Honda City: A Fallen Hero
When I started working in 2007, I heard senior US-returned colleagues from Google discussing buying a Honda City for 9 lakh. They discussed it so casually as if buying an ice-cream. The price was eye-popping to me, since I was a student till recently. Fast-forward to 2013, when I bought my first car, I still couldn’t justify splurging on a City. I bought a Ritz.
Now, as I’m considering buying a car again, I test-drove the City in its top end ZX CVT variant, petrol, both in the city and on the highway, and evaluated it against my requirements. And the City sucks.
Read on for my full review:
- It feels downmarket compared to the Verna. In fact, every single aspect — performance, comfort, space, tech — is worse than the Verna.
- There’s a small, perhaps 1-inch high wood strip. Apparently someone told Honda to use wood to make it premium, so they used the tiniest amount possible, which is laughable.
+ No animal leather
- No auto hold
± No electronic parking brake
- Blind spot camera only on the left.
+ All four doors have a small pocket for a key next to the window controls
± Creeps in gear
- A few seconds after stopping in traffic with the brake pressed, the brake pedal’s resistance suddenly decreases and it goes in. I haven’t encountered this particular inattention to detail in any other car.
- I was driving with the door slightly ajar, which I didn’t notice. When this happened in another car, it beeped loudly. But the City didn’t. A passing motorcyclist pointed it out. Then I noticed that the dash had a visual warning, which I missed.
- Below the AC controls is a wide but shallow shelf. I put my goggles there, but they went flying after a while. The shelf is poorly designed.
- ADAS warned unnecessarily about a (phantom) forward collision, so I had to turn it off.
Comfort
- The seat isn’t electrically adjustable
- No thigh support adjustment, only front / back, recline, and up / down
+ Tilt and telescoping
+ Good headroom for a sedan
- Acceleration causes a lot of noise, in fact, there’s more noise than acceleration.
- Poor refinement
- The steering wheel is hard.
- When parked with the AC on, the engine revs every few seconds. My Ritz does that, too, but it’s quieter in my Ritz.
+ The car is small, so it’s easy to maneuver in traffic.
- Poor suspension; I felt road imperfections in my stomach
- Lots of engine vibration when idling, which I felt in my stomach, and the vibrations of a motorcycle stopped next to me at a red light. The car is poorly insulated.
- In addition to the road, other vehicles and the engine, there’s a periodic vibration from some other component of the car that occurs every few seconds.
- When braking significantly, the seat moved forward until it made a loud noise. The sliding mechanism isn’t working properly — it didn’t lock when I released the lever. This happened for both seats, and twice for the driver’s seat. The second time, the noise came not from the mechanism below the seat but the right rear part (near my right pocket). I wonder if there’s a small possibility that the seat completely comes loose when I’m driving.
- After flooring it, I gently let off the accelerator, expecting the engine noise to reduce smoothly, but it continued revving loudly for a second and then suddenly decreased.
+ The car handled a steep speed bump at 10 kph.
- The horn is hard and uncomfortable to honk with one finger, as I’m used to.
+ The rear camera shows curved guidelines that move as I rotate the wheel.
(Lack of) Performance
- The car accelerates slowly when floored, even at 30 kph, going down a flyover, or in Sport.
- 1.5-liter naturally-aspirated engine
- CVT, which I don’t prefer because its performance is lower than that of a DCT.
Digital features
- No USB-C port anywhere in the car!
+ 2 USB-A ports
+ 12V 180W port
- When I plugged my phone in, the infotainment system asked whether I wanted to connect via CarPlay or some other proprietary protocol. I chose CarPlay, but it didn’t connect. We tried unplugging and replugging the phone, trying the other USB port, turning the infotainment system on and off, turning the car off and on, factory-resetting the infotainment system, and none of it worked. The salesman called his colleague, who couldn’t help, either. We tried wireless CarPlay rather than wired, but Bluetooth was off and the toggle greyed out.
- The infotainment system showed a safety warning that I had to dismiss — four times in the test drive.
- The infotainment screen is small.
- Clunky removable wireless charger that plugs into the USB port.
Cooling
- The two center bottle-holders don’t work because the AC controls are above them, and the top of the bottle hits them. When I tried to fit it in, it was at a steep incline and didn’t go in. Only a Coke can will fit.
+ The two vents near the doors can be opened, closed, or partially opened to any desired extent.
- The sunroof isn’t panoramic. Panoramic sunroofs instantly cool the car after it has been parked for hours in the summer afternoon sun, and they provide a beautiful view.
- The opaque part of the sunroof must be opened manually. This can create a situation where the glass is open but the opaque part is closed, bringing in heat and noise but not ventilation or a view.
- Single-zone AC
- No cooled glovebox
- No rear window sunshades
+ The rear windshield comes with a sunshade. When I was sitting in the rear and the sun was behind me, I used the sunshade. It also helps keep the car as a whole cool even when no one is in the rear seat. It doesn’t impede visibility, so you don’t need to worry about accidentally leaving it on in daytime.
- No AC remote start1.
Front passenger seat
- I couldn’t stretch my legs
- No height adjustment
+ Good headroom for a sedan
+ The windshield and window are spacious for a sedan.
Rear seat
- The headroom is bad, and my head almost touches the room.
+ Good view from the window since the quarter glass doesn’t intrude too much into my view.
- I can’t stretch my legs (but I can’t in most rear seats, either).
+ The center armrest is well-cushioned
- It has fallen into the seat rather than remaining level.
- As a result, a Thermos put in the center armrest fell on the floor when I decelerated.
+ Dual 12V 180W ports, which I haven’t seen in any other car.
- No USB C.
+ The rear vent can be opened, closed, or partially opened to any desired extent.
+ Each of the two rear passengers can independently adjust the vent direction both vertically and horizontally.
- When I closed the rear AC vent, the air flow and sound from the front one increased.
No one feels good about an aspirational product from years ago declining. Farewell, City, and may the road be clear for you wherever you’re going next.
The salesman told me I can start the engine remotely using the app, and if the AC is on, it will cool the car. But that’s not a solution because I may not have the AC on. Even if it was on, if the fan speed was set to the minimum, it won’t cool effectively.