Honda Captures First And Last Place In Canadian New Car Market

Derek Kreindler
by Derek Kreindler

Congratulations to the Big H; Honda managed to capture the top spot in Canadian passenger car sales for the 15th year running, while also earning the dubious honor-or, honour, as it would be spelled in Canada – of offering the slowest-selling vehicle in Canada.

Despite the volley of criticism leveled at the 2012 Civic, Canadians made it the best-selling passenger car yet again by a massive margin (by Canadian new car market standards). The second place Hyundai Elantra trailed the Civic by some 14,000 units. 8 of the top 10 passenger cars on the list were small, with the Toyota Corolla, Mazda3, Chevrolet Cruze, Ford Focus, Volkswagen Jetta and Hyundai Accent rounding out the list.

Adding light trucks to the mix bumps the Civic down to with the Ford F-Series and Dodge Ram taking the top two spots, with the Dodge Grand Caravan bookending the Civic at #4. Following the 5th place Elantra is the Ford Escape and GMC Sierra, while the Chevrolet Silverado trails the Corolla and Mazda3 at 10th place. Clearly, high gasoline prices aren’t stopping Canadians from indulging in the same full-size truck fetish as our American neighbors.

At the opposite end of the scale, Canada’s worst-selling car is the Honda Insight, with a mere 168 units sold. In fairness, supply of the Insight, and the CR-Z, Canada’s third-worst seller, are restricted by Honda Canada due to a lack of demand and the poor exchange rate making them extremely unprofitable. But there’s no excuse for not selling more units than the second-place Mitsubishi i, which might be the last truly dreadful car left on sale.

Derek Kreindler
Derek Kreindler

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  • Holydonut Holydonut on Jan 22, 2013

    IMO, the reason I like the CR-Z is that nobody else is driving it. It's probably the most interesting commuter car available and you don't get stuck having to drive co-workers out during lunch.

  • Easton Easton on Jan 22, 2013

    Civic is crap. And not even cheap crap. I never understood the popularity of them here, especially after they lost their sporty edge in 2001.

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    • Steve65 Steve65 on Jan 23, 2013

      @jjster6 Runout is the measurement of how badly warped they are. You (they) set up a dial gauge and rotate the disc, and measure how far out of true they are. Many "warped" discs are still perfectly true. What's happened is that it developed either a hard spot or a glazed spot. That causes that section of the disc to have a different amount of friction, which gives a pulsing pedal which feels the same as warpage. I've cured a set of "warped" rotors by simply cleaning with emery paper, and then repeating the brake pad break in procedure. If a mechanic tells you your rotors are warped, ask what the runout spec is, and what's measured. If they can't tell you or don't know what you're talking about, find a new mechanic.

  • AJ AJ on Jan 23, 2013

    I'm on my third Civic as a daily driver. I've never had a problem with any of them. My mom is driving the first one with 140k on it (15 years old) and it still runs like it's new. My current Civic, an '09 LX Coupe with a manual transmission is fun to drive, rather zippy and averages 33 mpg. Plus they do a great job at holding their resale value. I'll probably buy another one yet.

  • Tparkit Tparkit on Jan 23, 2013

    As a Honda owner, I'm delighted at the sales disaster befalling the Insight and the CR-Z. Why? Because it represents Honda's management team getting it's butt kicked for making bad product decisions and coasting on the company's momentum. The same folks that brought us the grenading transmissions in the V-6 models, the infamous Acura beak, and who left the excellent Element concept to die on the market because they were too smug and self-protective to fix the fatal flaws they saddled it with. I've been reading about some of Honda's innovative proposals based on the Fit platform, and I'm convinced we never would have seen these if the company had been allowed to get away with selling crap.

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    • Corey Lewis Corey Lewis on Mar 08, 2013

      @autoguy Needs more Giugiaro.

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