City Report

It has been three months since the Honda City diesel joined our fleet at CarWale and in the current environment wherein fuel prices have been rising nearly every day, naturally it has racked up thousands of kilometers in no time. It’s been ferrying our lens men Kapil and Kaustubh from Kalyan to our shoot locations and has also doubled up as our tracking car for text stories. Having spent a lot of the last quarter within Mumbai and Navi Mumbai, here’s all the bits that have caught our attention.

Now let’s establish straightway that even within the rational precincts of the C-segment sedans, our diesel powered City is not a particularly exciting car. What it does really well though is deliver oodles of practicality in a simple and comforting manner. It’s been playing the camera car role very well all this while, besides coping up with Kapil’s daily grind. Speaking of which, our photographer’s commute is riddled with narrow diversions and bottlenecks, meaning a lot of the intercity drives are dealt with at pedestrian speeds. Thankfully, the 1.5-litre diesel engine and all its midrange grunt makes the City rather sprightly in stop and go traffic. Despite being a manual, the City has been surprisingly effortless to drive in traffic with its light clutch pedal, slick gear shifts and abundance of torque right from 2,000rpm.

Apart from the not so nice infotainment system, this is a fine interior, one that continues to put a smile on the face of anyone sitting in the back. The armchair like rear seat is extremely comfortable and because there is so much space overall, we have always had more than enough legroom even when somebody tall is in the front.

Adding to the overall comfort, especially in the scorching heat, is the retractable sunshade that the City gets for its rear windscreen. If only the rear side windows also had this nifty feature to make afternoon drives more bearable.

The kind of features in our top-spec ZX trim have made Kapil’s life a lot easier – stuff like Apple CarPlay, cruise control, climate control and Honda’s lane watch system (similar to a blind spot monitoring system) have made his commute from Kalyan to our office in Vashi and back less stressful. Derived from the Accord and the Civic, the latter feature really helps in dodging unruly auto rickshaws and two wheelers which seem to come out of nowhere.

As for the issues, a rattle has cropped up on the right hand side of the cabin. We have been hearing it every time the road surface gets bumpy although it’s more like a subdued squeak that is easily droned out with music. All in all, our City has been rather busy with photo shoots, consistently delivering over 15kmpl within the city. We are looking forward to the next couple of weeks wherein the City will be put through some long distances and you will get to read about it in the next month’s report so stay tuned.

Vehicle log Odometer – 10,734 km

Kilometres this month – 2,100

Displayed Average – 15.5kmpl

Pictures by Kaustubh Gandhi