Team-BHP - Honda Elevate Review

Got a chance to visit Honda showroom today in Bangalore.

And guess what, the showroom was bustling with customers and all were interested in Elevate. Honda brand does seem to carry weight and aspirational value in India.

As of now this showroom has got 500+ bookings of Elevate and are now commanding 5-6 months of wait time.

Didn't get a chance to test drive Elevate as all test drive slots were pre booked. So test drove Honda City Manual and saw Elevate and came back.

Bottom Line on Top: For the first time buyers and people upgrading from hatch, Elevate is a perfect family car (wife, kid and parents) and for bachelor's for use in city and who want to make some outstation trips during weekends with close friends.

Now here is the comparison between Elevate, Honda City and my Hexa XT (considering Elevate performance will be similar to Honda City).

The moment you step in to Elevate you appreciate the commanding view from the driver seat. But if you compare with Hexa you immediately feel it's a step down. The luxury quotient is less and the material felt sub par. Though the features are more than Hexa, this is expected considering the fact that Hexa is a 6 years old.

The under thigh support of both front and rear seats is less than Hexa (and Honda City too). Car doors felt heavy but while closing, I felt that there is something missing. Can't exactly put finger on it.

Elevate as a standalone package punches above its weight and that's where it's advantage is. Add to that Honda's reliability and it's global brand value.

Now, with very low expectations I stepped in to Honda City ZX model (please see this is my first encounter with new Honda City after 3G variant) and man I was blown away.

Every thing oozes class, the front seats had proper under thigh support with amazing seat contours, the rear seat is like sofa with proper back angle and under thigh support. The doors close with proper thud and this brings confidence, music system is good and the iVTEC is a gem of an engine. Compared to Hexa the interiors were at par.

I didn't like the low end torque initially (may be I am spoilt by Varicor torque) but got used to it. Had told sales executive to bring Honda City CVT for test drive next week.

I would say, in Elevate, Honda has brought a product which will satisfy most of the people. And will attract people to its showroom and may even help to boost City and Amaze sales.

If you are considering Elevate then please evaluate it with open mind and don't have any pre conceived opinions. Unlearn, test drive and learn and see if you like it or not. Then only come to conclusion.

Next few months of Elevate sales will give us clear picture and trend.

But overall it seems genuine effort from Honda.

-PK

Yesterday, we had a quick look on the Elevate again (This time together as a family, in Kerala, and everyone seemed to be impressed with the car, but the Front seating position felt very awkward and set very low and didn't feel very comfortable, especially for my brother who is taller than the rest of our family.

And then I forced my dad to give the Seltos a chance, and we test-drove the Seltos HTX Manual at Incheon Kia, and boy was everyone surprised, the Kia felt more refined and silent in the cabin, the cabin felt better put together, and the seating was way more comfortable and felt almost similar to the Ecosport we drive now. The engine didn't feel like it lacked 5-6 bhp as compared to the Elevate and also, the paint quality felt better than the Elevate ( Maybe my inexperienced eye couldn't differentiate very well ? Please do help me with this point ).
These observations were precisely given by BHPian 'Mayjay' as well, and after reading his post, I felt the seltos felt better too. The extra 60-70k premium over the Elevate seems to be justified as the Kia feels like a more premium offering overall.

But my parents wouldn't consider the Kia despite the better seating, better interiors and a quieter cabin. So here we were, fixing that the Honda would be our next car just because it's ' A new car' and it's more sensible, but I'm afraid once the Initial hype is over, the Elevate would be run over by the new Creta, Seltos or even the Nexon.

Quote:

Originally Posted by A_Abhiraam (Post 5627307)

Yesterday we had a quick look on the Elevate again( This time togather as a family , in Kerala ) and everyone seemed to br impressed with the car , but the Front seating position felt very awkward and set very low and didn't feel very comfortable, especially for my brother who is taller than the rest of our family.

I am 5'11 with long legs and when I test drove the Elevate I did not find much issues with either the front seat itself or the knee room (I have issues in some other cars like Harrier/Safari with my knees touching the lower dashboard panel, but not in Elevate).

However the seat base could have been longer to provide more underthigh support, but its not deal breaker (atleast for me).

BTW did you try adjusting the seat height ? I found the seat height adjustment to have good range and I only needed to push the seat height a couple of levels up from the lowest position to have a comfortable view of the road ahead.

