[Shiv_1984]

Originally Posted by v.anand

@hellraizer, my sympathies with you.
===========
I generally keep the tyre pressure at 2 units more than recommended.

I am done with my 2nd service and i get an FE of 13.5KMPL consistently. Highways give me around 17 with partial A/C and 19 with no A/C

Hope that helps.

[Ricci]

@hellraizer ,

Mate, that's bad news twice in short span! The universe is a strange amalgam of coincidences, this being one of those. There's a saying , once is an incidence, twice is a coincidence, thrice it's sign you're singled out for special treatment. Don't take it to heart though, my first bike and first car, both got involved in minor incidents just days/weeks after purchase, and it's a common occurrence. One of my colleague's Brio too just got back from the workshop after a denting/painting treatment. Sincerely hoping your particular Brio's (and its driver's ! ) quota of crashes are done for good.

[smsrini]

Originally Posted by Shiv_1984

I am done with my 2nd service and i get an FE of 13.5KMPL consistently. Highways give me around 17 with partial A/C and 19 with no A/C

Hope that helps.

What was the FE you were getting upto say 5000kms ? were you getting 13.5 from the starting ?

[Shiv_1984]

Originally Posted by smsrini

What was the FE you were getting upto say 5000kms ? were you getting 13.5 from the starting ?

Well, I never got below 13 except few really bad conditions where it went down till 11.5. To be precise, the MID shows 14.5 but i deduct 1 from it being not too optimistic.

Few preventive measures i take :
1. Check tire pressure every 2 weeks(i keep 28 and 30, R and F).
2. Remove unecessary load from the car.
3. Get tanked up from a relieable fuel pump
4. keep a light foot and dont rev too hard. Use A/C sensibly.

All the best.

[hellraizer]

Originally Posted by Ricci

@hellraizer ,

Mate, that's bad news twice in short span! The universe is a strange amalgam of coincidences, this being one of those. There's a saying , once is an incidence, twice is a coincidence, thrice it's sign you're singled out for special treatment. Don't take it to heart though, my first bike and first car, both got involved in minor incidents just days/weeks after purchase, and it's a common occurrence. One of my colleague's Brio too just got back from the workshop after a denting/painting treatment. Sincerely hoping your particular Brio's (and its driver's ! ) quota of crashes are done for good.

Thanks for the wishes guys. Got the car back today. 30k is the bill amount this time. I had to shell out 3.5k from my pocket this time. Honda service was quick this time. The car looks new again. It had to. I am not fully satisfied with the denting work carried out on the right rear fender. The arch on the rear fender does not look as sharp as the one on the left side.

There is also a small dent on the door frame just below the front door. Or an extremely small one, but kind of hurts to see it this way with no fault of mine.

One question to all Brio owners. I find the gear box to be not so smooth. Will it improve after a few hundred kms on the odo. Its somehow not comfortable. The gear lever tries to slot into a position between neutral and 1st gear. I had a swift before and the gearbox was really amazing and felt really sporty. Not so with the Brio.

Also, is there a possibility to fit the Honda City type roof mounted FM antenna? The stock antenna is so out of place in such a fine looking funky hatchback. I am disappointed with Honda in this aspect. They should have included it in the top variant at least.

Some other small observations.
- The power widows button does not have backlight
- The steering wheel controls have no backlight.
- The biggest of 'em all, the CH+/CH-, VOL+/VOL- are reversed with respect to Honda city. I have a city too. This really confuses me. Why haven't Honda maintained consistency in their models?

[v.anand]

@hellraiser, Congrats for taking the delivery of your car again and wish you lots of luck to keep it contact free for a long time to come. My first two wheeler had a lot of affinity to Bangalore auto rickshaw and I had to concentrate extra hard to keep it away from it. You may need to do the same with milk carriers that ply on our roads.

The gearbox is indeed a bit notchy and I too had higher expectation from a Honda product. I haven't come to a comfort level even after 5,000 kms now. Old Swift is certainly better in gear shift aspect and as was old Zen. Didn't particularly notice the harshness in the TD car. There certainly seems to be some costs cut in this particular functionality aspect by Honda.

[hellraizer]

Planning on a road trip with family next week in my Brio towards TN. This will be about 1000km. Not sure if I should take my city instead.

I have already clocked around 200km in my Brio so far. The car is a little gem. The short turning radius makes it a breeze in the city.

I will update with info on driveability, FE, etc when I come back.

[zwift1819]

Originally Posted by hellraizer

Planning on a road trip with family next week in my Brio towards TN. This will be about 1000km. Not sure if I should take my city instead.

I have already clocked around 200km in my Brio so far. The car is a little gem. The short turning radius makes it a breeze in the city.

I will update with info on driveability, FE, etc when I come back.

Would suggest you to stick to the City instead of the Brio! For a highway drive a large car would be more practical in terms of space, ease of drive and safety. Since you are doing a total of 1000kms the city should do its job well.

[thumpingheart]

I am in the market for the Brio. My budget is not much and I am planning to get the cheapest Brio E varient. On road in Pune comes to 4.75 lakh. Will Honda give discounts considering its December?

Unfortunately I haven't been able to visit a showroom as yet as I am very busy at the moment. I will buy the car now only if I get really good discounts. Other wise i might postpone it to Diwali 2013. But I fear the prices might be hiked by then.

Experts can you comment? Is this the best time to buy the car? Because if i buy it now, it will be a bit of a rush job (of course no compromise on PDI or other checks etc). Or should I wait a few months, and no harm will be done? Thank you.

[hellraizer]

Originally Posted by thumpingheart

I am in the market for the Brio. My budget is not much and I am planning to get the cheapest Brio E varient. On road in Pune comes to 4.75 lakh. Will Honda give discounts considering its December?

