[vroom_vroom]

Originally Posted by Cessna182

Perhaps OT, but it is always better to go to the "local guy" for any vehicle after the warranty is over.

I completely agree and have been following this practice for last 3-4 years.

I have noticed that the workshops charge lot of money in the name of servicing as compared to a trusted FNG. I owned a 2003 model Hyundai Santro Xing. Few years back, I noticed that the hydraulic fluid needed to the hydraulic power steering was leaking. When I went to the Hyundai ASS, they told me that the leakage was because of a broken rubber seal in the rack and pinion system, and that the whole rack and pinion assembly needs to be replaced which will cost me some 8k that time. I asked the service advisor why can't they just change the rubber seal and the answer that I got was that it is not possible as they can only replace the whole assembly. Of course, without any technical reason, I was not convinced and finally decided not to get it done from ASS. Then one of my friend recommended me to go to this FNG and take his opinion. I was little apprehensive about handing over my car to a non-authorized garage. However, since the car was not under warranty, I decided to go for it and finally arrived at the garage on a weekend.

The person is really a knowledgable person and immediately told me that the problem is with the rubber seal and will go away just by replacing it. I actually asked him if the whole assembly needs replacement, to which he simply told me there is no need to do so. He finished the job at a much lesser cost than the quote given by Hyundai ASS.

I completely trust this FNG guy now and have started giving all my cars (that are not under warranty) to this guy for maintenance.

[Shreyans_Jain]

Originally Posted by sid_deb

Hence, Honda India has been unable to allocate more budget to R&D and launch models. There is an overhaul expected globally with the management changes but their focus is going to be more on electric models. Their short term future in India at least does seem bleak.

There is no R&D required when solutions to so many problems are already existing in house. Honda can in 1 day solve half of its problems by

1. Offering the 1.5iVTEC on the Jazz and WRV.

2. Offering the diesel CVT on the City, Jazz and WRV

3. Retiring the 5 speed manual and make the 6 speed MT standard on the 1.2iVTEC

4. Providing the 6 speed manual on the Civic petrol

5. Providing the twin turbo 1.6 iDTEC on Civic and CRV. The are already making the engine here in India

All these are ready solutions that are available to them at hand today. Any half competent management would have already implemented these. Heck, I believe us BHPians can do a better job at sorting out their product lineup than them. And while we are at it, we should fire their suspensions vendor and procure from whoever Tata is sourcing from, the same quality. No harm in learning from your competition. I’ll go a step further and retire the 1.2iVTEC entirely. It is left dead and buried by the small turbo petrols from VW, Hyundai, Tata and Mahindra. Make the 1.5 standard and give yourself a chance to compete.

[itwasntme]

In my opinion, Honda has grown fat milking the 55 / senior citizen non-enthusiast class for too many years.

I have 2 elderly relatives who swear by their Hondas (City petrol, Gen 2 I think + Amaze petrol (Gen 1), BUT every time we casually talk of service and/or repair bills, in-house insurance rates or any other dealer charges, I find that even a Skoda or VW is cheaper on an annual basis!

These old school folks will ordinarily not go to a local garage, and always visit Honda for even bodywork repair or touch-ups etc. AND (even today) are getting royally conned in both material costs and labour.

Honda Insurance is also prohibitively priced and seems to cast a magic spell on such owners who are promised seamless claims etc. However, I find that the Service folks seem to find any chance to invoke the insurance. One of the elderly relatives who is a crawler driver (probably hasn't hit 5th gear ever), has made insurance claims in every year of ownership! Something just doesn't feel right.

Even leaving out their current lot of mundane commuter cars, I'd think hard before a Honda because service is NOT cheap at all.

[car_guy1998]

Having owned a pre-worshipped Honda City iDTEC since last 3 years and still have it,I have decent experiences with Honda A.S.S and I find my Honda City's service costs are quite reasonable when compared to our Innova and our previous Vento.The car's last service had happened at 90,000 Kms and I got a bill of Rs.8243 without any overcharges.In comparision,my cousin got the similar amount of mine on his 2015 Celerio AMT,which has run more than 30,000 Kms.He,in fact,called me and told that he got cheated and told "your Honda City's service cost is quite cheaper than my Celerio's service cost".

[amolathalye]

Hi MadinMumbai ,

I am so surprised to read your Episode 2 as I have experienced ditto same story at Hyundai service station. The diagnosis and remedy suggested by a Hyundai service advisor was just the same during my recent service of Grand i10 AT. I did not have any issue with steering /suspension whatsoever. This clearly indicates that this is a scam. It's likely that this is behaviour is a result of loss of business they have suffered during the lock down.

[ChoosetoCruze]

Originally Posted by CrAzY dRiVeR

This is horrible.

