[spadix]

Originally Posted by spadix

I don't have the pictures from this trip with me right now -- I'll post them in a subsequent post.

BQ parked at the APTDC Haritha parking lot. Every time I look at BQ from this angle the loss of those chrome exhaust tips haunts me.

As you can make out from this picture and subsequent pictures, the weather was just beautiful.


My parents in the children's play area of the restaurant .


This is the condition of the road beyond the 4-lane. It's not bad at all, but it's not great either.


As I said during the description of the ride to Bengaluru and back, no trip in India is complete without an enjoyable sight like this!

Originally Posted by spadix

To be continued ...

In the previous post I concentrated more on the journey itself, so I'll dedicate this post to the car. These descriptions are getting very close to being travelogues, but my trips are so simple and uninteresting that it'll be an insult to the Travelogues section if I post these accounts there.

I'll just add one point about the Ashoka Rock Garden just after crossing Nizamabad enroute Basar. It's a nicely developed picnic spot with interesting rock formations. It's got a functional restaurant and sits alongside a lake which offers boat rides. There's a statue of goddess Saraswati standing in the middle of the lake. All in all, a nice one-hour break for the family. The park entry fees and boat ride fees are very nominal. The operators want 10 people before they ride the boat out - something worth bearing in mind. I've got some interesting pictures from here too (especially one of a tree that seems to grow out of a rock!) but I'll not "pollute" this thread with more travelogue-style pictures.

On the way back, we stopped again at the APTDC restaurant for (a late) lunch. To keep us company there was the local MLA and his posse of security guards and "followers". These are the typical "I don't care about anyone else" type of people - who wouldn't turn off the taps after washing up and would drive their Scorpios rashly to merge with the highway with little regard to approaching highway traffic.

Now I'll get back to the car.

Sitting at the rear
After the lunch I was feeling pretty stuffed and sleepy. In any case as per the unwritten contract it was now time for my wife to drive till we hit city limits again. As I was feeling sleepy I chose to sit in the rear.

To be frank I never *really* sat in the rear seat of the Civic so far. With my wife drawing up the driver's seat almost all the way forward, I was just blown away with the amount of leg space I had! Even with the seat pulled all the way back there's enough space that you won't sit with your knees knocking against the back of the front seat (unless you're 6 feet and above). But the maximum leg room is simply, stunningly impressive.

The rear center arm rest and seat belt were very comfortable to use and at this point nothing could, in theory, have stopped me from going to sleep. Combine the plush comfort offered by the seat and the available space, the smooth divided 4-lane and the smooth, noise/vibration-free nature of the ride and it's perfect sleeping pill if your tummy is full and you woke up at the crack of dawn. However, I had the awesome weather (it had just started raining - quite heavily in fact) to appreciate and one thing I wanted to explore.

Rear center armrest-mounted audio controls
This was the time to put the audio controls inside the rear center arm rest to use. Honda in their infinite wisdom has not equipped the Civic with steering wheel-mounted audio controls and I have absolutely no clue why. Be that as it may, I wanted to see if the owner of the car (as Honda has envisioned him/her) would be happy with what's available at arm's reach in the rear seat.

The answer, unfortunately, is no. At least when an MP3 player is on duty (either over CD or AUX). The rear controls only allow volume up/down, channel up/down and mode switch. If you're playing AM/FM, channel up/down makes sense. If you're playing audio CDs, channel up/down cycles you through the songs instead. However, if you've got an MP3 player or CD where you've organized MP3s into various directories/folders, you *have* to use the dash-mounted controls to switch between folders! The channel up/down button still only switches between songs in the current folder, and the mode switch button takes you away from CD/AUX to radio. Similarly, the rear controls offer no way of changing the browsing mode from, say, 'Artist' to 'Album' or 'Genre' or 'Song', if you're playing songs off an Apple i<device>.

This is a serious oversight from the point-of-view of a rear arm rest implementation of audio controls. It's OK to miss these controls on the steering wheel, because the dash-mounted controls are situated close by. However, buttons have to be provided for these things in the rear controls. I hope Honda fixes this in future models. Of course, if they have the good sense to fix this they should ideally provide controls on the steering wheel itself and stop thinking of the Civic as a chauffeur-driven car only. Or maybe provide "parallel" connections to satisfy both self- and chauffeur-driven customers.

