After month’s search, comparisons, test drives etc. I’ve purchased City i-Vtec S MT on Aug 2010. It has clocked near to 10k km now. Eventhough my daily usage is in city, i’ve done many long drives in this car. I think I should write a review about the product and my experience now.
Experience with dealer
My exp with Vision Honda Kottayam was not at all satisfactory. They couldn’t live upto the expectation, and later goofed up my registration certificate. I never recommend this dealer to anyone.
Vehicle
Ahh.it is a great car, with a nice and powerful engine. I’m getting 13.5km/l in Bangalore traffic and 18km/l during my long drives.Looks pretty ok with a 1.5L/118ps engine. Another plus point is excellent driveability and silky smooth gear shifts. Suspension is bit hard, so one would feel like Tata Indica is better on rough roads! But on high speeds, City is very stable. Also braking is so effective, no body rollover. ABS and EBD do their functions effectively in hard breaking situations. Music system is decent enough. There is no CD/DVD option, but iPod works just fine with the player, and also steering mounted controls and remote controls are good. AC is powerful enough to cool the car within minutes of time, but absense of climate control is a big negative for a 10L car. Instrument panel looks nice, DIS is just fine. Honda could’ve added some more features like in new Verna here.
Now, looking at the negative and improvement points.ground clearance is the major disadvantage with this car. if you’ve five ppl on board, then escaping without under body hitting on many humps in Bangalore is near to impossible . Same is the case while exiting from many of the underground parking also. You’ll feel nervous above 140km/h, thanks to the skinny tyres. Interior quality is not as good as VW Vento, honda is a let down here. No auto-locking of doors on move, which is a challenge to city owners with kids on board. Service is costly and spares are highly overpriced. So be sure to have a bumper-to-bumber insurance. Seats are fairly good, but I felt like the lower back support is not so good for the front seats. Also, the headlight is not so great, need to be bit more careful during night driving.
In short, All New City is a nice car to own and drive, costly to maintain, and lacks some good features which are even present in cheaper cars.