My thoughts on 2014 Honda City Diesel, S variant

This post shares my thoughts on the 2014 Honda city. Honda city has been the representative of one's status symbol, a coveted thing competition couldn't steal despite offering better/cheaper cars. Till few years ago, being able to afford a honda city means one has moved up in life, beyond the ordinary folks who could only afford a Hyundai or a Maruti.

But then, the growing demand for diesel made it worse for Honda who had no diesel offering. Last year Honda came back with diesel Amaze and this year, refreshed Honda city with diesel Engine option has been launched. Since then, there's been no looking back. New Honda city is selling two times its earlier rival- the Hyundai Verna.

Zoomcar has about 16 Honda cities in its fleet, available for about Rs 3000 a day for self drive. (Weekend rate, 40% cheaper on weekdays). I spent 2 hours with this car, driving around South Bangalore and this post shares some detailed photos of the car and my first impression of the car.

The new look City makes a much bolder front statement, is 20mm taller and has 50mm longer wheelbase. This is done without compromising on the "Arrow from the Bow" design

The one I drove was S variant, 2 levels below the top spec V and VX variants. One thing I noticed after I took my seat was the simplicity. Very few buttons and dials- just enough. Other cars I've seen had too many buttons on the central console, while city manages same controls with lesser buttons. (You may take some time to get used to it though)

The AC vent design in the center looks a bit old design and in my opinion spoils the beauty of otherwise good looking central set up.

City diesel has 6 gears but of no use owing to Zoom's 125kmph top speed limit. Same diesel engine on Amaze gets regular 5 gears.

City seem to have better engine insulation than amaze. The reduced seepage of engine noise could be felt. During the short drive I had, I couldn't judge it much, but I found no complaints either.

Sunvisors have no mirrors, no touchscreen and no AC vent for second row passengers in S variant. (V variant gets most of these, along with alloy wheels, fog lamps, leather on steering wheels, chrome door handles and more)

Speedo console is also extremely simple. No fancy design but has all the information one would need.

No fog lamps in S variant and no turn indicators on the mirror. Take a close look at the mirror and you can feel the empty space left for this purpose.

Min and max second row space can be as seen below. Surprisingly no fold-able armrest in second row of city, while Amaze gets it. Headrests in both cars could not be adjusted for height.

Extra wide second row window is visibly bigger than its rivals- Verna, Fiesta etc

I was not very comfortable with doors- when I close it with normal force, it won't lock and dashboard would beep warning that door is open. I had to open and close it with extra force each time. Not sure if it is a one off incident.

Fabric design on the door feels upmarket, but door can't hold large bottles.

I spent few minutes looking at the manuals. It was designed common for all variants. It had details on paddle shift (available only in petrol AT variants and about CD drive, which are discontinued in Honda city long back. The super thick manual could have been simplified a bit if pages on non existing features are removed. I guess Honda is trying to save some cost by keeping one manual for all variants.

 

 I did some comparison with a friend's Honda Amaze Z. More about that later.

 A class review * Fortuner Photoshoot * A class photoshoot * Honda amaze review *