Civic's front storage compartment has a little counterweight to stop it opening when it shouldn't

Matt Robinson

12 Sep 2017

Sometimes, the most interesting parts of a car lie far under the surface, unlikely to ever be uncovered. Little over-engineered details and well-thought solutions to problems you didn’t realise existed. Things like the counterweight on this seventh-generation Civic’s storage compartment.

As detailed by YouTuber Jared’s Garage, once the counter rocks back, it prevents the spring-loaded door opening. Presumably this is so whatever is inside the compartment doesn’t pop the lid open when you’re going up a steep hill, or accelerating hard.

Simple but clever, no?

Growing up on a diet of World Rally Championship highlights and lengthy Gran Turismo 2 sessions, a life in cars was as good as inevitable for Matt.

Comments

Maybe Honda hasnt heard of this magical device called a “latch”

Herro what is a ratch??

I guess they didn’t until they made the 8th gen, my Civic has a latch on the center console. I was confused at first when I read the article cause I wondered why they didn’t have a latch.

I thought the missing power would already prevent it from going up steep hills, so why overengineer that storage compartment o_O

Clearly I poked into the wrong hornets nest.

You do realise, than even for a basic, low powered road car, the limiting factor in getting up hills is grip, not power, right?

Not really clever if you ask me. Why didn’t they just use a latch like anybody else?

They switched to a latch for the 8th gen

What if you park your car uphill and you put your wallet in there?😂

Oh look, piece of candy

Spring-loaded compartments in cars are very complicated and confusing.

That struggle when you try to put something in there with one hand while driving (or take it out)

Maybe it was made that way because of costs. Remember that a civic isnt a rolls royce!

The Honda CR-V has an entire table hidden in the back that most people don’t even know about lol

What? Where?

Yeah,I heard about that a year ago and they did it around 1996…but newer gens don’t have that anymore:/

Yup. When my wife had her ‘06 CR-V I used the table once during a yard sale. The only other time I had it out I was doing something in the back and had laid the table in the grass. When I picked it up to put it back in a bee flew out from under it and stung me. I blame the table.