Making the Grade: We Test Five Compact Sedans to See Which Ones Pass the Class

From the July 2016 issue of Car and Driver.

There’s a popular myth that, outside of sports cars and exotics, all modern cars are essentially the same. Believers claim that quality, safety, and equipment levels have reached a plateau that makes the differences between a Honda and a Hyundai somewhat moot. It’s a simplified view of the world, kind of like those early grade-school report cards where you were satisfactory at best or needed improvement at worst, but either way, everyone was moving on to the next grade.

In recent years, the automotive compact class has advanced into a fleet of mini mid-sizers. Almost universally, these cars have grown in interior dimensions, inherited upscale features, and adopted prices that top out north of $30,000. But we don’t buy into the notion that similarity means homogeneity. There’s a distinction between satisfactory and great, just as there’s a difference between the first grader who understands subatomic particles and the mouth breather who can’t stop eating all the delicious, free paste. A car can go 100,000 miles without fault and spot a vehicle in its blind spot and still have deficiencies in the most elementary aspects of steering, braking, and accelerating. To sort out which small cars are at the head of the class and which need to be held back, we gathered five of the newest small entries, all ­sensibly equipped and priced right in the middle of the range.

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Our $25,035 Chevrolet Cruze LT is the newest in this class, and this generation hadn’t been tested before by this magazine. Now that GM is taking obesity seriously, the Cruze is 226 pounds lighter than its predecessor—and on par with the competition—in part due to a new engine that trades a hunk of iron for an aluminum block. The turbocharged 1.4-liter is just 2 cubic inches larger than last year’s four-cylinder, but with direct injection it now makes an additional 15 horsepower and 29 pound-feet of torque, for totals of 153 and 177, respectively.

We skipped the more expensive and ­torquier 1.5-liter turbo four-cylinder in the Honda Civic for the popular choice, a 158-hp naturally aspirated 2.0-liter. Our Civic EX trim is a stripper in this crowd—there’s no navigation, satellite radio, or power driver’s seat—but it does pack adaptive cruise control and a lane-keeping system that makes small steering inputs to keep the car centered in its lane. It’s also the cheapest entrant at $22,875.

The Hyundai Elantra, redesigned for 2017, has a striking new look that suggests the carmaker hasn’t backed off the throttle. Along with fresh designs inside and out and a retuned suspension, there’s a new 147-hp 2.0-liter engine named Nu, from the Greek alphabet. Our $23,310 Limited comes well equipped with satellite radio and heated leather seats, with floor mats its only option.

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The Mazda 3 may seem dated in this crowd of newcomers, but it has earned its place here. As our reigning champ, the 3 has already knocked off five competitors in two prior tests. Our sedan is equipped with the smaller, 155-hp 2.0-liter engine for $24,430 in Grand Touring spec. It includes leatherette seats, blind-spot monitoring, and ­Mazda’s user-friendly infotainment system with a large control knob between the seats, as in the best luxury-car systems.

Finally, the Nissan Sentra makes its first appearance in a Car and Driver comparison test since 2007. After it finished in last place nine years ago, we never felt compelled to invite the Nissan back. With a recent mid-cycle refresh and the momentum of 203,509 sales last year, the Nissan finally has a shot at redemption. The $25,545 SL trim uses the same 1.8-liter four-cylinder and continuously variable transmission as the rest of the Sentra line but comes with the ­longest list of equipment of any car in this test.

To evaluate this quintet, we made the five-hour journey to Bloomington, where the roads climb and twist in ways we never expected from Indiana. We then retraced our route to our Michigan testing facility, where we exercised our contenders up and down the straight, around the skidpad, and through the slalom until we were nauseated. When we scored the cars, we made sure we weren’t using a kindergarten grading curve.

Fifth Place: Nissan Sentra

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When deputy editor Daniel Pund described the Nissan Sentra as neither admirable nor entertainingly bad, he phrased it as if either characteristic would make this car more likable. Nissan’s rolling box of bland mediocrity is only defined by compounding deficiencies. It is the heaviest and least powerful car here, the tallest and narrowest, the most expensive and least satisfying.

