Team-BHP - Honda Elevate Review

Quote:

Originally Posted by Redline6800 (Post 5608424)

Rear seat comfort was excellent for my height of 6.1 and 88 kg weight, though leg room was not as lavish as the City.

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Originally Posted by specialist1968 (Post 5608808)

Seats lack legroom Particularly the front passenger seats are low and you end up sitting in a couching position without full thigh support (I am 6ft tall). If you pull the seat back, the rear legroom is compromised. Dashboard plastic looked cheap. Even my 2011 swift has much better plastic. Back seat comfort is also not great.

Reading two contrasting reviews about the rear seat comfort from people who are 6 ft tall! I am a 6 footer too and I am confused now! I look forward to checking out the Elevate in person soon and arrive at my own conclusion!:)

Visited a Honda showroom here in West Hyderabad.
A little bit background about my interest on Honda Elevate. I currently own a used Ford Figo 2015 model (1.5l TDCI) which I had been using almost for the last 2 years as my first car. It's a decent car, but definitely not for long highway drives. I've been passive-aggressively looking for a replacement which would allow me to munch more and more kms on weekend long drives and short vacations. I'm almost 5'11" with a heavy build. I recently drove my BIL's Skoda Kushaq 1.0 TSI manual on the Bengaluru-Mysuru expressway and boy it was fun. I also did a small stretch from Mysuru to Brindavan Gardens and I really liked the Kushaq. Though it looks a bit smaller for the SUV name it has, overall I really liked the car. It has a solid build, the door thud was amazing. My BIL bought it in Jan 2022, but I assume prices of Kushaq have increased significantly after that.
I also really liked Slavia and Virtus. My preferences both in terms of the driveability and price would fit the CSUV segment or with sedans like Slavia/Virtus/City.
I rule out the Korean twins (Hyundai, Kia) and the Japanese brothers (Suzuki, Toyota) for their bad build quality and making cars look like electronic gadgets with so many useless features (Koreans). Don't have a great impression on other brands like MG, Citroen etc.

Having said the above, I was eagerly awaiting Elevate's release. Booked the ZX CVT dual color red, black and the assigned SA was prompt to get the details from me. He told he'll inform me once a car comes to them for display. He didn't do that yet, but I visited the showroom on Saturday morning around 10 AM. It was rainy and a bit too gloomy in Hyderabad that day.
There was a ZX Manual White on display. First impressions were that it looked like a smaller car for the dimensions it had. The quality of the doors were definitely worse than the German/Czech stepbrothers. Interiors with those hard plastics and the wooden insert didn't really impress me. The seats were comfortable with a high seating position for the driver with the bonnet visible. Thigh support is just okay. Didn't really like the steering, but nothing to complain either. The gear shift is from 2023 BC. TBH, I was gutted seeing that.
Due to the smaller glass area on the doors, the interior felt a little smaller than it's supposed to look. Middle seat in the rear is not good. The arm rest and the bump in the floor only adds to the misery. There was ample legroom to spread your legs both in the front and the rear. My family of four shouldn't have a problem with this car even in the long run. The boot was huge and good. The front grille, made of plastic is flimsy.

The SA told me that this will be priced at least a lakh lesser than the corresponding city Variant. But Elevate has features like ADAS only on the high end variant, but City has it in from the Base + 1 variant. I felt that City's VX CVT is better than the Elevate ZX Manual/CVT.
He also talked about 600+ bookings they got and other are only allotted 50 or so by HCIL.

I'm sleepy now and will continue my rant tomorrow.

Had a look at an 'Elevate' at Whitefield Honda

In my personal opinion:

Pros - Butch looking
Cons - Everything else! :thumbsdown

The vehicle is smaller than what it appears in the pictures, driver's seat is comfortable, but there is not not enough leg room, the rear seats are good only for two people, inclination too much for my liking and not adjustable, the fit and finish leave a lot to be desired.

I fail to understand why Honda is harping about the largest boot space when there isin't sufficient passenger space!

If I ever buy a Honda, it'll be a City, not an Elevate. The City is light years ahead!
If I am serious about a mini SUV, it'll either be a Creta or a Seltos, probably even a Grand Vitara.