Unfortunately I haven't been able to visit a showroom as yet as I am very busy at the moment. I will buy the car now only if I get really good discounts. Other wise i might postpone it to Diwali 2013. But I fear the prices might be hiked by then.

Experts can you comment? Is this the best time to buy the car? Because if i buy it now, it will be a bit of a rush job (of course no compromise on PDI or other checks etc). Or should I wait a few months, and no harm will be done? Thank you.

Out here in Bangalore, there are not enough Brios available with the dealers. They have stopped making it it seems and of course want to sell the '13 MY car. Did you make the purchase?

Finally guys, am back after a tiresome 1100 km TN trip. Here's my take on the car.

- The car handles like a gem. Very much big car like steering and handling
- Returned about 18.5kmpl on the NH7 and the Salem Road. 90-100kmph cruise
- The worst part of the car is its suspension. The car just can't take any moderately good roads too. Like its mentioned in the test drive, you will feel every single undulation on the road. The car crashes in every pothole. This is perhaps as bad as the 3L cars. This is by far the biggest put off in the car. Due to the pothole-phobia, you can't drive reasonably quick on patchy roads. You will soon find that every other TDH will pass you and soon you will get used to it.
- On a good tarmac, its a totally different story. The motor is very capable and I thoroughly enjoyed revving her. The motor doesn't sound great like my City when revving hard though.
- I was surprised with the amount of luggage I could stuff in. I realised that you must fold the back seat forwards when loading and then after packing, put the seats back in its position. This way, you can maximize the boot space utilization. I had removed the parcel tray for quick access from the back seat.

I once tried avoiding a huge pothole and went off road, the car scraped at the bottom due to the depth of the ditch off road. Hopefully, no damage. Otherwise, it went over the craziest of speed bumps (some worse than in Bangalore) without contact. I just lobe this. I was so happy, it was not my city.

To summarize, 1100km of driving and without accident or damage. I am one happy Brio customer. The car indeed returned so much love.

[Shiv_1984]

@Hellraizer

Can't agree more. I have too done around 1500kms of highway driving (out of 5200kms) with my Brio and its a sheer pleasure. What bothers me is the soft suspension which crashes on almost everything and moreover due to this, the car rattles. Cars with better suspension set up dont rattle so much.

Otherwise, it's a wonderfurl car to drive.

Shiv

[arindambasu13]

Originally Posted by hellraizer

To summarize, 1100km of driving and without accident or damage. I am one happy Brio customer. The car indeed returned so much love.

Really happy to see that you are satisfied with the performance of the car , and also to see that you decided to stick with it even after the unfortunate accidents.

The gear shift is notchy on all the new Brios, and my observation is that it smoothens out over the first few thousand kms just like most other cars. However, as you have rightly pointed out, the gearbox feel of the Swift is an in absolutely different league altogether, and I am not sure the Brio can match up to that level of slickness. On my 2012 Swift, the gearbox is way smother than my friends Brio, and snaps into place with a precision that enhances the driving experience hugely.

[hellraizer]

Originally Posted by Shiv_1984

@Hellraizer

Can't agree more. I have too done around 1500 kms of highway driving (out of 5200kms) with my Brio and its a sheer pleasure. What bothers me is the soft suspension which crashes on almost everything and moreover due to this, the car rattles. Cars with better suspension set up don't rattle so much.

Otherwise, it's a wonderfurl car to drive.

Shiv

So far, I have not experienced any rattles. Hopefully, the car stays rattle-free.
I am not sure if its the soft suspension or the hard suspension. My understanding is its a little hard or perhaps, the shocks saturate with moderate load. I had my mom sitting at the back (65kgs) and about 50kgs of cargo in total.

Originally Posted by arindambasu13

Really happy to see that you are satisfied with the performance of the car , and also to see that you decided to stick with it even after the unfortunate accidents.

The gear shift is notchy on all the new Brios, and my observation is that it smoothens out over the first few thousand kms just like most other cars. However, as you have rightly pointed out, the gearbox feel of the Swift is an in absolutely different league altogether, and I am not sure the Brio can match up to that level of slickness. On my 2012 Swift, the gearbox is way smother than my friends Brio, and snaps into place with a precision that enhances the driving experience hugely.

I did my first 1000 km service and got the car thoroughly cleaned. The car was totally dirty both inside and outside.

I have a few more observations.

A big miss in the car is the lack of rear wiper+wash . This is sorely missed. I hit stretches of roads when it was raining, rather drizzling. With bad roads, with a few minutes you will see your rear windshield becomes dirty and almost unusable. How can Honda omit such a crucial feature? If not the defogger, at least the wash+wiper was mandatory.

The 5 gears are almost perfectly matched. The 5th gear is both tall and also can handle lower speeds of up to 45-50 kmph. When you slow down from say 90 odd to 50 or so, you don't necessarily need to downshift unless you really want to accelerate. A couple of weeks back, I drove the XUV 500 for a stretch of 250 odd km from Chennai to Bangalore. The car's 6 gears proved to be a disaster of a setup to me. You end up changing gears so frequently and you suddenly wonder, what's the point of the 6th gear. With XUV's relatively hard clutch (diesel clutch), it was indeed a nightmare; I ended up home with a sore left knee.

All XUV owners, please don't take offence. This is just my personal thought.

[sandsun7]

This happened to my colleague's Brio while it was parked on the roadside outside her home






The car was kept covered when this happened. She was not able to trace the culprit.
Any inputs on the repair cost? Luckily the paint seems to be intact. Can the dent be just pulled out?

[Shiv_1984]

Not sure about Brio, but experienced a denting work with i10 at exactly the same place. Costed around 5k all inclusive, although i don't forsee a paint job to be done but during the denting work, it might loose some.