Seating comfort for middle-aged (and older) people
I could see this coming but I didn't expect it to happen over a relatively short (400 kms round-trip) trip. It's a known fact that the Civic's low seating isn't very elderly-friendly. My mother is 52 and suffers from a little bit of arthritis. The 400 km round-trip was too much for her and while she's extremely pleased with the smoothness and feeling of luxury provided by BQ, the seating position, height and knee angle meant she will not sit in BQ for extended periods of time again. We have a ~1700-km round-trip planned in December and I was hoping my parents would join once again. That won't happen now. Mom will take the train and obviously Dad accompanies her :(.

Last but not the least...
4 people. A little bit of luggage. Not very smooth roads 50% of the way. 4 railway crossings and a busy town or two to cross. This should've been the perfect recipe for a few belly scrapes but BQ surprised us all with some really good manners and behaviour over even the bigger 'breakers we encountered enroute. There's one really nasty speed-breaker followed by a deep pothole very close to my parents' place and I avoided that by taking a slight detour.

All in all, a very stress-free and relaxed trip. I remember how my previous visits to Basar (one of them was by car - a Premier Padmini) were all but easy. Once again, the first 100 kms of the NH7 and BQ came to the rescue.

I concluded the day by heading over to Ani's (MileCruncher around here) place for the Hyd TBHP meet where I boasted about BQ's ability to carry a full load without scraping her belly. Over the next couple of days this boastfulness came back to haunt me. I'll recount those incidents and round up the "First 100 days" account by talking about the before and after aspects of the 2nd free service.

Regards,
spadix

[spadix]

BQ was delivered on 31st July, so the second free service as per Honda's schedule fell due on 31st August. Actually, Honda recorded the date of delivery as 27th July for some reason, so I got a call from Pride Honda Service on the 28th (if I remember correctly) asking if I would like to schedule a service appointment. So far so good. I made an appointment for Sunday (31 October) which would be the day just after the trip.

However, some work cropped up and we needed to have the car on hand till 2nd Nov., so I held off on giving the car in on Sunday.

On the 31st we visited Big Bazaar in Ameerpet. The Big Bazaar car parking exit features a monster climb of two levels followed by a huge hump at the end of the ramp. I had no clue about this and even at an exit speed of around 5 kmph BQ suffered a medium intensity scrape throughout the length of the wheelbase ! This was just what I was referring to at the end of the previous post.

Anyway, on Nov. 3rd I dropped BQ in at Pride Honda. The reading on the odo was 5054.1 when I dropped the car in. Earlier in this thread I said I'd give BQ to Sundaram for the 2nd free service, but practical reasons meant I had to go back to Pride (and hope for the best).

Just for the record, here are the things I reported in the first free service along with their resolution/recurrence status -

1. Clutch pedal squeaks when depressed - Resolved
2. Bad odour from AC vents immediately after AC is switched on (cold start) - Resolved, but began making a reappearance in a very minor way (we really had to observe keenly) when the due date for the 2nd service came aroud
3. Slight squeak from wiper blades when there is very little water on the windscreen - Resolved
4. Parcel tray rattle (rear left) - Resolved and recurred around a month before the 2nd service was due

When I walked into Pride Honda service the reception was along expected lines. It seems like everyone is falling head over heels to take care of your case but actually the process is very inefficient. I had to actually ask the receptionist again during a period when everything was calm and finally a service advisor was assigned to me.

I think most people would be reasonably happy with this level of service but I come from a history of being pampered by Maruti Authorized Service Stations, where even when I drove in with an 800, a service advisor would be ready and waiting to open my door for me with a job card ready in his hand. I've been spoilt by Maruti, and Honda is rapidly bringing me back to ground realities :(.