Quote:

Originally Posted by outdoorlover (Post 5627080)

The hump has the differential below. Honda couldnot avoid it as they increased their ground clearance already and the body would have gone even higher had they tried to avoid the hump, thereby pushing the CG too high and hence the vehicle would have become unstable. And the simple answer to your question is no, you can't get the bump removed as you understand the technicalities involved above.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sanchari (Post 5627094)

The original poster was asking about the bump in the rear seat , the middle portion is raised in rear seat making it an effective 2 seater only. I don’t think he was referring to bump in the floor , the reason for which you explained in the post

Quote:

Originally Posted by pannags (Post 5627096)

Certainly possible and can be done at a place that does good quality seat work. Will cost you a good deal as the cushioning and outer cover will have to be redone. You can also choose to get a head rest done.

I guess the reference was to the seat bump and not the transmission bump :)

Apologies for misunderstanding the question. While the hump in the floor cannot be remedied, the bump in the seat certainly can be lol:. Dont know why Honda overlooked the utility of the middle seat while designing it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DCEite (Post 5627408)

Thank you sir for the response , the driver seat is okay , the adjustment gives sufficient height to be able to see well, but still the seltos feels better ( from the standpoint of the Ecosport) , however it was the passenger seat that was a bit low set. The rear seat however is good , but would be used only occasionally as my dad drives and my mom is usually in the passenger seat these days. It's only when all 4 of us are together.

Just took a test-drive of the Elevate from Dakshin Honda, Hosur road Bangalore and my quick observations after a test drive of the Elevate ZX CVT.

1. Seating position, Space and visibility: I'm 5'8" and it did take me some time to find my ideal seating position. You almost walk and slide into the car seat and I felt ingress/egress would be good for senior citizens as well.

The seats felt well-cushioned, but I would have liked a bit more under-thigh support and lumbar support. Especially the later was a bit more discernible as soon as I started driving.

Visibility all around is great. Like many have mentioned before, the view with the bonnet stretching out in front of you is an immensely satisfying one.

However, the space offered is ostensibly lesser than on the Seltos. The Seltos' panoramic sunroof, width on offer and the quality of the interiors uplifts the entire ambience of the cabin to a degree that the Elevate will never be able to.

2. Plastics, interior quality: The VX was on display and it did feel a step down in terms of interior quality of plastics - hard plastics abound. The ZX with it's leatherette finish felt much better. But, we checked out the City ZX as well and it felt far better than the Elevate in terms of the soft touch materials and the general roominess of the cabin due to the lighter colors.

I am not sure whether there is any correlation between the door's thud sound and the actual build quality, but the Elevate's doors felt far slightly heavier and closed with a reassuring thud, more so than the Maruti-Toyota cousins. Here again, I felt the City's doors were thicker and slightly heavier than the Elevate.

The CVT drive selector however, felt crude and plasticky to operate. Perhaps long term use might make it smoother, who knows !

3. Drive and ride quality: The engine was very silent upon start. Upon hard acceleration, the rubber band effect was evident, and the engine noise filters inside the cabin, throwing all impressions of good NVH out of the window. It settles down quickly though and to me, it didn't feel like gaining speeds were an agonizing wait away. The roads were empty though so for overtakes, plan you must ! That also meant I couldn't test how resistant the cabin insulation is, to outside vehicle and traffic noise.

Here's the clincher though. Once the engine realizes it needs to attain higher speeds, the way the Elevate gained those speeds and it's stability at speeds above 80 kmph speeds felt extremely confidence inspiring.

And at lower speeds, the high ground clearance meant that you don't have to think twice about crossing ungainly speed breakers and deep potholes. What a relief on the roads of Bangalore !

Extended warranty for an additional 2 years comes at around 19k and seems like a steal.
One thing that I was pondering about, was the terrific value proposition of the vehicle, especially if a Bangalore resident gets a BH series registration from outside and avoids the humongous 3L up-front Karnataka road tax.

Sub-par showroom experience
I had pre-booked the Honda Elevate, and I spent upwards of an hour at the showroom but nobody attended to us to explain the vehicle's features or to talk to us about financing or waiting periods.

Since we were with a hungry bunch of kids, I went to politely inquire about tea or coffee at the pantry and was promptly turned down. Just a few min later, the lady operating the pantry walked with cups of coffee and offered it to the employees only. In all fairness, we were offered bottles of water though, but that was the peak of their hospitality.

Afterwards, we were treated like one more item, waiting to be crossed off the checklist of test-drive awaiting prospects.

