Why I picked the 2024 Honda Amaze after trying out multiple cars?

I switched from the manual preference to automatic since I am expecting my wife will also be driving who prefers automatic, and there will be a fair bit of city driving involved

BHPian Cachejoe recently shared this with other enthusiasts:

Greetings fellow BHPians,

I am new to the community and have decided to write my experience of car hunting and why I eventually ended up booking New Honda Amaze. This is a long post so bear with me as I want to share as much as I can about my experience. Also this post is without many pictures , so apologies to anyone who likes pictures.

Before coming to the point, let me preface by giving you all little bit of car history of mine.
I have been raised in home with several automobiles around all time , making me subconsciously admire the mechanics and fostering love for driving even before I became eligible to get a driving license and actually drove.

My father owns a stone crusher business and thereby multiple trucks, tractors , JCB's. Growing up as a child , I always loved my the Mahindra Marshal (1998) that my dad had for the purpose of visiting sites. He sold it after a few years as people back then would keep on borrowing the Marshal for attending their family businesses and weddings owing to it's seating capacity and never return it well. After a couple years, owing to
family needs and Mom's insistence my family bought a Maruti Suzuki Alto (2003).

Although I never drove before acquiring my license, I loved to observe driver and ask a lot of questions about how cars work. Thankfully my parents would always answer my queries and never dissuade me from asking questions. My mom also learnt to drive which was a big thing back in 2004 in my small town and she still drives the Alto for her town trips. (Kudos to Maruti Suzuki for making car that is lasting 20+ years now)

Playing video games of Car racing (NFS Most Wanted mostly) only boosted my love for cars.

Once I came of age , I wasted no time to get learning licence and started practicing on my dad's newly acquired pre-owned Mahindra Major (1997 model). With only three gears and hard as nut pedals combined with non power steering which required all my strength to turn, I absolutely loved the feeling it gave me while driving with it's limited driving capabilities albeit with a really powerful DI engine. It was humbling experience and I am grateful I got to learn on such a beast because it made me confident of handling any vehicle that came after it.

Soon enough, I shifted to Alto once I was confident and fell in love with it's nimble handling, smoother gears (compared to Major) and acceleration.

Pretty soon I acquired my permanent Driving Licence and started taking every chance I had to drive the Alto.
Growing up later in college life away from my small town in Nagpur, I got quite a bit opportunities to drive various cars. One of which I drove most was my well off female bestie's BMW X1. Owing to her reluctance to drive , I did drive it a lot hanging out with her.

I have driven around 25+ cars since I started driving and for both long and short tours. Longest I have driven was a Ford Figo Blu for around 700+ kms taking around 10 hours.

I got married around 3 years back and although I never really felt the need in the city (Nagpur) I was in to have a car, I would always think of maybe owning one especially whenever I had to travel to my hometown which is around 250 kms away.

I decided to visit Tata Showroom with my wife on a whim last year when new Nexon was launched and took a test drive. I also liked the car and paid a booking amount of ₹.10,000. Once back home, I somehow felt in a few days that it was an impulsive decision and maybe I should wait for new car. Therefore I dropped my plan.

Skip to a year later and we were blessed with a baby girl. With baby on the way, I had already started thinking again of finally getting a car for the family now that with baby responsibilities it would be quite necessary.

I had several criterias for the car

1. It must be safe.
2. It must be smooth and convenient to drive.
3. It should have all common basic and advanced features except sunroof as I genuinely feel sunroof is a gimmicky at best and a headache at worst.
4. It should be suitable for both City and Highway drives.
5. It should be reliable.
6. It should be priced below 15 lakhs on road.
7. It should be ICE and not EV as range anxiety is real.
8. It should be petrol as my car won't be driven very extensively and power was not my first criteria but rather a good cruiser.

As I wanted it to be suitable for city , all 4+ meter cars were out of question as they are quite difficult to park in tight spaces and not so much fun to drive in traffic.

I also didn't want a brand that was new or not very well established.
Thinking of all the criterion , I shortlisted on several options

1. Tata Curvv
2. Tata Nexon
3. Mahindra XUV 3XO

I was swept with the looks of Curvv that was flooding all my social media and thought how amazing it would be to drive such a sporty car which would make everyone turn their heads. Although it was longer than 4 meters , I had impression that I could make it work.

Therefore I decided to visit Tata Showroom (Jaika Motors, Nagpur). Although the salesman was warm and inviting, he somehow looked more interested in selling me and pushing for Tata Nexon stating various advantages and benefits of Nexon over Curvv. I nonetheless had a look at Curvv and in my opinion it was quite dull in person compared to in photos. The dimensions just looked awful with quite an awkward design. Seating in driver seat, I checked the blind spots , the A-pillar was thick , the tiny back window didn't allow for a good view from IRVM. On test ride, I felt the car was underpowered for the body it had. Sort of like a muscular body builder with a weak heart. The NVT levels were at an acceptable level but the car handling felt bouncy at best and downright unstable in some patches of the road.

