[kbishwa]

A small test drive

This was to convince my family of 6 (4 adults, 2 kids of 10 & 4 years) that BRV can accommodate them with ease.

I requested for AT but the dealership doesn't have one, in fact they only have diesel top most trim as a TD vehicle.

Thankfully they were happy for the kind of space offered in all the rows. My wife seemed satisfied with the boot-space also. And my parents found the ride comfortable and diesel's cluttering bearable (however I didn't like that) at back.

My few observations:

1. Ride & handling was good, steering feedback better than Hexa and comparable to my Fabia 1.6.

2. Gear shift easy and approachable (not miles away like Hexa, which was also a contender as my next car)

3. Doors feel flimsy compared to European cars.

4. Central console was boring, and not to mention lacking many essentials. However, very practical with good music system and steering controls, dual AC with effective auto control, and ease and availability of 2nd row seat adjustment

5. Sill feel price is at higher side in terms of value offered.

Anyone has an experience at hilly terrain, with vehicle fully loaded?

[SmartCat]

Originally Posted by kbishwa

I requested for AT but the dealership doesn't have one, Anyone has an experience at hilly terrain, with vehicle fully loaded?

Because of high power to weight ratio, BRV AT flies even when it is fully loaded with people and luggage. With a 0 to 100 kmph timing of 12.3 seconds, it is one of the quickest mainstream automatics cars on sale

1. Ride & handling was good, steering feedback better than Hexa and comparable to my Fabia 1.6. 2. Gear shift easy and approachable (not miles away like Hexa, which was also a contender as my next car)

Without an iota of doubt, I think Hexa AT is a better car than BRV AT. There are some concerns about things falling off in a Hexa (I own Vista petrol) over time, but other than that, I can't think of any other significant drawbacks in the Tata.

BRV AT has only the following advantages over Hexa AT:

1) More nimble handler (monocoque vs ladder frame), compact dimensions and sharper steering.
2) Lower price
3) Long term reliability

So whether you pick BRV or Hexa depends on how important these parameters are. In pretty much every other department, Hexa is superior to BRV

[kbishwa]

BRV sales tumbled down to 703 cars (team-bhp, http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/indian...-analysis.html) for Feb'17. More than 50% reduction in the sales figure compared to Jan'17 figure of 1485,

Just to note that Nov'16 sales was also just 419 (team-bhp). Dec'16 and Jan'17 figures of 1601 and 1458 respectively are, seems obviously, owing to clearance discount. There is no new product launch in the segment. (Interestingly there is shown a sale figure of 316 against WRV, which is still not launched, may be on account of prebooking (team-bhp). I don't know it is correct or not!)

Now, when a product is driven by discounts only that means there is something wrong with either product (better competitive offering) or the pricing (all other factors remaining constant).

It's a open secret that BRV is over-priced vehicle, like many other Honda products including newly launched City. Now to command a premium over its justified price it seems BRV doesn't have much to offer than 7 seats (Sales in C2 segment, sans sedan category, have seen good rise for Creta & Breza, might have eaten BRV share).

Innova has also increased its share but it is in different league and cannot be compared only based on similar seating arrangement, like Lodgy. But Hexa can be cause of worry (even Hexa sales has also dropped, but it is very early to say something.) So, for BRV, it appears the following 2 things are the way out:

A. Refresh the model and improve the offerings and value proposition.
B. Revise the price (not by giving only discounts, it happened for many cars including S-Cross recently)

Best of luck

[wangdu]

Originally Posted by kbishwa

3. Doors feel flimsy compared to European cars.
4. Central console was boring, and not to mention lacking many essentials. However, very practical with good music system and steering controls, dual AC with effective auto control, and ease and availability of 2nd row seat adjustment
5. Sill feel price is at higher side in terms of value offered.

I recently bought V CVT and I agree with #3 only when opening the rear doors. It requires an extra effort to pull open the doors and that too with 'tin box' kind of sound. I plan to figure out if this can be eliminated. But the front doors feel nice and provide that 'thud' when closing though.