Probably needs a separate thread of it's own, as rain water seeping into the cabin is something basic and unexpected from a brand like Honda.

Unacceptable! I’d like to get to know more about this since they don’t affect all vehicles, however they should affect none. Period.

Looking forward to that thread, also the City 2014 niggles thread https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/india...e-anymore.html (Honda City (4th gen) niggles: A compilation. Are Honda cars niggle-free anymore?) has a few owners complaining about these water leaks too.

After a little research, I stumbled across this -

https://youtu.be/t8Onmedfmv0

and this - https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/techn...jazz-city.html (Solved! Water leakage problem in the Honda Jazz & City)

A bad rubber beading is actually an easy fix, a crack in the seam/sealant joint is far more insidious especially if not timely detected/fixed.

[arindambasu13]

I currently have two cars which are both Hondas. A 1.5 year old Honda City iVTEC and an 8.5 year old Honda Brio, which has been the city commuter exclusively. Till now, I have not faced any issues with Honda servicing and maintenance (easily comparable to all the Marutis which have been in our stable before this), other than certain service personnel trying to slip in unnecessary items to inflate the service bill (which is again very easily countered if you have a working knowledge of the maintenance schedule available in your service manual).

While their current product lineup desperately needs rethinking and refurbishment, especially in the compact SUV category, I still enjoy my drives in both these cars for what they are. The 1.5 IVTEC is still, despite being long in the tooth, a lovely performer and very relevant in the current market of smaller turbo petrols, and gives me a lot of enjoyment when driving. However, the suspension on the City could be a little better tuned for bad roads. As far as build quality is concerned, I am fairly satisfied with both my Hondas, though this is no Ford or Tata in terms of solid feel.

Overall, I still believe that the City (especially the 4th and 5th gen) offers a fantastic mix of practicality/comfort, performance and frugality, which is the holy trinity for any car ownership in my books. The Brio on the other hand is the quintessential go - kart Will be sad to see her go sometime in the coming months since it is time for a replacement.

If one were in the market today, however, Honda does not have too many relevant products except for the new City, which is a very solid and well-refreshed in the sedan segment. The brand is definitely losing out due to its reluctance to introduce better and more modern products into the Indian market.

[car_guy1998]

Originally Posted by aghate

I have had good experiences with Deccan Honda, Pimpri. They did try to fleece me when I got my pre-owned 3rd gen City. Imagine asking me to change the entire clutch assembly for INR 27k for a car that had 41k on the ODO and was 6 years old. But I chucked the idea despite it being my first car and me being new to driving and asked them to do a major service instead due to Car's age. Once they realized I was a no nonsense customer the SA always went above and beyond in his service.

Rs.27k for replacing the clutch in 3rd gen CityLast year,when I replaced the clutch in our 2014 Honda City iDTEC,the Honda ASC guys had quoted me just Rs.11500 for full clutch overhaul,which I felt is cheaper than the Innova,which costed the similar amount as you got for your City and our previous Vento TDI,for which we had spent a whopping Rs.60k on it when the odo was at 45000 Kms.

[apache_aayush]

I have been driving 2015 Jazz idtec which has just crossed 90k this week. But this has been a fuss free ownership. Service has been also pretty decent. Although the service advisors do try to sell you additional stuff but they are not pushy. So far i am satisfied with both my car and the service too

[sid_deb]

Originally Posted by Shreyans_Jain

There is no R&D required when solutions to so many problems are already existing in house. Honda can in 1 day solve half of its problems by

With all due respect, this sounds like a promising touch up strategy. I don't think these options combined will help Honda gain more than 0.5-1% market share overall. Civic, CRV aren't volume drivers. Also sedan segment is under a lot of pressure.

Honda has traditionally been perceived as a premium player above the likes of Hyundai and Maruti - essentially in the 7-15L segment. However this segment is truly dominated now by compact SUVs and Honda sadly doesn't even have one single product that can compete here. Don't feel WRV is a competitor to a Sonet/Venue/Nexon in terms of outside appeal. Even with the 1.5 petrol mill, it won't be a game changer. BRV/Mobilio was another flop and already dead.

There have been multiple rumors of Honda introducing HRV (Creta/Seltos rival) in the market but again due to these R&D and budget issues, the product has never set foot in India. Unless Honda Japan allocates that budget to the Indian arm and launches the right products, the future will be bleak in my opinion.

[tp_dominator]

I reckon my family is going against the tide at a time when this thread popped up, we just took delivery of our Honda City last Sunday. My father owned a 2015 Skoda Rapid TDi and coming from Skoda, Honda feels similar and in some terms better than the Skoda.

