First let’s get rid of the biggest negative in this review. Honda Dealers. As others have pointed out here, their arrogance and lack of respect for the customer is without parallel.
Whitefield Honda is never on time, and they never follow up on queries.
Dakshin Honda is poorly located, on one of the worst roads in Bangalore from the traffic perspective, and is inflexible on many aspects.
Coming back to the car itself. I’ll be comparing this to the original Honda City, and not the "New City."
Pros
Great power to weight ratio, comparable with the original Honda City.
Decent(not great) handling. Not as good as good as the old City. This is because the Civic is a little higher, and rolls a bit more than the older car.
Very good legroom in the back as well as the front.
Adjustable driver’s seat for position including height.
Climate control AC with vents in the back - I think. I’ve not been able to find the vents though.
Fully equipped - the dealer can’t sell you any accessories except maybe seat covers.
Alloy wheels/tubeless tyres as standard.
Retractable power mirrors. Great in tight parking or traffic.
Cons
The gear shift is notchy - it feels like a poor quality electrical switch toggling on and off.
The gear ratios are weird. In city traffic you need to keep going to 2nd and 3rd gear. The old City allowed you to cruise along in 3rd gear most of the time in traffic. The Civic will not move unless you
downshift to 1st and stalls very easily at slow speeds if you’re in 3rd.
The boot has lost space due to the indian standard spare wheel. The original design must have been for the narrow throwaway spare that they sell in the US/Europe markets.
User manual is very confusing. They’ve written it for the world market, and the discussion is full of statements like: "This applies to C, D, and F variants." Unfortunately they don’t say which variant they sell in India.
Ground clearance is supposed to be 170mm. It doesn’t stop it from scraping its @ss off at every 2nd speedbreaker
Body roll at speed on turns is surprisingly un-Honda like. I’ve not driven the new City at speed, but it’s completely unlike the old City or the current Accord.
Very bad colours. The 2 silver variantions are boringly drab. The "Galaxy Grey" is more like a metallic brown. The red is NOT red. Leaving just one with just black or white as choice. So unless you want to look like a call centre cabbie, you have to buy the black.
Bottomline
Autocar called this a "value for money" car. I would not agree. I call it the poorer man’s Accord. It’s definitely a newer car than the Skoda Octavia petrol, and will probably give better milage, but at
this price, it’s not value for money at all. With hindsight, I probably should NOT have bought it. The
old City was much more fun to drive. Maybe I should have sprung for the Skoda Laura, a much better built and equipped car.
Buy this only if you have the money to spare, but the spare change doesn’t cut it to the Accord or the Skoda Laura.