W.r.t #4, I replaced the stock audio setup with factory Alpine AVN (from dealer itself) and that makes the overall dash look alive and also takes the looks of the dash up a few notches on elegance scale.

W.r.t #5, yes I too felt the price to be on higher side but then I might be only considering shallow aspects of features as such. I'm not aware of the costs involved with deep design elements required to make 7 seaters, higher GC, machined alloys, iVtec et al, so I gave the benefit of doubt to Honda. Plus I feel that Honda is usually a bit more expensive and frugal at giving discounts than its competitors. All considered, I opted for late '16 model which was quoted with attractive discounts making it look the right value for money product.

Originally Posted by smartcat

Because of high power to weight ratio, BRV AT flies even when it is fully loaded with people and luggage. With a 0 to 100 kmph timing of 12.3 seconds, it is one of the quickest mainstream automatics cars on sale

+1 to that. So far I have driven my V CVT with 5 Adults and 3 kids (<10 yrs) for about 200kms (~50 on hilly terrain) and another 100 with 4 adults on board. I'm impressed at the way the car delivers power seamlessly, building up speed and then settling down in eco mode. So far, never have I felt the car gasping to deliver power when required. Pls. note that I might be in "S" (sedate) mode myself till the car runs in properly

Originally Posted by smartcat

...In pretty much every other department, Hexa is superior to BRV

I too had considered Hexa and test drove both extensively before finalizing on BRV. AT comparison may not be really valid here given that BRV AT isn't offered w/ diesel and engine being the heart of the matter rest all are then add-ons IMO. But for sake and talking of "every other department" then I would add - lower long term maintenance,lower NVH levels, refinement & smoothness of iVtec in favour of BRV. Powerful torquey engine, sturdy road presence, ride comfort (with that double wishbone setup), bit more spacious are my quick picks in favour of Hexa.

[kbishwa]

BRV continues the Feb offer. Got an SMS as attached here:

The offer page at Honda India site elaborates this:
https://www.hondacarindia.com/offers/

[vikash49]

Monthly sales units are back to three digits..

[DieselFan]

Does anyone have any idea on whether Honda is introducing 4x4 in BR-V in India? If yes then when can we expect the same.

[nkrishnap]

Originally Posted by DieselFan

Does anyone have any idea on whether Honda is introducing 4x4 in BR-V in India? If yes then when can we expect the same.

Is there 4x4 BRV at the first place? If not, Honda wont bother developing one solely for the Indian market. The 4x4 or AWD market is not too big to develop one either.

[SmartCat]

Originally Posted by vikash49

Monthly sales units are back to three digits..

Creta's graph is like that of a high flying airplane and BRV's graph is like that of a helicopter

Originally Posted by DieselFan

Does anyone have any idea on whether Honda is introducing 4x4 in BR-V in India? If yes then when can we expect the same.

Originally Posted by nkrishnap

Is there 4x4 BRV at the first place? If not, Honda wont bother developing one solely for the Indian market. The 4x4 or AWD market is not too big to develop one either.

No AWD variant of BRV has been developed. BRV in the current form does not go "off road" but should be able to handle almost all the roads that our Government/BRO has built. A few advantages it has -

- Front wheel drive
- 210 mm ground clearance
- Light weight (1.2 tonnes)
- 16 inch wheels to clamber over the rough stuff
- I'm running out of points to mention here, but BRV's diesel engine has good low end torque too

My favorite video - what a vehicle with the above specs can do

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYSSoIVB8x0&t=220s

[BUXX]

I wouldn't wanna try this out in the BR-V or even the Creta . A Duster however would easily handle most of this (and has)

My main concern would be over the Approach/Departure/Breakover angles - thats what really makes a (micro) SUV do what it can . Not to mention the long wheelbase of the BR-V will be disastrous.

