Honda WR-V Chennai On-road price & Drawbacks!

I accompanied a colleague who wanted to test drive Honda WR-V. This post shares some of our findings about the car, its onroad price, missing features and so on.

What’s great about Honda WR-V?

Honda WR-V is a compact SUV, priced between 9 to 11.4 lakhs (On-road, Chennai). In this price bracket, Honda WRV competes with Ford Ecosport, Tata Nexon and Maruti Vitara Brezza. Let us first look at the positives of Honda WR-V over its competition

1 Sunroof: Sunroof is standard in Honda WRV top end variant (VX). None of the competition compact SUVs have it as of now. Ford Ecosport is expected to get one soon, i20 has it and for many other cars it can be fitted as an aftermarket add-on. So if Sunroof excites you a lot, you may like Honda WR-V

2 MyHonda App- Premium Honda cars come with a MyHonda app, which has some benefits like being able to track your car remotely etc. This feature incurs an annual subscription fee of Rs 3000 though. Useful while tracking family members etc

3. Temperature absorbing windshield. The windshield in Honda WR-V is expected to absorb some of the heat and keep the interior few degrees cooler.

4. Parking camera with 3 views- wide, top down and standard

What’s missing in Honda WRV w.r.t competition? (drawbacks of Honda WR-V)

Compared to what competition offers, below drawbacks one should keep in mind while considering Honda WRV.

1 Less powerful petrol engine. The 90 PS petrol engine borrowed from Jazz feels inadequate on highways for WRV, which is 68kgs heavier than Jazz. For the driving enthusiasts, this could be a discouraging factor, as competition has more powerful engines (Ford Ecosport has 125 PS ecoboost engine, Nexon petrol gets 110 PS etc)

2 Lots of missing features- WRV missed out on following features compared to competition

• Only 2 airbags compared to up-to 6 on ecosport
• No cruise control, push button start on petrol top end variant (Nexon gets a hands free wearable keyfob as optional accessory)
• No magic seats as in Jazz (second row seats in WRV do not split 60: 40, can’t be folded in different combinations as in Jazz to accommodate various stuffs like cycle, surf board etc etc
• No adjustable head rest in second row (tall passengers sitting behind will have some discomfort during long journeys)
• No chilled glove box (nexon gets it)
• No projector headlamps, DRL is available
• No auto transmission option (Nexon got one recently)

It has been an year since WR-V hit the roads. The features given in this car were planned in 2016-17 time, so it feels bit outdated compared to more recent cars- cars launched/updated in 2017-18. Hopefully Honda will soon give it some upgrades to catch up with competition (Honda has been traditionally slow in that aspect though). In its present form it didn't WOW! us.

Honda WR-V on-road price in Chennai

Refer below table for Honda WR-V’s on road price in Chennai- starts at 9 lakhs and goes till 11.4 for top end diesel. There’re additional 35-40k worth optional extras- extended warranty, roadside assistance, MyHonda device, bumper to bumper insurance, natural calamity premium etc.

We were told for an additional premium, called return to invoice (Rs 1500-2000 extra), in case of car damage due to natural calamities (like floods) owners stand to get full price of the car (ex-showroom price). This is valid only for first year. (Regular insurance gives you only IDV or insurance declared value, which will be usually 80-90% of ex-showroom price in first year and then keeps dropping as depreciation increases. So now there’re 3 kinds of insurance one can spend their money on- regular one (22 to 26k per year), bumper to bumper or nil depreciation (6.7 to 8.4k extra) and natural calamity supplement (Called as “Return to Invoice” in Honda’s term). In my opinion bumper to bumper should cover natural calamities at zero depreciation- but I guess car dealers n insurance companies are finding new ways to make money.

Do cross check insurance premium on 3^rd party sites like policybazaar or with an insurance agent you know- car dealers often charge extra on insurance and registration to make up for discounts n offers they are giving elsewhere (like dealer discounts, free accessories etc)

We were offered a dealer discount of Rs 5000 and a corporate discount that ranges between Rs 1500-4000 depending on company.We didn't have any intention of buying immediately so we didn't bargain much.

Diesel vs Petrol:

The price difference between a litre of Petrol vs a litre of Diesel has now narrowed down to about 7 rupees, compared to Rs 20-25 it was several years ago. So buying a diesel is not very likely to give you huge savings in running costs. Unless you’ve planned extensive usage, it might make sense to settle for petrol. Petrol variant is about 1 lakh cheaper than diesel, you will also save a bit on maintenance, insurance premium etc every year, which might make up for the little extra you’ll be spending on fuel bill.

How is Honda WR-V different from Honda BR-V, CR-V?

WR-V is a 5 seater compact SUV. BR-V is a 7 seater, built to replace the failed Mobilio, CR-V is a full size 4x4 SUV.

New Honda Amaze

Saw a display of various features of soon to be launched new Honda Amaze. Usually dealers won’t talk about yet to be launched cars, as they need to clear old stock of existing cars. May be capital Honda have already cleared their current stock of Amaze and waiting for new ones. There was also a contest to correctly guess the price of Amaze n win some goodies.

Ecosport and Vitara Brezza are available on the fleet of various self-drive rental companies- you can book them for a day or two and get good feel of the car. Unfortunately WR-V isn’t available like that. You’re confined to what’s possible in a showroom test drive. In our short drive it didn’t wow us due to its various shortfalls listed above, but Honda carries a premium image in India- those looking for Honda Badge, impressed by sunroof can go for it.

Related: Nexon vs Ecosport vs Brezza *