HIGHS: Faster than walking, shelters you from the elements.
LOWS: Crude handling, uncomfortable seats, underpowered engine.
THE VERDICT: The most basic transportation.

Aggravated by a continuously variable transmission, this 130-hp moaner only breaks through 60 mph after 9.5 seconds of thumb twiddling, more than a second behind the next-slowest competitor. Accelerating in traffic, the revs rise and fall and rise and fall again, but unlike the Honda Civic’s CVT, which does a passable imitation of a conventional automatic at full throttle, the Sentra’s sluggish, yo-yoing behavior suggests that it’s actually just hunting for the right ratio.

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The single most thrilling thing about the Nissan Sentra is its tendency to kick its rear end out under braking. Note: We said thrilling, not fun.

Hustled down a back road, the Sentra is a roller coaster erected in a dollar-store parking lot by traveling carnies. The front and rear ends of the car seem to roll out of sync, jostling and unsettling the driver around corners. Applying moderate braking with even the slightest steering input sets your heart racing as the rear of the body heaves sideways atop the suspension.

Even for unashamed buyers of basic A-to-B transportation, the ­Sentra is a sorry choice. The car weaves in the faintest crosswinds and wobbles side to side in the wake of semis. It tromps over expansion joints with crude chopping motions that can make the Hyundai feel like a Mercedes-Benz S-class. The driver’s seat is a personal penalty box with a short seat bottom, a protruding lump in the seatback, and slick leather over hard cushioning. The highest price in the test does buy the longest list of equipment, but it’s hidden in a cheap, ­featureless design, including a navigation system that is as small and pixelated as a 10-year-old TomTom.

Nissan knows how to build great small cars. We’ve seen it do so before. In the 1990s, its astonishing Sentra SE-R drew comparisons to The Sacred One, the BMW 2002. Today, the company appears to be taking full advantage of a world where everyone receives a passing grade by only making the minimum effort.

Fourth Place: Hyundai Elantra

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You can’t accuse Hyundai of not trying. Just a few short years ago, the Koreans’ ­creative work was barely distinguishable from the line art that accompanies the dictionary definition of “car.” Today, with Volks­wagen Group veterans Peter Schreyer and Luc Donckerwolke influencing the products and the designers, Hyundai turns out eye-catching sheetmetal. The crisp lines and perfect proportions of this $23,310 Elantra make it arguably the best-looking vehicle the company has ever offered for sale.

HIGHS: Looks far more expensive than it is, spacious and straightforward cockpit.
LOWS: Noisy inside, stiff ride, uninspired steering.
THE VERDICT: Still leaves a lot to be desired when it comes to the intangibles.

The artistry carries into the interior, where styling does not interfere with usable design. We love that the touchscreen is merely a secondary control to the large, logical buttons and knobs that manage the main audio and climate functions. The wide and bright cabin creates a sense of ­spaciousness that is a luxury in this class, even if the Elantra’s interior materials feel and look a grade lower than what Chevrolet, Honda, and Mazda use.

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The Hyundai Elantra’s design is subtle, handsome, and well resolved. We hear designers say well resolved all the time. That’s a good thing.

But while the forward progress in design persists, Hyundai’s incremental improvements in chassis dynamics appear to have stalled with this generation. Steering remains Hyundai’s greatest challenge, with the Elantra’s wheel requiring a light touch on highway slogs to compensate for the on-center dead spot. The first few ambiguous degrees of steering require either a ­perfectly steady hand or implementing ­frequent corrections to keep the car tracking straight on the interstate.

