[dozer]

How do the the prices compare between the Malaysian and Indian variants?
Honda has launched the 2013 variant with a lot more features when compared to its predecessor with the same price so perhaps we can expect cost cutting in their testing and other quality control checks to retain margins?

I suppose when a product gets its next major upgrade then it runs the risk of problems. Hopefully these issues will be fixed in the 2015 facelift. I'd consider giving Honda the benefit of the doubt here.

I have the 2012 model and I've been very pleased so far. But by saying that I've jinxed myself and my car will end up in pieces in the near future.

In terms of A.S.S. Honda's increased sales because of their diesel launches would probably mean busier service reps, hurried service and lower quality overall.

[himanshugoswami]

Honda city is grossly overpriced for what it offers. The game has moved on and Honda still have their head buried deep up their rear.

The city comes with tyres that ought to be termed downright dangerous. Drive the diesel in a spirited manner and you will clearly feel the weedy tyres struggling to handle the torque. There is massive understeer even at 80 kph!

The quality of sheet metal compares well to a maritime swift....but it's nowhere close to an elite i20, let alone the verna or the linea.

[vb-saan]

Originally Posted by dozer

How do the prices compare between the Malaysian and Indian variants?
Honda has launched the 2013 variant with a lot more features when compared to its predecessor with the same price so perhaps we can expect cost cutting in their testing and other quality control checks to retain margins?

The market dynamics are different and comparing prices between Malaysian and Indian variants may not be ideal. In Malaysia, the City’s pricing is pretty much aligned to its competitors (Toyota Vios, Ford Fiesta etc.), and is cheaper than the Polo sedan (Made in India Vento 1.6 Petrol).

Not saying that Honda is doing it, but its really alarming if what you said is the reason – cost cutting by compromising on testing and quality controls because they have packed the car with comfort features. And you’re giving them the benefit of doubt because you expect the issues to be fixed in 2015!!! I don’t think any responsible manufacturer will plant issues in the current model to aid improvements in the facelift.

[deetjohn]

CD, Kudos to the effort spend on research and compiling for this thread. Thanks for sharing with us.

I really hope Honda take all this feedback on their stride and rectify the issues reported on war footing. So far, all the email replies that I saw were about side stepping the actual problem reported. The issue with hydrostatic lock was also dealt the same way. High time for them to own up at the very least.

Originally Posted by CrAzY dRiVeR

Accessories price list -

What on earth is that last item? #35

[pyrodrive]

Shocking to see the nature of the complaints.Pains me, as an owner of the previous gen, totally niggle free car ( touchwood!) Some of those complaints are simple unacceptable in a 10lakh rupee car and especially from a honda. Honda is moving down the segments and entering the mass market now. The city is suddenly one of their highest products, (it wasnt so a few years back). somewhere along the way the quality control is bound to suffer. Releasing the present model without testing in our indian roads was also a blunder in my eyes. Look at the ecosport for comparision, they tested it endlessly on our roads but still had to recall a few of the first batch cars to correct some issue. But honda was too overconfidant to even test it here.

[audioholic]

A big salute for taking the trouble of analysing so much of information and compiling it together! I guess Honda is focussing on profits and hence we see some compromise with quality and cost cutting.

For people who have experienced that the quality of the previous gen City was better, its logical. Previously, the City was barebones in terms of equipment. No ACC, touchscreen audio, parking sensors, camera and so on. Hence, they ensured that what is offered, is of excellent quality and durability. With the 4th gen city, they pumped up equipment levels to what they had never done before. Still, they had to make the car profitable. That's the reason this could have happened.

I guess we ll hear a similar story with Mobilio too. Cost cut to a great extent and yet overpriced.

[rbp]

Shocking to see all these issues in a Honda, looks like Honda has taken Indian customers for granted.

Sharing this thread on my FB, for prospective Honda City owners to refer to.

[RavSam]

This "orange peel effect" was visible on all the new Citys when I used to work there.
The plastic portion on the rear-door quarter panel also used to be misaligned and was flimsy.
The seat height adjuster in some of the cars were misaligned.
The plastic panel (a small elongated portion) just behind the hand-brake is flimsy and used to be misaligned in almost all cars coming from the stockyard.
The "grinding" noise was present on the Test-drive car but NOT ONE used to ask about it.
And the panel g-a-p-s! Don't talk about it!
The Civic was the last best put up affordable sedan by Honda.
Accord HAD to be perfect as it's expensive.
CR-V still has top notch quality.

