Test drove the Honda Amaze CVT in Gurgaon: 3 Pros & 3 Cons

For someone looking at sedate driving and ok with the rubber band effect, this is not a bad option.

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Test Drive experience of Honda Amaze CVT petrol

On Sunday, 14th April, I finally test-drove the Honda Amaze CVT. Sharing a summary of my experience of the car and the showroom experience with Frontier Honda Sohna Road Gurgaon:

Experience with the showroom: 5/5

Experience with the car: 3.5/5

Pros:

• Fairly decently priced for what it offers (at least the SX variant); personally, I do not care for fancy features, but most of the useful ones are there in the SX variant
• Decent quality of interior plastics (in most places), decent quality of the headlamp & indicator switch, and good ergonomics overall. Nice clear large dials and a simple easy to read instrument cluster
• Folks at the Frontier Honda, and Sohna Road were pretty helpful. The test drive vehicle was a new car, spotless, barely driven 30km to date - felt good to drive such a test drive car. Never had such an experience. Accommodative with my request to drive the car on open roads to test out the pickup and check the CVT's rubberband effect, rough roads to test out the suspension.

Cons:

• The CVT's rubber band effect: I was struggling to see good pickup. The RPM shot up but the speedometer took its own sweet time to catch up; I could feel that the car was struggling to speed up, but the transmission was not letting it
• Though a small factor - Honda is still using plastic gear sticks, unlike some of the other companies offering leather/leatherite wrap. A few other sections of the lower dashboard had plastics that were not up to the mark and not similar to the plastics used on the higher sections. This does not give a premium feel, though I don't think Honda is positioning Amaze as a premium car
• Sadly, Amaze (along with Dzire, and Aura) have gained the taxi image (though not a reason I would drop the Amaze)

I forgot how the Jazz CVT with my in-laws drove, hence needed to drive the Amaze. I am not sure if I will actually buy the car. I still need to test-drive a few more cars. If I do not buy this car in my ongoing search for a small auto car, the primary reason will be the rubber band effect of the CVT.

For someone looking at sedate driving and ok with the rubber band effect, this is not a bad option.

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