Civic.
I just picked up an 06 Civic Sedan, Royal Blue, last weekend and handed down my 05 Civic Sedan EX Special Edition to my daughter. I did look closely at the Corolla prior to going with the 06 Civic, and this year's Civic with all the improvements in engine, style, safety, etc, there really is not much of a comparison. If Honda had wanted to they could have made the 06 Civic a whole different model; one that would fit real well between the older style Civic and the Accord. It is that much different, and a considerable step up from 05.
There are a couple things that I'll share with you after putting on close to 1000 miles in the last week... wind noise is noticable at 50+, not annoying, but noticable, and the other thing is the part of the front door frame creates a semi-blind zone when turning slightly left, or veerying left. *** I'd point these out to your Dad when you're test driving. Both of these I have already gotten use to, but I know if it were my Dad, both of these things would end up making him a really disenchanted owner.
Something else that is important to us here are the boards... the paint on the 06's is a much higher quality paint job than the 05, at least on the Civics. Over the last 12 months I have looked at a lot of Civics and thier paint jobs and there is a surprisingly high % of defects. Not so, IMO, with the 06's and I bet I've inspected over 30 in the last couple months. Since my 05 has a crappy paint job, I've been doing lots of research into the paint quality on the Honda's...