I decided to test ride the Nexon next , the dealership said they didn't have a petrol test ride mule available so I had to test ride the CNG version of Nexon by switching it to petrol mode. It was lacking the usual sport, city and eco mode knob that is offered in other Nexons.
Nexon was a good ride, well proportioned, a looker and definitely one of the well balanced packages in the market. I felt the low end torque was not as good because there was considerable turbo lag. All in all, the car felt like a good option.
As I was buying for my family , I wanted the car to be liked by my family as well. So telling the dealership i would visit again with family, I took my leave.

My dad being a Mahindra loyalist insisted me upon test riding 3XO as he was impressed by one bought by one of his friends. So I also visited the Mahindra Showroom in Nagpur (Unnati Motors) . The saleswoman was really nice and seemed to know what they were selling. However, again they didn't have 3XO petrol test mule. She offered to get a diesel test ride to make my assessment. I drove the AX5 diesel manual variant and it seemed to do well. But for me , the engine seemed to be a bit noisy. I was told the petrol variant is less noisier. I found the boot space of the 3XO quite small on a cursory look. The vehicle does look better than in photos but the fit and finish problems were quite evident even if small. With mixed opinions , I left the showroom.

Next I decided to visit the Maruti Showroom just because of the launch invitation of the Dzire sent out by local Maruti dealership . Props to the digital marketing team of Maruti Suzuki for finding out and following up the potential customer who hadn't even searched for their vehicle. It helps understand one of the reason why they hold the largest share of the market.

After driving 3xo and Nexon in single day the Dzire felt quite underpowered and laggard in terms of the torque. I had earlier driven older dzire which was a nice experience and subconsciously I couldn't help but feel this one was clearly underpowered than that one. Some positive points were beautiful design, 360 camera , Sunroof (which I found odd being forced upon anyone wanting to go for higher trims) . The Maruti salesman also showed me Brezza but I never liked the car much so I didn't test ride it.

A couple days later, Honda Dealership (Aryodaya Motors, Nagpur) called me and asked if I was interested in any car of theirs. I have always been smitten by Honda City and they told me they have good offers that will help me keep my budget under 15 lakhs. They also offered to come to my home to offer the test ride. In set time, a salesman with his supervisor did come to my place. It was V variant of Honda City in Silver color.

Driving the city was a breeze , I still think City is the best 4+ meter Sedan in Indian market which doesn't get enough credit. It's smooth, it's punchy and it's iVtec engine is a delight to rev and drive. However, I felt the car was a bit too long for my needs and the anxiety of scraping off the underbody or bumpers in city traffic was very real. I still was very much feeling gravitating towards the City but torn over the decision.

After a few days , my mother and father visited the town and I decided to take them for car exploring. We first went to the Mahindra Showroom. The saleswoman I met earlier was there and cordially invited us. However this time, a petrol model was available but not in the manual transmission. So we decided to test drive the AMT variant of petrol. I hadn't driven automatics much before so I thought to give it a shot and see how convenient it can be.
AMT , although infamous for jerky shifts between gears, it felt quite convenient test driving around the city and I liked the convenience but nothing to shift me to the automatic yet. 3xo felt alright to my parents too and we decided to go visit the Tata Showroom next. We test drove the Nexon and found it to be much more refined than the 3XO.

Next we reached the Tata Showroom , the salesman was again welcoming but seemed least interested in showing around again. We had a look at the Nexon , it felt better than the 3xo in terms of seating arrangement and overall quality. Test drive again wasn't possible as the petrol model was not there so we again had to take test ride in the diesel manual model. It was smooth. The dash however raised some questions , with touch controls and a lot of glossy finish, it seemed to be inviting for scratches sooner or later. It also didn't feel like very reliable or lasting. The buttons felt flimsy. There were some very visible panel gaps hampering our confidence in the vehicle. Regardless the drive felt confident and smooth and there were not much to complain. Road handling was also really confidence inspiring. The showroom also offered us quite lucrative end of year offers slashing almost 60000 off the on road price.

My decision was almost made at this point to go with the Nexon just when my phone rang and the Honda Salesman excitedly asked me whether I would like to explore the new Amaze which was due launch the next day (local dealership launch). So I along with mom and dad decided to just take a look at the new Amaze and see whether it was any good.
I was a little apprehensive about Amaze as the spy shots of the actual car didn't look as impressive as the renders and rather dull. On visiting the Honda showroom , we were told that we wouldn't be able to test ride the car as they were launching it later in the day but they welcomed us to their stockyard located on the same site as the showroom to take a look at the Car. It was in a blue color . To my surprise, while the car didn't look as good as the renders , it definitely wasn't as bad looking as the spy shots made it look. It felt very well proportioned and even though a lot of people may feel otherwise , I liked the amalgamation of Elevate in front and City in the Back.

