5th-gen Honda City: Purchase & ownership experience

The eco mode is significantly sluggish, which is expected. But it only makes you want more driving modes.

BHPian sramanat recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

I recently leased a Honda City VX CVT.

After 3 days and about 50 km of driving, I don't have a long list of likes and dislikes. I've tried to list them nevertheless and it is highly likely that dislikes become likes as I get used to things. I hope some of the early likes don't become dislikes over time.

Likes:

• Timeless 3 box design. I think after the first gen City, Honda went for a sporty/funky styling with sharp edges and sloping bonnet line etc. Things seem to have fallen back to the original design with proportional 3 boxes and classic sedan form factor.
• Fuss free (or the expectation of one) experience - keys in pocket, hands on wheel drive.
• Adequate CVT (for my driving style) and the paddle shifters offer ability to drop gears for quick moves if need be.
• Premium, safe and functional cabin with things in place where you expect them to be.

The 3 box design.

Next to a 2-3 gens older City, for comparison

Thanks to available customization, a simple instrument cluster

Ample room at the rear...

Leg room behind my (about 180cm tall) driving position.

Dislikes:

• Ground clearance. Not the inability to go off-road in search of vantage points to shoot pictures of tigers. That I can live with. I had to take a circuitous route home from the dealer, consciously to avoid metro/cauvery water works. It may not be that bad, but I plan to avoid scraping the bottom for as long as I can. I have to cross a rather big hump and drive over broken tiles to park over slush to take my kids to tennis lessons. Fortunately, nothing untoward has happened yet.
• As mentioned by others here, the rear camera is simply atrocious. Having driven cars without any sort of assists for reverse gear for 20 years, this is a big step-up for me. A cheap wireless baby monitor we had in my daughter's crib 10 years back had way better video quality.
• The engine bay - I clearly remember the TD car (a ZX variant) having a nice "Earth Dreams" cover on the engine. The VX has all cylinders, tubes and valves exposed. Can V/VX owners in the forum confirm if that's the case?
• Thin sheet metal. The doors feel thin, the bonnet wouldn't lock itself if dropped from about 7cm high.
• The creep speed is inadequate. I'd want the car to creep at ~15 kph when in D and neither the brake nor the accelerator is pressed. (For comparison, the 2014 Ecosport I drive now rambles at 20km/h in 2nd gear and no accelerator input). Is there a way to map this without voiding the warranty?
• Inadequate rear field of view through the IRVM. Left ORVM is tilted at an odd angle and the oval contour is as big as the field of view.

Slush where I park.

Reverse camera... Thanks to my 4 year old, 10K Moto phone, the feed looks better in photo than in person

The exposed guts in the engine bay

IRVM's FoV. The pillows from accessories kit don't help either

The left ORVM - tilted at an angle.

Others:

• We never had a need for sunroof but wanted one anyways - because it has become a shorthand for premium-ness. In city traffic, it is literally unusable and you feel kind of vulnerable. I was in the right lane, opened the sunroof and the pedestrians on the median waiting to cross the road could easily spit into the car
• The ICE - again, this is the first time I'm using a car with touch screen infotainment. I am so used to starting the car and the radio coming on instantly. Now I have to acknowledge the disclaimer before I could listen to the radio.
• Horn - it doesn't feel loud enough when you're driving - could be a) the length of the engine bay and you hear it from afar b) the car is superbly insulated from the road noise or c) the horn indeed is weak sounding. I will be happy in any of these scenarios. The last one because I contribute less to the overall noise pollution level.
• The eco mode is significantly sluggish, which is expected. But it only makes you want more driving modes.
• The keyless entry/go will take time to get used to. My wife drove the car, stopped it on the road to go shopping. 5 minutes later, she realized that the key was in the car and she never locked it!
• The automatic climate control does an adequate job of cooling. But when I try to move the blower position to both head and foot, the "auto" mode goes off. Is this how it is supposed to be - "my way or the highway" mode?

The sunroof. Great when you can look at the sky. Not so great when you see people towering above you.

The ICE. You have to acknowledge this before listening to radio.