I would compare a Honda Elevate with a Maruti Brezza, and not with a Creta or Seltos. On that note, unless the pricing is in line with a Brezza, I will cancel my booking and go in for one of the Korean twins ;)

Quote:

Originally Posted by cruise4control (Post 5608863)

Right after the Honda showroom visit to look at the Elevate, I visited a nearby Tata showroom to understand about Nexon facelift. The SA outright denied that there's a facelift coming in 2023. It may be 2024 or later. I told him honestly that I'm only interested in the DCT version of Nexon facelift. He gave me the current Nexon's price chart and his contact number to reach out. Tata showroom I visited was small and was almost like a busy weekend market with so many SAs and customers. I lost half my interest there. There was no ICE Nexon to look at. He asked me to check out the EV Max variant on display. Once I entered the vehicle and adjusted the front seats to my height, the seating comfort in the back was disastrous for me. The SA told that this is an EV and with the battery pack below, the floor is raised and hence the discomfort in the back. He assured that the ICE version's backseat comfort is good and better than the EV. When I was moving in the backseat, my head did hit the roof once. Kind of lost the good impression I had for Nexon, but I'll give another shot.
I definitely have a soft corner for Kushaq too, but I'm waiting for them to up their game with ADAS. While they announced in May this year that they'd love to include the active safety features like ADAS, I don't know when those will be added and what that does to the price.

All in all, I'm left hanging in a tricky space with my next car purchase. I have no SUV which ticks even 75% of my requirements. I'm not hellbent on an SUV, so it looks as if Honda City 5th Gen VX seems to be the best bet. Will wait for Elevate pricing and TD to decide which one to go for.

I saw Honda Elevate at Whitefield Honda Bangalore yesterday.

My observations:
1. At 6'3, I could fit in all the four seats. The driver seat has about 2-3 inches of headroom (seat all the way down) and the rear seat has ample (4-5").
2. The co-driver seat is okay for my height if I kept my legs closer to each other and straight. If i keep it wider, the right shin bone touches the dash and can be quite painful if hit upon sudden braking.
3. Quality of plastic used is average - in particular the area below the hand brake and the centre AC vents.
4. Rear seat under thigh support is slightly less for my height.
5. The rubber beading is on the door frame as opposed to on the doors in the City. Did back to back checks between the two. Satisfied with it, but noise insulation felt poorer than my Ertiga.
6. The sales team seems to have been trained well on the possible questions on lack of certain features. He wasn't overtly defensive and called out the gaps, as they were.
7. Mentioned that all the pre booking before unveil (300-400) should likely be delivered by November.
8 No visibility given on my position in the booking order/ queue.
9. They are waiting for accesories list, but he mentioned that TPMS and possibly ventilated seats could be offered as accessories!(?).
10. Headroom and legroom wise, found this better than all the other options in this segment.

I visited Cherish Honda in Gurgaon last weekend to view the Honda Elevate. I also took the opportunity to explore the showrooms of Hyundai and Kia on the same day, where I had a closer look at the Seltos and Creta models. Here are a few observations from my visit:

On first glance, the Elevate appeared substantial and exuded a masculine aura. It has all the required features required for a sedate city driver like me.

While I had always heard concerns about the build quality and safety of the Seltos/Creta models, I found that they actually exhibited better build quality than the Elevate and seemed much safer in comparison.

Interestingly, there were far fewer visitors exploring the Elevate compared to the Seltos. I dedicated at least 30 minutes to each showroom.

The Honda City, positioned beside the Elevate, seemed more appealing in terms of build quality, space, and features.

I experienced some discomfort while sitting in the driver's seat with the seat set at a mid-level height. I should mention that my height is 6.1 feet.

Curiously, even with all the doors and windows locked, I could distinctly hear the "Honda City delivery" congratulatory song from inside the Elevate!

The Elevate is unquestionably designed as a four-seater car.

I have already booked the white VX CVT model, although I might consider canceling the booking if the on-road price surpasses 16 Lakh.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jms353 (Post 5607809)

I own a Kushaq 1.0 TSI AT and am tempted to switch to the elevate. Havn't seen or test driven it since its not yet in showrooms here in Pune. The aspects that seem attractive in comparison to Kushaq are smoothness of NA engine compared to head-nod for passengers that 1.0 turbo causes especially in slow moving city traffic, and the softer seat cushioinig and plusher ride quality. All of this of course I need to personally vet with a test drive. But I my guess is as a highway vehicle the Kushaq would come out better in terms of power and feeling planted. And the other big aspect is CVT vs AT. I also own a Brio 1.2 AT and feel that torque converters are the best type of auto to own. So have to wait and see how the CVT performs in Elevate.

So I checked out the Elevate in person today in Pune (no test drive though).