Atkinson-cycle engines like this one use a valve-timing strategy that boosts efficiency while sacrificing torque, but the Elantra doesn’t feel any weaker than the others. It clears 60 mph in 8.3 seconds, tied with the Honda, but has the added virtue of a proper six-speed automatic that shuffles gears competently and invisibly in the background. While it’s comfortable for short stints, the Elantra can grow tiresome as the miles accumulate. Even if the sound meter doesn’t show it, the wind and road noise penetrate deeper into your skull in the Elantra, the Nexen tires emitting a high-pitched zipping sound on concrete surfaces. Hyundai continues to show steady progress in many aspects of vehicle development, but there are several disciplines where this Elantra could still use a little more improvement.

Third Place: Chevrolet Cruze

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Remember the Cavalier and the Cobalt? Chevrolet wishes you didn’t (except maybe the Cobalt SS). Chevy struggled for decades to grasp the compact-car curriculum before finding success with its alternative approach. True to its name, the new Cruze is a standout highway cruiser. Now lighter than its predecessor, this compact Chevy feels every bit as substantial. The suspension soaks up the road with gentle, controlled motions. The quiet cabin isolates and coddles passengers with front seats that are just deep enough to cradle without constricting. The Cruze is a mid-size car for those who can’t afford or don’t need the real thing.

HIGHS: Quiet cabin, pillowy ride, torque.
LOWS: Shows a lack of enthusiasm when the road starts to curve.
THE VERDICT: The mid-size sedan for people who don't want the real thing.

That the Cruze drives like a larger car is mostly a good thing, especially for mileage warriors who spend hours on their commutes. But it also means that Chevy sacrificed the handling virtues that should be inherent in a compact car. The steering is alert on-center, but it maintains a numb lightness no matter the speed or how much lock you wind on. Fast corners are met with indifference, cushy body roll, and persistent understeer. The brake pedal also sits irritatingly high relative to the accelerator, forcing you to high-step your right leg to get your foot on top of it.

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It’s a bit odd that the quickest car in this test, the Chevrolet Cruze, never seems to be in a hurry to get anywhere. It generally prefers to take it easy.

The turbocharged engine delivers a glut of torque that the natu­rally aspirated engines can’t match. There’s a satisfying swell as the Cruze pulls away from a stoplight or merges onto a highway. The low-end grunt fades as revs climb, though, and the transmission compensates for a wheezy top end by upshifting 1000 rpm short of redline at full throttle. But its 7.6-second run to 60 mph still makes the Cruze the quickest in this test by a wide margin.

The six-speed automatic executes snappy gearchanges, only to be wasted on a tuning strategy designed to maximize fuel economy by short-shifting into a higher gear or hesitating to downshift when you apply throttle. The Cruze is the only car in the test with stop-start, yet that and its small-displacement engine weren’t enough to win the fuel-economy category outright. The Chevrolet tied our first- and second-place finishers at 33 mpg. Small-car fuel economy with large-car manners: It’s an interesting school of thought.

Second Place: Honda Civic

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We’re glad to report that, after five years of hanging out with the wrong crowd at the back of the parking lot, Honda engineers ­haven’t forgotten a thing from their high-achieving days. The reformed Civic once again rides on a gold-star chassis. It brushes off big wallops with progressive damping and dispatches high-frequency stuff as if it were nothing. Tar strips and expansion joints are heard but scarcely felt.

HIGHS: Excellent ride and handling from a solid structure.
LOWS: A good CVT is still a CVT.
THE VERDICT: An all-around acheiver.

The excellence of both the Honda and the Mazda will convince you that lesser compact cars’ handling attributes are merely side effects of their ride tuning or cost-saving measures, rather than objectives unto themselves. In the Civic, a multilink rear suspension is helped by the test’s lowest center of gravity and a 121-pound weight advantage to deliver the highest cornering grip at 0.85 g, on pedestrian rubber no less.