Even during the test-drive, I asked about ADAS activation and how to test it out, and the showroom person accompanying us was clueless, he'd never heard of ADAS or emergency braking ! And thus, I came away without getting to test out some of the key USPs of the product.

What an absolute downer, Dakshin Honda !

Quote:

Originally Posted by capnemo (Post 5627477)

Just took a test-drive of the Elevate from Dakshin Honda, Hosur road Bangalore and my quick observations after a test drive of the Elevate ZX CVT.

What an absolute downer, Dakshin Honda !

Not just Dakshin. I visited the magnum Honda on Kanakapura road on a weekday. Nobody bothered to ask why I was there and if i was checking out the car or if i wanted a test drive, nobody bothered to take my details for follow up etc. There were a few people and i do not remember any sales executive coming up to talk about the car.

I guess Honda must have trained their dealers sales executives not to bother about customers. They are under the impression that the car will sell by word of mouth and no sales effort is required. This is the first time i have ever visited a Honda showroom and it was not a pleasant experience.

Just putting up balloons will not help !

Quote:

Originally Posted by NFS2024 (Post 5627977)

Sad. I made a call to Magnum Mekhri circle today, requesting a chat with a sales advisor, and nobody called me back.

When I made the pre-booking at Dakshin, the sales advisor was an earnest and sincere chap who atleast guided me on the City's featureset and kept me updated on dates about the Elevate's unveil, launch and booking. I learnt on the day of the test-drive that he no longer works there.

Now I wonder how the post-booking and service experience might be with these vendors.

I have my booking with Dakshin Honda Hosur road, they never called to see the vehicle or for test drive, however, I had a pleasant experience with Magnum Honda, Kanakapura road, I got call to see the vehicle even though I didn’t have my booking there and also took the test drive after waiting for 30 mins (may be because I went almost at closing hours on Saturday, there was no much crowd).

After the test drive, with heavy heart I cancelled my Elevate booking:

My reasons to cancel:

Rear seat width is just not enough for 3 adults, no headrest or seat belt for middle passenger, hump on middle seat makes it difficult, shockingly sales team asks me to modify the seat to remove hump - with all this, Honda audaciously calls it 5 seater
It is not an upgrade from Duster AMT except for interiors and limited technology
Wife didn't like the engine grunt when revved, it was too noisy (she will be with me during most road trips, so I have to consider her dislikes as well)
Side profile looks small, like the Nissan Magnite. Duster looks much bolder and bigger
40 ltrs fuel tank means frequent trips to fuel station
Elevated footwell created even more low under thigh support
My left leg (below knee) was scraping console, created discomfort while driving
Some pretty basic things missing: Illuminated windows buttons, better horn, TPMS, sliding drivers armrest, better designed AC vents

I feel it is good for:

First time SUV Buyers or who is upgrading from hatch
Someone ok for 4 seater with Honda's reliability, sensible features and ease of maintenance
Relaxed driving, mostly for city usage with occasional highways

It is very good at what it is designed/targeted for, it would have its own customers like VW twins.

Few cars lined up for delivery:

Honda Elevate Review-honda-elevate2.jpeg

My next options (Budget: 20L-25L):

Toyota Hyryder Mild Hybrid (boot is small 373 ltrs - compromise:unhappy)
Facelifted Harrier (Max budget)
XUV7OO AX5 D AT (Max budget)

Quote:

Originally Posted by capnemo (Post 5627477)

What an absolute downer, Dakshin Honda !

Quote:

Originally Posted by NFS2024 (Post 5627977)

This is the first time i have ever visited a Honda showroom and it was not a pleasant experience.

Quote:

Originally Posted by capnemo (Post 5628297)

I made a call to Magnum Mekhri circle today, requesting a chat with a sales advisor, and nobody called me back.

My interaction with Magnum has been quite positive, starting from the point I pre-booked the car and up until the price announcement. It's apparent that Honda didn't anticipate such a response to the Elevate.

This situation reminds me of a similar experience I had back in 2013 when the EcoSport was launched. At that time, the wait times stretched to a whopping 10 months, although I don't believe the Elevate is coming anywhere close.

Nevertheless, the advisor assigned to me, though not as proactive as before, has remained consistently responsive and supportive.

In the grand scheme of things, I'd advise to look beyond the sales experience and choose based on your preferences and priorities. Once that shiny new car leaves the showroom, chances are you'll rarely cross paths with the sales folks again. Honda service, while not the best in business, is certainly consistently above average.