VW Virtus GT replaces my 9.5-year-old Honda City: Buying experience

Having driven the Honda City Manual and the Jazz CVT, Virtus and Slavia were a fabulous car to drive.

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This is my first post and would like to apologise for any mistakes grammatical or otherwise. I took delivery of mine in the first week of December 2023 and would like to share my buying experience. But first let me share my ownership experience of my 2014 Honda City.

I have been planning to change my 9.5 years old Honda city for a while. The car was driven for around 80,000 Kms and was a beautiful car to drive. The reason I wanted to replace was because it was a manual and I contemplating switching over to an automatic. It’s horrendous to drive around Bengaluru these days and I have seen the advantage of driving an automatic.

I own a 2021 Honda Jazz (I was and continue to be a loyal Honda fan). Except for the regular service, I had not replaced a single part except for the battery and tyres. The OEM battery lasted just a year and had to change it to Exide which lasted a good 6 years with absolutely no issues. I had replaced the tyres once with Michelin tyres couple of years back. Barring these replacements, I had not replaced even a single part of the car. Speaks volumes about the reliability of Honda.

Few parting shots of my Honda City on the day I sold it to VW Mysore Road (part of Bangalore Motors/VST Motors).

I had shortlisted the following cars (all automatic)

• Hyundai Creta- Found the car to be quite good with all bells and whistles and loaded with features. I found the car to have a lot of body roll. Not sure if this was with the specific test drive car or generally for all the mid-size SUV’s. I also read that Hyundai was on the verge of launching the new Creta in 2024. With a global NCAP rating of 3, this was not something I could compromise. I am fine to let go of quite a few features in the car, but cannot compromise on the safety aspects of the car.
• Kia Seltos- Seltos was a lot planted on the road compared to Creta but found the 1.5 DCT to be quite expensive with safety being as good or bad as Creta. The on road price of 1.5 DSG was close to Rs. 26 lacs and felt it was not a value for money option.
• Tata Harrier- Was way beyond my budget and no option of a petrol engine. I don’t drive more than 1000-1200 kms in a month and had to strike off my shortlisted list.
• Mahindra XUV 700- Beautiful car. I was interested in the AX7 version but was told that there was a waiting period of more than 6 months. My cousin owns a petrol version in Pune and he very strongly advised not to go for the petrol version as the mileage is quite bad.
• Hyundai Verna – Looks was quite polarising, and both my wife and daughter vehemently vetoed the car. In fact, I owned the first generation Verna which was a good car but was quite bad in drive and build quality.
• Honda Elevate- Test drove the Elevate on the day the car was available at Magnum Honda, Kanakapura Road. Beautiful car with an excellent drive quality with the reliability of the tested Honda CVT engine. Interiors was a bit disappointing and was actually not an upgrade from my City. Dropped the idea of buying the Elevate.
• Skoda Slavia/ VW Virtus- I was open to the idea of both Slavia and Virtus and was blown away with the 1.5 TSI DSG engine. It was a class apart from the rest of the competition and immediately decided to go for one of the two European twins. The only negative of the Slavia was that the infotainment system was an 8 inch one and the VW 1.5 had the 10-inch infotainment system.

Having driven the Honda City Manual and the Jazz CVT, Virtus and Slavia were a fabulous car to drive. The build quality and the smooth gear shift was a notch above competition and immediately decided to book the Virtus 1.5 DSG

I booked the car in October ’23 and was told that the car would be available within 3 weeks. The Sales executive from VW Mysore Road called and informed that there was a newer version of Virtus with ambient lighting, electric seats, sub-woofer and amplifier with a price difference of Rs. 36000. I changed the model and opted for the new and added features of the Virtus. For more than a month, there was no news of the car and they finally informed that the variant which I had opted for would be available only in last week of January’24 with a potential increase in the price.

I decided to not to go for the 2024 variant (that’s what they mention in their catalogue) and stuck to 1.5 DSG GT plus Carbon Grey color. The car was immediately available and decided to get the documentation completed. Did a detailed PDI at their yard and was quite satisfied. The car was September manufactured and must have been at their yard for couple of months. I checked with couple of people I know from the automobile industry and they suggested I go head and not to bother about this.

The entire process was smooth and the documentation to delivery period was just 5 days with the HSNP getting delivered within 2 days. Hatts off to the salespeople and I took delivery on 3rd December on a rainy Sunday evening. Distributed sweets and chocolates to the people present in the showroom. It was quite late by the time I took delivery and thanked them for staying back so late.

I took my car to Sai Colorium in J.P.Nagar the next day for graphene coating and was extremely happy with their quality of work. Hats off to Bharath and Ananth who ensured that car looked stunning. Have shared couple of pictures of my car after the graphene coating.

I have done around 1400 kms in the first month of delivery with 2 long trips to Mulbagal and Mantralaya. It was fabulous drive and the car was superb on the highway fetching an average of 17.5 kms/ltr which includes city (K.R.Puram, Hoskote & Hebbal junction) as well as highway drive.

The only cons so far was the service experience. VW calls the first service as Swagatham service. It was no way welcoming in any was as they kept the car for 2 days for no rhyme or reason. The service executive was a newbie and was quite uncomfortable for the small niggles I had with the car. Just to list couple of niggles.

• The car is sometime jerky at slower speeds (D1 & D2) with the engine revving quite a bit
• Nagging alert while driving. Got to know that it was because of the Sygic maps. The service executive advised that I uninstall the app. The problem seems resolved for the moment.
• The driver side window was quite noisy. They cleaned the assembly of the window unit. It’s a lot better.
• AC was quite noisy in the beginning but now seems a lot better. I would still rate my Honda City and Jazz’s AC to be far better in cooling compared to the Virtus.

To summarise, I have been quite happy and hope to drive the car for many more years to come. Virtus has been fabulous so far and has been a worthy upgrade from my Honda City.

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