For a Tier 3 city resident, there is almost always just a single dealer with whom you interact and get your car serviced from. Skoda was turning out to be troublesome with wait times for spares reaching 3 weeks. On the other hand, the Honda dealer has 6 outlets in different cities in our home state and spares if not available at a certain outlet may be sourced from one of their other outlets. Yet to experience the service ourselves, but have not heard any negatives yet about the dealer. Keeping our fingers crossed that such issues don't plague the 5th gen City.

Coming to the car, my dad drives mostly in the city and is an out and out sedan guy. The only contenders were either City or Verna. Skoda was not even in contention, however good its 1 litre mill may be. Also, we felt 5th Gen City is a step up from the 4th gen going by the better quality interiors, all power windows with one touch up-down, full size spare wheel and some leather bits thrown here and there. Verna was a let down in terms of space but had a whole lot of features. However, some cost cutting bits on the City are still evident with the wheel claddings absent and those cheap cameras and horrible infotainment display quality.

However, despite its shortcomings, spacious interiors and smooth petrol engine performance swept my parents away. Its too early to comment on the service, but City still holds its own in being a proper family car. My parents fit into that stereotype of ages 55 and above. So, I guess, the scales were anyway tilted in the favor of the City on account of it being more friendly to their age. Also, the perceived interior quality feels similar, if not better, than the Rapid and I guess, Honda is still relevant because of the Honda City, if not for other models. Sure, it might not appeal to the enthusiast, but at the end of the day as a family car, it simply outclasses the others in my opinion. So, while others may be moving out of Honda, we just moved in!

[vipul_singh]

In my view, a fair reason to move on from brand Honda would be because they are down to under 3 percent market share. This means, that dealers would be under margin pressures, and Honda's governance over them may have to be loosened a bit ('do what you want').

Having said that, I have 3 Honda cars and have experienced service in 3 different cities with maybe 5-6 dealers and have never had any complaint so far. Even post-COVID lockdowns, I have seen them eager to please the customers, though there seems to be more push for extras / optional items.

The most important issue I learnt from this thread is the water seepage problem, and Honda must address it. I have not experienced it in any of the 3 Hondas that I own, however. But that is no comfort to those facing this problem.

To me, Hondas remain hardy and trouble-free cars. I would be wary of buying a 4th Honda just because of the market share (paradoxical, I know). But I have to say, the only real upgrade option I see is Toyota, based on all the threads I see here, because:

- Maruti: safety, service costs
- Hyundai: service costs, many random issues, some with key control systems
- Kia: looks very promising but too new, plugging unproven tech (iMT, dry clutch DCT). Plus could suffer the same issues as Hyundai
- Germans: pah! Their tantrums are not worth my time
- Tata: Mix of bottom feeders Land Rover and FIAT quality? No way
- Mahindra: Ssangyong products which they are about to orphan? Nope.

And so on...

[BoJack]

I feel that Honda's after sales service is top-notch (compared to VW's). I have taken my cousin's City and brother's Jazz in for service and I was surprised to see how pleasant and efficient the service center was. The service advisors also seemed to be trying hard to please the customers, they also seemed to know what they were talking about. My brother always boasts about how hassle free the Honda service is. Both the cars had issues with water leaking inside and they were taken care of.

[aghate]

Originally Posted by car_guy1998

Rs.27k for replacing the clutch in 3rd gen City

If I remember correctly, I was told it would include the flywheel as well. Probably that was the reason for a higher price. Not sure now, been 5 years since that conversation.

[Vedant Gupta]

I own a 2011 Honda City which has about 95,000 kms on the Odometer. The last 10 years of ownership have been pretty smooth, the only major repair required was a front suspension change. I got that done from my trusted mechanic after I sourced original Honda parts from him.

The 2011 Honda City is a pretty good car to drive, the engine is great, the space inside the car is excellent although the ride quality is pretty bad. One problem I am now facing is the low FE of about 7-8 kmpl in heavy traffic which would be about 9-11 kmpl a few years ago.
The steering rack noise is something that is common with this gen of the City and I don't recommend doing anything about it till it is not causing any major problems. The repair will burn a 70-100K hole in your pocket and is simply not worth it.

I have dealt with Arya Honda in Mumbai for these last 10 years and have found them to be ok. The service guys definitely try and fleece you and do not follow the maintenance schedule recommended by Honda. I got my recent regular maintenance done at my trusted FNG and plan to ditch the Honda service center for good.

I am planning on keeping this car for a few more years and buy one more by next year due to an increasing need.
Not one Honda car in the current lineup excites me. I would take a Hyundai/Kia any day over a Honda in these times and I don't see the Honda portfolio improving anytime soon.
I still like the Honda engines but I don't see them keeping up in the chassis/features department.

I seriously hope that Honda gets back into the game, we need serious competition in the India auto market. God knows we cannot rely on Maruti to give us cutting edge engineering. With the American auto makers almost out, we need Honda/Toyota etc to compete with Maruti and Hyundai/Kia.