Climate control. Auto mode will blow on your face. Not on your feet.

Good PU seats that are airbag compatible. Seem durable.

The buying process

I'm not a car person in the traditional team-BHP sense. I like cars and I pay good attention to them - not on account of the thrill of driving or the pleasure of owning, but on the account that it is the most expensive depreciating asset and the second most expensive asset (behind a home) that an average person would own. Besides, I worked for 10 years developing software for automakers.

I previously owned a 2006 Baleno and apart from scraping the bottom frequently, had no complaints with it. It had low miles on it for I was not in India for a good part of the last 15 years. In Sep 2019, when I started a new job, the employer allowed me to lease a car within a month. I tried getting a Seltos, but the long wait periods meant I couldn't get one. In Dec 2019, the Baleno blew a tire - ripping right in the middle and the cost of replacing 4 tires came to about half of the car's value, which I couldn't justify. Just then a friendly neighbour who collects cars offered a decent price for it and my in-law's Ecosport was with me as well (they were in their son's place abroad then). Without thinking twice, I handed the car over.

Despite the good natured in-laws letting me use their car, getting a new car remained my top priority. When my employer opened the leasing window again in Apr 2020, COVID struck and I couldn't get my hand on any car.

So, this April, the car leasing search began again in all earnestness. We began listing our requirements -

• Reliable, fuss-free ownership, low running & maintenance cost.
• Spacious and roomy enough for 2 adults and 2 kids.
• Safe
• Automatic
• Rs 14 lakh ex-showroom (imposed by my employer)
• Should be in my hands by end of August (imposed by my employer)
• I've had good experiences with both go-anywhere, haul-anything SUVs (Jeep Grand Cherokee) and corner carving ability of sedans (Baleno, Camry, Corolla) - but seeing where the market is headed, SUVs are preferable.

My ideal car would have been a Creta, Harrier or Compass but the strict budget in place by employer ruled them out. There has to be some wisdom that the tax accountants at my company and the GOI used to come up with that number. In retrospect, in the absence of such a number I would have had a tough time determining my ceiling.

We tried a lot of cars that fit the above criteria from May (end of lockdown in Bengaluru) and shortlisted a bunch. Little did we know that point 6 above would derail the said plans.

I've documented our search somewhat in this thread (What car for under 14 lakhs ex-showroom?).

Our first thought process was to stick to the lower end of the budget and get a good hatchback (Jazz or i20). If it becomes inadequate for longer road trips, rent a zoom car or a chauffeur driven Innova

The i20 felt cramped (may be because of the interior colours?). The Jazz was roomy enough and sort of served as our benchmark for the other cars.

It was decided that we would go north of Jazz only for a car that offered at least one of -

• Enhanced safety
• SUV stance (read ground clearance)
• Carry 2 extra adults.

Consequently, the contenders were City, all of the sub-4m SUVs and XL6

Summary of the cars that we test drove:

• XL6 - ticked most boxes in our criteria, was economical but my wife couldn't see herself driving a van.
• Nexon - very nice car, but AMT was not in keeping with the price you pay. It was more than adequate for my driving style and my wife didn't have a problem either. It was when I mentioned that it was an AMT that she began having second thoughts. A ~13 lakh car should have a proper AT.
• Urban Cruiser - again, a good overall package (Brezza's grill is too chromy for my tastes), but looks dated and doesn't offer features considered to be normal for this segment. Despite the SA's eagerness to sell it, I got the vibe that you are not welcome at Toyota unless you owned a fortuner or an innova. The day I visited the dealership (after calling) there was no car on display. There was a single urban cruiser that was due for delivery and no sales staff. I could have swiped a few stuff and walked away.
• Ecosport - the one with us has a bumpy ride and my daughter doesn't appreciate it. The petrol AT variant has atrocious fuel efficiency and there was no point in buying one with my daughter feeling strongly against it. The delivery times promised (120 days) wasn't reassuring. Sometime after I had initiated the lease process for the City, the SA called to inform a silver one was available for immediate delivery. We wouldn't have pursued it even if we hadn't committed financially to the City.
• Kia Sonet - the final TD. The car was a wonderful package, though the interior was too flashy and distracting to my tastes. The delivery times were atrocious. So we had to drop it.
• XUV300 - again, an AMT and the dealer couldn't be bothered to follow up or offer a TD.