There were a total of 11 complaints I had about the car for the 2nd free service. The list of problems I reported to the service advisor were as follows -

1. Car pulls to the left sometimes - no pattern detected
2. Steering wheel vibration at speeds above 150 kmph
3. Slight vibration can be felt at idle - didn't exist earlier, becomes negligible after really long drive
4. Parcel tray rattle (rear left)
5. Bad odour from AC vents on a cold start
6. Repeated scrapes to underbody (also check if underbody anti-rust coat was really done)
7. Dashboard or steering wheel horn boss rattle
8. Gap between roof and panel above window on right rear door
9. Wipers leave streaks on the windscreen and don't clean thoroughly
10. Horn boss loose contact - horn doesn't sound sometimes when the button is pressed
11. Flapping noise from engine especially when AC compressor is engaged

As soon as I got the service advisor assigned I requested them to put the car on the ramp and lift it up so I could inspect the underside. They did this (to give credit where it's due, this is one thing I really like Pride Honda Service for -- they don't complain about these requests or don't brush them off saying "Sir, we'll take care of all this. Please don't worry!"). I could make out the under-body anti-rust coating. It had very nicely covered those big scrapes from the first few days of ownership. Those initial scrapes looked really, really bad the last time I inspected the car's underside. Now the underside was all covered with that anti-rust material, with only the evidence of the latest scrape from Big Bazaar being visible. The technicians all said there's nothing to worry about and the under-body looked in good shape.

The service advisor offered to "top up" (free of cost) the anti-rust coating at those places which got scratched because of the recent scrape. I gave him the go-ahead (why would I not agree?!). The technicians said the car looked in great shape and I needn't worry about the scratches. Of course I still have this nagging feeling that the steel structure/cage must've got weakened at least by a little bit because of all those hits.

The service advisor and I had a little chat about the issues as he was recording them. He said he'd never in his life seen a Civic with so many issues being reported by its owner . I told him I am very particular about the issues I have with my vehicles and leave no stone unturned at least when it comes to identifying and reporting issues. Of course I have little control of what gets fixed and how. He was telling me that, given how new the car is, it's very unlikely that there's something fundamentally wrong with the car (with regards to the car veering to the left and steering wheel vibrations etc.) and that it was most likely caused by bad road surfaces. I agreed with him but I wanted them to check anyway, just to be sure.

Having had my fingers burnt last time, I told the service advisor that if they detect the need for any wheel balancing and alignment (potentially expensive stuff) they should first call me before proceeding to work on the car and then surprising me with the bill. They assured me that that is how it always works, and then I had to recount my experience during the 1st free service with the whole under-body anti-rust coating thing. They then said they'll really ensure this time that I'm called before any chargeable work is done.

I hoped for the best, ensured everything was in order on the copy of the job card I received, and walked out.

Regards,
spadix

[spadix]

I got a little impatient when I didn't get a call back even by 5 pm. The service center closes at 7 pm and it's half an hour away from home. Allowing for some time for the inspection, I decided to call them up a little after 6 pm to find out whether BQ was ready for delivery.

I was told that the car was just getting washed and I could come and pick it up in half an hour's time. I was also very happy to hear that the bill came to a big fat zero! I hoped that of the 11 problems I had reported more than most would've been fixed satisfactorily. I enquired if anyone would be around beyond 7 pm and the service advisor said he'd wait for me till 7:30 pm. I had a couple of errands to run and was very relieved to hear this. Somehow I just couldn't bear the thought of leaving BQ overnight at their yard, even though I knew it's perfectly safe!

After reaching the service center (around 7 pm) I sought my service advisor and immediately asked to take a look at the car and check if everything was alright. Given the time of year and the time of day it was already dark - not the best conditions to really inspect the car.

I started checking all the stuff that I had left inside the car, including the fuel level and generally inspecting it for cleanliness. The fuel level was obviously down. The odo read 8 more than when I left BQ there in the morning, and I'm sure there must've been a fair bit of idling as well. However, the amount of fuel consumed - as evidenced by the fact that the yellow reserve warning light came on as soon as we pulled out a few minutes later - was a bit more than what I expected. BQ got her tankful on the way home.

BQ seemed to be reasonably clean, but there was not much I could make out in the darkness. The glasses seemed a bit hazy so I had the service advisor call over a person from the car wash section and had the windows cleaned once again.

The vent-mounted perfume bottle seemed to be missing, and upon searching for it we found it in the small glove compartment in front of the gearshift lever. The scent seemed to be pretty strong so some perfume definitely leaked out somewhere. I was worried whether the dashboard caught some of it, because the liquid is *very* corrosive. Again, I couldn't make much out in the dark and it was my mistake that I didn't bother to check thoroughly under the cabin lights. As it turns out, there was slight (area of around 10mm x 5mm) paint/finish damage to the dashboard just under the left-most vent. It's not very visible unless observed very closely, but I had to spend some time cleaning everything out once I reached home. Some liquid had spilled out into that little glove compartment as well but there was no damage there as the lining material in that cubbyhole is made of something else. As the scent was still very strong I didn't re-mount the perfume bottle back on at home. Right now I'm back to enjoying the new car smell as Honda intended it to be!