The steering translates sharp on-center precision into immediate turn-in, but it’s never twitchy on the highway. And the humble urethane steering wheel is made into a beautiful thing with Honda’s meticulous graining and sculpting. A cavernous cockpit offers both the roomiest and most comfortable rear seat, yet the Civic still feels tidy thanks to clear sightlines. While our drivers all agreed that the driver’s seat is perfectly shaped, Honda installed it such that the front is lower than the rear and so taller drivers complained about a lack of thigh support. Honda’s seven-inch touchscreen, the antithesis of Hyundai’s easy-to-use system, relegates all the audio controls to the flat-glass pane.

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The new Honda Civic feels alert and light on its feet while delivering a composed, comfortable ride. You can go ahead and call it a comeback.

The Civic’s hardworking 2.0-liter reminds us that naturally ­aspirated engines don’t need to spin to 9000 rpm to be great. It revs smoothly and produces confident midrange pull with a strong top-end finish. It’s helped by a CVT that’s among the best in the business. The standard drive mode reliably interprets the gas pedal’s movements, and sport mode keeps the revs elevated without making things obnoxiously aggressive. As good as it is, the transmission may be the reason the Civic finished in second here. We could imagine the Honda earning the highest fun-to-drive score and reshuffling the finishing order with the standard six-speed manual. Regardless of the gearbox, this smart and fun car is once again ­living up to its potential.

First Place: Mazda 3

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What’s the advantage of being an overachiever in a world where excellence isn’t always rewarded with sales? There’s no compact car that corners as naturally and as fluidly as the Mazda 3; it is improbably neutral for a nose-heavy front-drive car. Where competitors reach their limits and wash out into understeer, the Mazda’s front and rear ends reach peak grip simultaneously. The 3’s tail changes directions as willingly as its nose and that pays dividends in the slalom (and on back roads) where, despite the lowest-in-test lateral grip, the 3 snakes through bends with the highest speeds. Predictability begets confidence, which means you’ll ask the Mazda to do things that you wouldn’t ask of any other small car.

HIGHS: Uncanny dynamics, eager engine, smooth and swift gearbox.
LOWS: Soft brake pedal, the tightest rear seat.
THE VERDICT: Drives as if it had two fewer doors.

Because it benefits from the Mazda philosophy of chassis tuning, the 3’s sharp dynamics don’t require a penalty in ride quality. The suspension provides ample travel and a surprising amount of ­compliance on rough roads. The steering, while not as eager as the Civic’s, is accurate, naturally weighted, and even sends some feedback to the driver. If the steering approaches excellence, though, the other primary controls could use some fine-tuning. The accelerator demands an unreasonable amount of effort to push through the kickdown switch to ask the gearbox for the lowest gear, and the brake pedal travels through a soft spot before the pads begin to bite.

Mazda’s 2.0-liter revs heartily and sounds the best while doing so. It claimed the second-quickest 60-mph time in the test, doing the deed in eight seconds flat, 0.4 second behind the Chevrolet. The six-speed automatic is simply flawless. It is the only gearbox here that doesn’t race to shift into the highest ratio around town, and downshifts are executed with smooth throttle blips.

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The Mazda 3 is certainly not perfect, but it remains this segment’s most compelling mix of efficiency, practicality, perform­ance, and joy.

While the interior dimensions don’t show it, the 3’s cabin feels like the most compact here. Both head- and legroom are in short supply for tall passengers in the rear seat. The cabin is ­finished with upscale materials, a fact that is largely lost in the sea of black that covers every surface.

The Mazda 3 is a specialist of sorts. The Cruze might be better suited to hour-long commutes and the Civic may be the better family sedan, but the Mazda 3 can perform either task while fulfilling a role that no other small car can. In the fun-to-drive category, where few affordable cars even try, Mazda makes the greatest effort and overwhelmingly succeeds.

Eric Tingwall

Print Director

Eric Tingwall holds degrees in mechanical engineering and journalism, a combination he pursued with the dream of working at Car and Driver. While living his dream, he has cut car parts in half, driven into a stationary dummy car at 50 mph, lapped Virginia International Raceway in the hottest performance cars, and explained the physics behind the wacky, waving, inflatable, flailing-arm tube man.