[arnabchak]

Fantastic comparison Crazy.

An eye opener of sorts. Infact, Honda City has sort of deteriorated both in terms of quality and driver engagement since the iconic OHC days.

OHC was and still is the best and most driver delights choice and no doubt, even after 10+ years, they are still in demand in the used market.

You can maximise profits by cutting corners.
But, the trade off is huge. You tend to lose brand equity, trust and image at the same time!!

And, it takes years to correct the lost image.

[CrAzY dRiVeR]

Thanks for the overwhelming response guys. I had to be sure that I'm making the correct judgement and hence all the research behind this thread.

I hope Honda takes note and corrects all the issues soon.

Originally Posted by DRIV3R

Nice compilation, shocking to see that this product was not even road tested in real time conditions of India.

Also, we still have not got into the 'hydrolocking' i-DTECs yet.

Left out the hydrolocking issue since there are no issues reported in the forum yet! There are 2 Amaze iDTECs reported though!

Originally Posted by hellmet

A problem I faced with complaining about my Trigger is the same car owners seem to be facing - Complain to Honda, and they'll re-route you back to the dealer. It makes no sense at all! After all in IT, if you have a problem with your manager and escalate it higher, you don't expect to deal with your manager again!

True. Seems to be the exact same issue with car dealerships, as per multiple owners.

Originally Posted by D4D

Quoting GTO's experience with the City(1st gen)

Quality can't go down like this.

True. Quality can't go down like this! Compared to his excellent experience where not even a screw was loose in 7 years, now parts are falling off within a month.

How can an ORVM come off in hand? That wouldn't happen even in TATA cars i suppose! Or even door beadings, or lens covers? Just not acceptable, and I hope Honda takes notice of this thread.

Originally Posted by libranof1987

Could increased localization have any part to play in this? Although I would be extremely surprised and disappointed if Indian manufacturing standards weren't up to the mark. There isn't any reason for manufactured-in-India vehicles to be not as good as those manufactured elsewhere.

My family has owned mostly Marutis and have a Honda and Hyundai now so I can't exactly talk about how good/bad Honda has gotten. But I did drive a Corsa until recently and yes, the City is fickle relatively.

You've raised a very important point: why should the Indian variants be not as good as the Malaysian ones? I would consider the Indian market fairly mature and it really pains me to note that Malaysia and Thailand get better cars. I mean, do manufacturers consider us that stupid? Or are they that arrogant about India?

I think it has more to do with cost cutting rather than localisation.

True about international variants. And cars like City are not cheap in our markets either. So we deserve the best too!

Originally Posted by swiftnfurious

Not sure I mentioned this, but it happened to my friend's 1 month old less than 1000 kms top most variant of the diesel - on the rear navigator side door. I had a tough time trying to put it back and finally we closed the door and then moved on. Later, I was told that the A$$ put it in place - no replacement.

In my mind, Honda is NO longer a premium brand. They proved that they can go down to less than budget brand quality for sales and numbers! City used to aspire me for a C-segment car; but today I might rather buy a Ciaz than a City for 10L. Compared head to head, Ciaz makes a stronger case, save for the brand value at 10L which I can overlook.

Very recently, I drove a friend's 85K done 2nd gen city (dolphin shape?) and it felt "premium" and absolutely NO squeaks from any of the parts. The current gen City is just a shadow of that kind of quality which the second gen sported.

No. I haven't counted your post. So that takes the count to four!

Originally Posted by dozer

Honda has launched the 2013 variant with a lot more features when compared to its predecessor with the same price so perhaps we can expect cost cutting in their testing and other quality control checks to retain margins?

I suppose when a product gets its next major upgrade then it runs the risk of problems. Hopefully these issues will be fixed in the 2015 facelift. I'd consider giving Honda the benefit of the doubt here.

Sorry sir, with due respect - what benefit of doubt?

The issues are all reported by owners. And Honda hasn't provided corrections free of cost to them. The bluetooth in SV variants is still useless. Members like deepakv were charged for servicing the rain water leakage issue. Members with alternator grinding noise didn't get a permanent solution yet. On the Amaze thread, people who have suffered from hydrolock issues have been made to pay lakhs, for a known design flaw.

On top of that - Honda asked owners to pay an additional component of insurance, every year, to stay protected from the hydrolocking issue. Not ethical, IMO.