The interiors were simple compared to other models I saw, nothing flashy but very well done with no panel gaps or haphazard job. It just looked right to me. Not overdone or underdone in any way. The back seat comfort was great and it was difficult to believe the leg space Honda had created in sub-4 metre sedan. The only niggle was fixed head rests. The driver and passenger seats were firm and comfortable too.
The salesman was quite enthusiastic and was going on about all the new additions in the car and the features of it, I asked for the test ride right away but I was let down by the response that the test ride won't be possible that same day because of the showroom launch. I was however invited to test ride the car the next day. Which I wasn't very happy about as it was quite far away from my home.

My parents liked this car as well and although there were some features that were missing compared to other ones such as 360 camera , Sunroof and other whistles and bells , we collectively felt that it was a sensible package. The ADAS was also a good addition. I felt the ADAS might be useful to me since most of my drives on the highway would be to my hometown which has a very good national highway connectivity with partial control-access due to forest areas adjoining .

That night I called my friend who owns a Tata Harrier to enquire about how the service was and if the online reports were true. He shared that his experience had been awful initially and average now with slow improvement over the three years. He also shared that there is a lot of internal "adjustment" that the service guy does in exchange for some money help him get good service but underquoting the bill by not mentioning the consumables . This felt like the last nail in the coffin for Tata , as I wasn't sure I could trust service guys that dupe their own employer with my car.

The next day , the Dealership called again to invite me for a test drive but as I was busy with work from home , I told them it won't be possible for me to visit the showroom that day. The salesman told me to hold on and sure enough in some time called to ask whether I will be open to test ride it if they bring it to my home.

I asked them to bring the top model zx, as it was the only one with ADAS with CVT transmission as I have had fair idea of driving Amaze manual which my cousin owned. I also wanted to compare it against the AMT of 3xo and check whether it was really better than it.

Once the car arrived, I noticed that it looked even better than it did in dimly lit stockroom . It looked quite spacious for a sub 4 meter sedan. Although the doors were not 90 degrees, ingress felt easy and simple.
The dashboard controls were smooth and physical with good tactile response. One would easily mistake it being an interior of a more expensive car.
I test drove it extensively . Contrary to the much feared rubber band effect , I felt the CVT to be very smooth and consistent. It's not that the rubber band effect was not there but it was very less pronounced. I drove it across the city and a longish highway to get the highway feel. The engine seemed to smoothly respond, the NVT were non-existent. The ADAS feature such as adaptive cruise control, lane departure mitigation , lane departure warning all worked flawlessly.

Now the real test of any sedan in India was to check it's effectiveness against rough , uneven roads. I knew just the road under construction for the job. I confirmed with the salesman whether we can try it and was met with confident "Yes Sir!"
I drove it across the road and also changed lanes with around 3 feet difference between two roads due to one being concretised and the other not . Not once did I touch the road with the underbelly. Honda seemed to have done their homework with Indian roads . With a sensible speed, any reasonable bump seemed to be possible to be crossed.

Going ahead, one aunty suddenly came in front of the car . The car braked with good enough power to stop the car even before I did but with enough distance to not make it feel like a sudden stop. Honda's collision mitigation had kicked in . I feel this feature should be closed in city traffic to avoid someone hitting you from back , one problem is that it's on by default on every restart of the car. Other than that , I was impressed by how well the ADAS had kicked in.
I also noticed the overall average on the vehicle MID was 18 which was impressive considering mixed conditions it had been driven into.

At this stage, I had changed my mind to go for the Amaze . There were several factors to it.

1. Smooth NA 4 cylinder iVtec Engine .
2. Smooth CVT transmission .
3. Considerably good mileage .
4. Super friendly and courteous Honda Dealership experience inspired confidence in their service quality.
5. ADAS was added bonus.

I switched from the Manual preference to Automatic since I am expecting my wife will also be driving who prefers automatic, and there will be a fair bit of city driving involved.

I called up my wife at this stage. I had kept it all under wraps for her as surprise as she was at her folks caring for our newborn and confirmed with her the about car by discussing all this in detail. The salesman patiently waited till our call was concluded.

I discussed with them that I would want January make and January registered car only. I am happy to wait for a month to have a new year on the RC. I was given the price breakup, paid the booking amount , provided photos of my documents and was given the welcome docket . I booked the Lunar Silver colour as I wanted a neutral color but white seemed very common on our Indian roads. Following is the price break-up given by the dealer for the car.

Now I am expecting my car to arrive by second week of January. I look forward to sharing my experience and detailed owner review once I get some miles on my new Amaze.

Let me know if you liked reading this experience. This is my first post on team-BHP , so any advice on improving the write up quality , anything that I might have missed is very welcome. Any questions you have about my experience, you can ask by replying to this post and I will try to get back as soon as possible.

Cheers!

Check out BHPian comments for more insights and information.