[SmartCat]

Originally Posted by BUXX

I wouldn't wanna try this out in the BR-V or even the Creta . A Duster however would easily handle most of this (and has) My main concern would be over the Approach/Departure/Breakover angles - thats what really makes a (micro) SUV do what it can . Not to mention the long wheelbase of the BR-V will be disastrous.

- There is nothing wrong with approach and departure angle of BRV
- Long wheelbase of BRV will hurt under certain conditions.
- Creta/Ecosport/Brezza is likely to perform as well as FWD Duster

Admittedly, the Suzuki Vitara video might be slightly misleading because -

- The driver is likely to have lots of off-roading experience (when to use momentum, when to crawl etc)
- Vitara is likely to have some electronic aids even in FWD variant which our Indian FWD compact SUV's lack.

But light weight really helps -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmlK9s0EvDE

And agree that Duster AWD is one of the best buys in this segment, if you are remotely interested in some adventure. But BRV is not too bad either - as long as you understand its limits. It helps if you have a tow rope and a Duster AWD for company.



Couple of videos we took - these are not off-road videos but off-the-beaten-track videos:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ic9nx11A20k

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WA-z-jIpwqw

And some photos:





But one thing to remember is that FWD/ AWD/ proper 4x4 -> none of these are invincible. You will get stuck somewhere. However, AWD gets you a little further and proper 4x4 a little more.

[wangdu]

Folks, In my V model BRV the driver side window pull up button has "Auto" printed on it. I think this (Auto-up)is a feature for Vx only, so I wanted to know if this feature can be enabled in V or is it case of V/Vx/all models using same "auto" button functional only in Vx? thanks.

[Hvt77]

Hi All, sorry for the long hiatus from here, got a little too busy with loads of changes and challenges at work, and then some touring as well.

So, coming to the touring part, after the short trekking ride (150 kms trip to a trekking point), did a couple of longer trips.

About 500 kms trip to Harihareshwar-Shrivardhan-Dive Agar. This was with quite a bit of ghat (hilly) sections, and the BRV fared wonderfully well, never felt any lack of power / torque etc. Though overtaking on the 1-lane goa highway did get tricky once in D mode, I was reminded later to use the S mode in such situations! :-)

And then did a 600 kms trip to Mahabaleshwar, (roughly same distance as the prior trip, just that we did a lot of zig zag between mahabaleshwar and panchgani on one of the days!!), and the BRV again excelled beautifully on those ghats too (we stuck the the pune side though this time, so not so hilly that side I guess).

Both trips we got an overall FE of 12-13, with highway ones as high as 19-20. Mind you, it was just 3 of us, with AC on all the time.

And the drive on the Mum-Pune expressway was amazing in the BRV, especially when I compare it with my prior experience on the same road on my Santro (shouldn't really be comparing!!).

Have clocked a little over 4k kms in last 6 months of driving it, very very happy with CVT in the crazy mumbai traffic, and these long trips have helped overall FE figures to go above 9 kmpl now!

And in between all this, got 2nd service done as well, 0 cost, not much work done as well by the honda guys I presume.

Originally Posted by wangdu

Folks, In my V model BRV the driver side window pull up button has "Auto" printed on it. I think this (Auto-up)is a feature for Vx only, so I wanted to know if this feature can be enabled in V or is it case of V/Vx/all models using same "auto" button functional only in Vx? thanks.

The "auto" function is auto-down-only for all variants below VX, auto-up and auto-down for VX.

[kbishwa]

Happy to see the sales figure for BRV in Mar'17 at 1436 (which is just lower than a so called true small SUV Duster at 1566) against only 703 in Feb'17. Compare this with sale of Tata Hexa at only 940, down from 1026 in Feb.
The number is pretty good and could have been better as I feel that WRV could have eaten some share of BRV.

[harishnavuluru]

Originally Posted by kalleo4

Ashwin.. I Hope, thats what you were asking for..

This is my first post on Team-BHP. I have tried my best to remove the Mobilio look from my BRV. This is how it looks like now. Please let me know your thoughts

Not even sure if the attached pic is visible. Apologize if it is not visible.