I would give them a 'benefit of doubt' once they correct the flaws in the coming months, plus refund the owners for their service costs on such defects.

Originally Posted by deetjohn

So far, all the email replies that I saw were about side stepping the actual problem reported. The issue with hydrostatic lock was also dealt the same way. High time for them to own up at the very least.



What on earth is that last item? #35

True. The email received by members on the bluetooth issue was appalling.

"Pertaining to your concern raised up with us, we understand that the functioning of the system is as per standard specification of the car. The reception of microphone installed in the audio unit should be done with all windows closed and air vents towards ceiling/ roof as is mentioned in your car owner's manual.
However respecting your communication, we would once again request you to visit to our dealership for a comparative check in your presence with car of same variant."

Originally posted by member vista_qjd.

[MadAbtCars]

Great compilation. It must have taken a lot of time and pain for such a detailed and in-depth search and analysis.

My friend owns a Type - II Honda City, and in-spite of being more than a decade old and more than 1Lakh KMS on the odo, except for the normal wear and tear not even a single electrical or mechanical issue comes up. And in-spite of being 3rd owner, there are people ready to pay 1.25Lacs for this vehicle. I do not think any other vehicle even the Maruti's will have such a re-sale value.

But the market dynamics has changed over the years. people no longer buy vehicles to last a decade, they usually change cars within 3 - 4 years. It may not be right to compare Honda with Hyundai, but Look at Hyundai's Market strategy they completely discontinue / change their model in a span of 3 - 4 years and this strategy is working very right for them. By doing so the re-sale value of the previous car drops drastically but customers are willing to accept the same.

Just to support the Hyundai strategy :
Getz - I20 - Face life I20 - Elite I20
I10 - Face Lift I10 -Grand I10
Verna - Verna Transform - Fluidic Verna

So in short cars today are not made to last decade's and this actually is a very worrisome matter.

[subratasenn]

A superb thread and a great eye-opener. I always thought we can trust Honda quality blindly. Thank you @CrAzY dRiVeR for this excellent compilation. Not opinionated -- whatever opinion is emerging is due to the first-hand experience of the owners.

I don't think cost-cutting is the issue here. The issue is Honda's sudden "chalta hai" attitude and severe failure of their QC department. Otherwise how can a OVRM fall off? Never heard of anything of this sort even in bare-bone cars.

I hope Honda takes notice of this thread and take immediate corrective measures. By corrective measures I mean they not only should improve the quality of the cars coming out of the assembly line in future, but also address and rectify the problems faced by the present owners free of cost.

Honda City has legendary brand equity in India. It would really be unfortunate if Honda messes around with that just to increase their sales figures.

[PrideRed]

Very good thread. I am of the opinion that Honda cars are indestructible is a complete myth. I have got bashed in here and in real world for saying this. Now since there is lot of data may be i should ask everyone to visit the thread.

The other biggest myth is Honda cars give high FE. My relatives and family friends always keep complaining that they get below par FE(10-11 KMPL) in city driving conditions. This can be compared to any other sedan. In fact we went on trip to Goa with an Optra and prev gen City. The City managed 14.xx whereas the Optra managed 15.xx . I was in a state of shock!. Of course driving style do matter.

And one last myth, Honda/Japanese cars cheap on pocket!.May be 10 years back yes but not anymore. I have seen my friend pay close to 10K on service for every 10000KM on his petrol Ritz!. Infact among all the brands i owned, the most fuss free and the one that was very easy on my pocket was Chevrolet!.

[karanraheja]

@CD - Fantastic Report and thanks for your time in compiling the same. Shocking to see such reports , Honda better pull up their socks. I own the previous Gen City and frankly the Current Gen City does not excite me to upgrade. And with fall in quality of materials used in Amaze, Mobilio and City i dont think we can vouch for the same Honda Quality as earlier. Can the Mod send this link to Honda . Hope they read and learn.

[S.MJet]

Thanks CrazyDriver for this huge effort, this is indeed an eye opener.

One of the performance parameter for a company is healthy operating margins, to maintain this I guess Honda has resorted to cost cutting thereby ignoring the other very important parameter the Brand Equity, which is more relevant in India where we Indians have herd mentality to follow a brand blindly.

Two of my friends bought 4th gen City & both did not test drive the car to feel the product before taking the plunge (have not faced any issues though). Honda should respect this blind faith rather than taking us for granted.

Hope Honda realizes the importance of trust and brand & makes necessary corrections before it’s too late.