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Sold my beloved Honda Brio after 8.5 years: Ownership experience recap

14th April 2025, 15:38 by Utkarsh Chaudhary

I was sad to see it go and it felt like I lost someone in my family. Hopefully, my recently acquired 4th-gen Honda City would be able to fill that void.

BHPian petrolhead_aar recently shared this with other enthusiasts:

Honda Brio: My faithful companion

The Team-BHP community helped me a lot while making my first car purchase. And recently I let go of my long-term companion Honda Brio which made me come out of the shadows to post this.

Car Name : Honda Brio
Model : VX MT
Engine : 1.2L i-VTEC
Year : 2016
Mileage : 45600KM

I always thought the process of buying a car was more like falling in love. How much ever you grapple with logic, your heart takes the matter into its own hands. I happened to see the commercial Honda released during the Honda Brio launch on television. It kind of stuck with me even though I wouldn't buy the car for many years to come.

While I was trying to purchase my first car, the Honda Brio was nowhere in the shortlist. I test drove all available hatchbacks at that time in 2016. It was the year Tata Tiago launched and there was a fair bit of enthusiasm because Tata finally decided to move away from their boring designs and provided something worthwhile. I tried Tiago petrol and diesel. Liked diesel very much. However my use case did not justify going for diesel cars. Petrol Tiago cars had gear liver vibration at that time and it was horrible. Also had a very negative experience with the dealership.

I tried Swift, Grandi10, Micra, Polo and Ritz. It was the end of life for Ritz as Maruti pulled the plug and Swift was moving away from Fiat-sourced engines. I liked Swift after driving it. Since I was only looking for petrol vehicles, Polo didn't appeal to me. My wife hated the rear seats of Polo as my friend had a Polo at that time and she travelled a lot in the backseat.

When you say petrol you have to try Honda so I visited the nearby showroom Vision Honda in Thrissur, Kerala. I did not take a test drive at that time. Only looked at the vehicles available. City was out of my budget. Amaze did not appeal to me and I really didn't like new Jazz. I thought Honda made a mistake by changing the old Jazz design. It was one of my favorite cars and I was even ready to take a used Jazz. Showroom guys called me a couple of days later and arrived at my home with Brio.

It was love at first drive. I couldn't even remember what were the positives of all the other cars I tried. I was a relatively new driver probably clocking 1000km at that time. It was such a fun to drive car that I immediately decided to take it. All my friends discouraged me saying you are getting a lesser car for the money you are paying. Maybe they were right because I was paying around 6L for the top model at that time. But I was smitten and as they say, love is blind and maybe deaf as well.

I got a nice discount and free insurance because I was buying a year-back car that was used for display. Brought it home and it was a very faithful companion to me for 8.5 years. Unknowingly it became a member of my family. I bought it after the birth of my first child and on some levels this was a second child. I did not realize how emotionally attached I was to my car until I sold it.

Brio gave me an average of 15kmpl most of the time. Max I got was 19.5kmpl. I never knew what people meant by VTEC until I drove this car. Brio has a very rubbery type of gear shift. First and second gear is a bit jerky, nothing to write home about. Third gear is really tall and the free-revving nature of the VTEC engine really comes to life. I always loved to keep it in third gear 3-4k RPM. This makes fourth gear almost useless and top gear is for peaceful highway cruise.

Honda managed to provide plenty of space for the rear seat passengers by something called thin engineering. The front row seats were really thin even though it was uncomfortable. Me and my wife were pleasantly surprised by the comfort it offered during long drives.

The original paint held up really nice. Never lost its glow in these 8.5 years. The build quality was nice though I would not compare it with Germans. There were no noticeable panel gaps. When I bought this car, 6 airbags were a luxury. I could only get 2 airbags. Really glad we are moving towards basic safety in this country.

What I didn't like about the car was some obvious Honda things like interior plastics, rubbery gearshift, stiff suspension and stability post 100km.

It served me really well for all those years with an average Rs.7-8K maintenance charges per year. Fuss free ownership and it was a breeze in city traffic and tight parking. Boot space was non-existent and I had to struggle while shifting to Bangalore. But the real strength of Brio is ghat roads. All those twists and turns, really effective handling and driving dynamics. I always enjoyed trips to Athirappally, Munnar and Ooty.

On highways, it always used to struggle post 100km. Once we went on a Hampi trip where we really hit limits while driving 120km/h throughout. I was not much of a driving enthusiast so it perfectly served my purpose. Even though it's a small car from outside, rear seat space and comfort can rival cars two segments above. I never heard anyone who didn't like the car after they drove it. Maybe Honda needs better leadership in India as they always seems to be a decade late to recognize market sentiments and act upon them.

Honda’s decision to pull the plug on the Honda Brio perplexed me. Especially when they do not have anything else to offer in that segment.

I bought a Honda City 4th Gen recently and I hope I get the same kind of love I got from my Brio. I was sad to see it go and feel like I lost someone in my family. Hopefully, City can fill that void.