Introduction

We recently closed the chapter on one of the most versatile long-term cars to enter the CarWale garage. It has been a rather crazy four months with the Honda Mobilio and in that time we managed to achieve quite a bit with it.

Final Long Term Report

Firstly, in the time that the car was with us we managed to clock around 9000km. During this period we went shooting (of the camera kind), holidaying, event attending and obviously a whole load of restaurant visiting. The last one usually involved someone drawing the short straw and having to drive while the rest stretched out comfortably.

Till its final day with us the Mobilio’s 1.5-litre i-DTEC diesel engine continued to impress in terms of efficiency. Despite all the hard driving, we were able to achieve a consistent fuel efficiency in the range of 17.3kmpl to 17.9kmpl giving us a running cost of under Rs 4 per km. This made for a pleasant experience on the pocket.

Moving on, we found its estate car-like proportions and easy manoeuvrability a boon in Mumbai’s peak traffic hours where forcing your way and high tempers seem to be a common occurrence nowadays.

The Mobilio’s external design is not one that will grab eyeballs or stand out in a crowd; in fact, most of us were not really impressed with the looks when we first saw the car more than a year ago. However, its versatility and efficient diesel engine have managed to charm the team.

That said, it’s not been all green and salad during our time with the Mobilio. As I had said in the earlier reports, the interior took quite a beating during the monsoon period. Once the weather had become less intense, we discovered that the dashboard and beige trim managed to get dusty really quickly.

There were a few stains on the front seats when we got the car and despite repeated trips to a car spa, we ultimately had to make peace with the situation.

There were also some issues with the AVN system. We found that the contrast and brightness had been cranked up to full to compensate for weak visibility in the sunlight. We brought them back to normal and had a hard time using the system during the day, ultimately forcing us to revert to the old settings.

Over time we also noticed some rattles and squeaks coming from the front of the car. A trip to the service centre managed to fix most of the rattles but was not able to address the sound coming from the front-right tyre. That should bring me to the next part of my report which was our service centre experience.

The service personnel were courteous and explained every bit of the service procedure as well as the costs involved once the car had been examined thoroughly. It was returned to us on the same day after an engine oil change, replacement of oil filter cartridge and a top up of the windshield washer fluid.

In addition to this, Honda also performed its 30,000km paid service on the Mobilio. However, our rough usage of the car meant that the brake pads had taken a beating and had to be replaced. This added a significant amount to our total service cost bringing the grand total of the servicing procedure to around Rs 8,000. In normal usage, the brake pads will last far longer than ours did and so this significant expense to replace pads will realistically only come at a later date.

And so four months and man excursions later we have still not got enough of the Mobilio and would be quite happy to have it for longer. Honda, in the Mobilio, seems to have found a decent combination of practicality, realistic proportions and an efficient diesel engine. We hope that in the facelift (which if we were to go by normal product lifecycle, Honda will have next year) will address the issues that we had faced with the cabin, refinement levels as well as the AVN system.

Things we liked in the Honda Mobilio

Diesel engine

Easy manoeuvrability

Practicality

Things we disliked in the Honda Mobilio

Refinement levels

Interior trim

Space in the third row

Previous Long Term Reviews

Honda Mobilio Long Term Review-1

Honda Mobilio Long Term Review-2