TLDR - I came away with a renewed appreciation for the Kushaq - "Ghar ki murgi daal barabar".

Details - I decided not to pursue the Elevate any further mainly due to the rear seats, and also to an extent the front passenger seat. The driver seat is fine (though still not as great as the Kushaq). But the rear seats have weird ergonomics. I'm 5'6" so pretty average or below average height. In the rear seats in the Elevate you sit in a sort of crouching position. And its not just about the under thigh support (which is lesser than Kushaq) but rather the floor to seat height. In the Kushaq rear seats my under thighs are flat against the seats and not hovering in the air. The seats are very well designed and of course the under thigh support is excellent and extends up to the back of the knees in the Kushaq. Similar crouching issue is present to an extent in the Elevate front passenger seat too. Also the Elevate rear middle seat bump is a bit too "elevated" for my liking.

Besides the seats other aspects of the Elevate -

Interior quality is nice, material quality is good
Seat cushioning is comfy
The tan color felt darker than I had imagined
Carplay worked well the touch response and sharpness is similar to Kushaq. But the shape of the display is an elongated short rectangle rather than the more squarish on Kushaq. Prefer the Kushaq's it feels a lot bigger even though its the same 10" size.

I went to see the car in flesh last weekend at the Honda showroom near Rohini, Delhi.
Car looks good from outside and inside too it seemed nice.
What I liked about the car was how ‘airy’ it felt from inside and had good knee room especially in the backseat.
However, one thing to note is that the sales representative was not optimistic about a hybrid engine coming up in Elevate. He was telling me it’s more likely we’ll get to see EV version of Elevate.
I cannot stress enough how important it is to bring a hybrid in this car but how Honda has handled its business in India, I am sure they won’t listen to their customer

Visited the showroom to checkout the Elevate, here are some observations from the POV of Jazz(sold), Scross and a vento owner.

1. The car looks proportionate from rear and sides. The front looks a little bit narrow-ish probably due to the large grill and tall front profile ?

2. The driving position is commanding and the steering feels good to hold however the leather quality is not as premium as the VW/Skoda group cars.

3. Rear Seat under thigh support is a little lacking, knee room is good, back rest angle and seat cushioning are good. My height for reference is 5'11".

4. The boot is large however the loading lip quite big, the seats have 60:40 split but they dont lay flat with the boot floor. My Scross is far more superior/practical in these aspects.

5. The tyres are 215/55 R17 iirc, the one i saw was the ZX manual version and it came shod with Bridgestone Turanza. I remember my Jazz had Michelin XM2s! The Bridgestone is definitely going to be better than Ceats and JKs. Well done honda clap:

Some other miscellaneous points that i would like to add- The door levers are not metal/brushed metal hence felt cheap. The roof liner just behind the sunroof felt very thin, hollow-ish and had too much flex, couldn't check how it felt ahead of the sunroof. No rear sun blinds, no usb charging socket for rear passenger.

From my discussion with the sales advisor, car will be available for test drive from 1st of September and price reveal will be on the 6th of september. Rough estimate given by him for ZX variant is around 17L for manual and 19L for CVT, assuming it to be On Road price. Also heard him telling some other prospective buyer that allocation of CVTs to the dealerships is lesser than manual atleast for now.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shreyans_Jain (Post 5608232)

Overall, while Honda seems to have made a decent product, there is plenty of cost cutting that is visible to any existing City owner. The car reeks of the Gen4 City and Amaze, and many hard learnt lessons have clearly not been heeded to here. The salesperson recognised me as a regular visitor (my cars have been serviced there for over a decade now). He agreed with the criticism and said “Sir wait for the price. All your complaints will go away after seeing the price”. I’d better hope so, for if this is priced even close to Seltos, it will be a hard sell. And had they offered the hybrid, it would have just killed the overpriced GV and Hyryder hybrids.

Thanks for the short but important points of Elevate. :thumbs up

I can understand and living with the absence of door rubber beading, wheel cladding and poor roof liner which doesn’t prevent outside noise from seeping inside cabin. Especially during speeds above 80kms, rainy condition and bad roads. All these are absent in my Amaze and present in Civic. Apart from being a petrol engine, the civic is absolutely silent in highway cruising speeds. And that makes a major difference and more enjoyable drive.

Even though they introduce Elevate with lesser price compare to Gen 5 city. Prospective Honda owners who has experienced poor NVH in older cars will consider this while purchasing.