The Honda SA was very helpful and patient and offered us multiple test drives of both the Jazz and the City. Jazz had all we could ask for, from the headlamps to the driver seat. Then it goes downhill - the rear seat doesn't have proper headrests, armrest or an A/C vent. I couldn't find anything online about changing the rear seat completely for a plusher one. On the 3rd TD of the City, my wife was able to negotiate narrow roads on our home-office commute and felt confident enough with the city.

Come to think of it, the final debate between City and Jazz had nothing to do with the cars themselves and everything to do about our future plans and prospects.

City is something that will offer a better ride right from day 1. Second car, if and when that happens would have to be a hatch.

Jazz is something that will allow us to keep our options open for the second car - new/used, sedan/SUV, ICE/EV, all sorts of budget etc.

When the second car is going to happen is moot. That settled it in City's favour.

Decision making aids

This might help people who are going through a similar buying decision where one has to fit a square peg into a round hole. That is, take inputs from family members with contrasting tastes and needs, or an external restriction in the form of timeline, budget etc. I think I did a decent job of remaining objective throughout...

After a lot of initial back and forth among the family, I decided to create a spreadsheet. Everyone was to assign different scores to the cars. I did a weighted average of the scores (40% each to me and my wife, 10% each to the kids). The end looked like this -

• City and Jazz = 3.9/5
• XL6 = 4.05/5

(A variant of this approach involved everyone being given fixed points that they could distribute to each of the contending cars.)

What these numbers hide is the utter polarization in the individual scores. (If 2 persons are rating, a 2.5 rating could mean a 5 and 0, or two 2.5s.)

With this approach failing to break the stalemate, I created another spreadsheet with objective parameters.

• Wallet impact 30%
• Reliability/Maintenance 10%
• Fuel Bills 5%
• Driveability 15%
• City (manoeuvrability, U-turns, low speed behaviour) 7%
• Highway (straight line, braking, 100-120 KPH) 5%
• Hills 2%
• Potholes (GC, cushy ride) 3%
• Rear comfort 15%
• Space for 2 adults + 2 kids 5%
• A/C Vents 5%
• USB charging 1%
• Cupholder, armrest etc. 2%
• Style (sunroof, LED, form factor) 5%
• Relevance/freshness 5%
• Safety (crash test, airbags) 15%

Cheapest car would score 5 on wallet impact and I'd dock half a point for every lakh of price increase.

The smallest car would score 5 for city driveability while SUVs would score 5 for potholes.

Cars with 5* crash test rating or 6 airbags would score 5 on safety

Binary things like rear A/C vents, armrest etc. would be 1 or 0.

You get the idea...

The scores looked like this -

• Jazz - 3.65
• XL6 - 3.92
• City - 3.78
• Urban Cruiser - 3.9

In hindsight, I think I should have started with the objective criteria first and then funnelled the winners to the voting process.

Keen readers would note that the XL6 and Urban Cruiser scored better than the eventual winner in both spreadsheets. That's the problem with mediocrity - where XL6 would score 3 or 4 in all counts, the City would score a bunch of 2s and 5s. That is to say that with XL6 you get a good+ car that doesn't excel at anything, but with City you get an exceptional car on some counts and a crappy one on other counts.

Summary

I think my 9 year old son's reactions sum up this whole process better. A couple of days after the car had reached the dealer, we took a detour on the way to his tennis class. I asked him if he was excited to see our new car. He said "not as much if it were a Creta or Seltos". A month later (don't ask why, paperwork takes longer in COVID times I am told) when I brought home the car he was quite excited and began arguing with his sister about what to name the car.

Are there better cars in the market - absolutely yes.

Would I like to have one of those - may be.

Do I regret this car - absolutely no.

I am happy with the car - not like how most people here would be happy with a BMW, but like how an everyman would be happy after redoing his dated kitchen or bathroom at a reasonable price.

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