5th-gen Honda City off-roading: Forest trails, water crossing & snow

A week-long adventure of driving through rocks, water crossings, extreme slush, sinking formations, steep climbs and whatnot.

BHPian meetarin recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

We were planning a road trip to East Sikkim during the year-end of 2021 when my cousin popped the idea into my head, "Let's take your City to the mountains!" I was flabbergasted at his idea and started giving him reasons of "Why not". At his continuous pestering, I spoke to two of my favourite BHPians who are absolute road-trip junkies and are known to deviate from the status quo. One of them was in the affirmative and told me to go ahead while the other discouraged me. More pestering from my cousin and I gave up finally, "Let's do this!", I said. And that kicked off a week-long adventure of driving Rosa (yes, my City's got a name) through rocks, water crossings, extreme slush, sinking formations, steep climbs and whatnot.

Much has been talked about the City's performance and comfort in its usual habitat, but I thought this could be a good and fun challenge. Hence I sit down today to pen the experience of Rosa's off-roading chronicles. Before this grand trip, I did take Rosa to some forest trail off-roading, so in this post, I will add that experience as well.

I'm going to break down this experience into three sections - first I will pen down the experience from the forest trail which had narrow roads with loose gravels and mild slush. Then I will put together the East Sikkim bit and finally I will also add a bit about driving the City on snowy surfaces. In all the sections, I will touch upon the driving dynamics and comfort, ground clearance and, power and torque.

Section 1: I did this drive in the last monsoon inside a forest trail that leads to a quiet and peaceful temple. Now, the trail understandably had no pitch tarmac whatsoever, and was full of loose gravel, being inside a forest. It was quite narrow as well, and City being a wide car, the tree branches brushed the door panels frequently leaving light bruises (which I could take off with a little bit of rubbing and polish). Few sections of the trail were also muddy or had potholes filled with muck. Surprisingly, the City took all of it happily. The ground clearance was never an issue as the surface was pretty much flat. The muck sections were where I took an extra bit of caution to sail through because I didn't know the depth beforehand. The driving comfort was spot on, I was relaxed and never felt unsettled. The rear passenger comfort was equally good. There was abundant delivery of power and torque and the City glided through mostly in the second gear. The fuel efficiency for this trail drive was around 11-12 km/l.

Section 2: This part of the review as I mentioned in the beginning will be from my last trip to East Sikkim and it was done over a period of a week. Those who frequent this route know how the road from Siliguri to Rangpo is in very very bad shape. It’s a single lane pathetic, a rocky road which is frequented by heavy traffic as well as trucks. The scene around is pretty heavenly with the Teesta river flowing beneath but the state of the tarmac continuously kept me on my toes and this is where I was a little tense around the ground clearance of the City. At times the ground clearance seemed to be a little insufficient over the bigger rocks but it never scraped the underbody. With a little bit of caution and patience, we could sail through. Needless to say, we cant expect the comfort of an SUV in a sedan on bumpy, rocky stretches. There was somebody rolling, some throwing around in the seats and the comfort was compromised a bit.

Rongpo is where you enter into Sikkim and move towards Rongli, the gateway to East Sikkim. East Sikkim has it all - few sinking formations, deep slush, water crossing, the steepest of curves. The driving dynamics and comfort around the usual curves was quite good, the rear seat comfort was fine and power delivery and torque proved to be sufficient. There were few very steep curves which were around 40° incline where I felt a little lack of power but putting the City into the first gear did the trick and we could pull it up with a little bit of effort. The challenge was the mud as well which caused some wheel spin.

The challenge at the water crossing was different as it was in a landslide hit stretch and we didn't know how rocky or deep the water was. If that was not enough, there was another 15-20m slush right ahead. We decided to drive on the visible rocks as that would give us some elevation, and voila! With some patience and nail-biting, we were through. The slush is where we maintained the momentum in 1st gear, and with some mild drift, we were through.

However, two days later in Rhenock, the slush wasn't as kind and we got stuck and had to get the car pushed out. This was a sinking formation too, so the slush was deep and soft. For this whole section as well, the ground clearance was just about sufficient and the City never bottomed out. The challenging stretches of course kept me worried and I really had to focus fully to avoid damage to the car. The torque was sufficient mostly except for the steep inclines which I already talked about. The tyre grip was inadequate, especially on the slush. For this whole section, the City returned a fuel efficiency of 8-9 km/l, not bad!

Section 3: Finally, let's touch a bit on the snowy part. I don't endorse taking any car into deep snow without proper arrangements like snow chain and all. We knew we would not be driving in heavy snow, so I will go ahead and share the experience. The patches of snow we drove on was fresh mostly which didn't trouble the car much. We drove very limited kilometres on black ice and the mantra was simple - maintain the momentum on the incline, no braking and acceleration on the decline.

Now, in this huge forum of super experienced enthusiasts, I am no one to advise and guide. But I followed the following on the drive and it helped me immensely:

1. I had my cousin with me so we asked for each other's favour alternatively asking to guide from outside. If you have that help at your disposal, I suggest making use of it. Do keep your windows rolled down so that you can hear what they say while trying to help
2. I get down myself and did a recce of the difficult stretches. This helped me understand how bad is the water crossing, how deep is the slush. This approach should help you make an informed decision as well.
3. Lastly, I was totally confident and trusted my abilities and instincts. It helps in having self-belief.

I will wrap up this piece by saying that more often than not, it's the person behind the wheel and not the car. Many might say this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to off-roading, which I agree with. But to me, this amount of off-roading in a City was unimaginable before this drive. So if you want to have that adventure drive yourself, listen to your urge. With a City or otherwise.

Safe driving!

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