Based on the worksheet of the service center and on 3 weeks of driving around after the 2nd service, here's the status of the reported problems -

1. Car pulls to the left sometimes - no pattern detected - Service center testing didn't reveal any issues, seems to be a function of roads with bad camber
2. Steering wheel vibration at speeds above 150 kmph - Service center testing didn't reveal any issues, seems to be a function of bad road surfaces
3. Slight vibration can be felt at idle - didn't exist earlier, becomes negligible after really long drive - Not resolved, but service center testing reported no issues
4. Parcel tray rattle (rear left) - Not fixed/recurred
5. Bad odour from AC vents on a cold start - Fixed
6. Repeated scrapes to underbody (also check if underbody anti-rust coat was really done) - Could make out the anti-rust coating when BQ was raised on the ramp earlier in the day, and could only make out the latest couple of scratches over the coating
7. Dashboard or steering wheel horn boss rattle - Fixed, but a new squeak/rattle has developed over the last couple of days. Don't know if these two are related.
8. Gap between roof and panel above window on right rear door - Fixed
9. Wipers leave streaks on the windscreen and don't clean thoroughly - Fixed
10. Horn boss loose contact - horn doesn't sound sometimes when the button is pressed - Service center testing revealed no issues but I still face this issue from time to time
11. Flapping noise from engine especially when AC compressor is engaged - Not fixed, and service center couldn't quite understand what I was talking about. Do I have special ears? Maybe. Or maybe whatever I'm hearing is perfectly normal.

Regarding the loose contact of the horn boss, the service advisor asked me to monitor the situation over the next three months and said that Honda will replace the horn assembly under warranty (apparently no questions asked) if the problem persists. Let's see. The issue is that they're unable to reproduce it in their testing, so I don't know how they'll really verify my claim.

Earlier in the day the SA said he'd get the under-body anti-rust coating topped up in those areas which suffered fresh scratches. I asked him whether that was done. He said there weren't too many areas with deep scratches (I agreed with that assessment) so he advised me to wait until the third service and reassess the situation then.

All in all, it was an OK-ish experience with Pride Honda Service this time around compared to the 1st free service. While they tried to push some 3M body detailing work on to me I resisted and said I'll get body and paint touch-ups done once a year or a little less frequently than that.

The people are very courteous and friendly and listen patiently to everything you have to say. It's another matter that some of it doesn't get translated into work/output . As I said earlier I would've been absolutely happy with their display of the best intentions possible for their customers, if only I wasn't a customer of MUL before! Varun Maruti in Balanagar, Hyderabad consistently did a better, more thorough job on the old 800 than Pride is doing with BQ.

The attention to detail was at the same level as during the 1st service. I used to feel happy that at least the car itself is bullet-proof enough that it won't suffer (internal mechanical/electrical) damage due to rough handling, but there was always the danger of minor cosmetic damage. This time (the perfume liquid and dashboard bit) it was mostly my fault for leaving the bottle inside the car when I gave her in for service.

I didn't have the will to fight on whatever few issues I had as I considered them relatively minor. The major thing was that BQ felt (and still feels) just as good to drive now as it did earlier, there's zero damage to the wallet and really these two things are all that matter in the long run.

Regards,
spadix

[mobike008]

Prashant, thats some detailed feedback for preparations and subsequent feedback post the service. I am happy for you that everything is going smooth as butter and I am kind of envious of you for a couple of aspects.

One is your wife seems to enjoy driving as much as you do ( mine is rather the opposite) and secondly, you are getting chances one after the other to hit the highways ensuring you hit the 5K kms mark even though you buying the BQ much after my car.

I note that you seemed to have forgotten to update the FE that you have gotten for the last trip out of town and your city FE as well. Care to update the same?

Also, keen to know what other spends are planned for BQ in near future

[spadix]

Originally Posted by mobike008

Prashant, thats some detailed feedback for preparations and subsequent feedback post the service. I am happy for you that everything is going smooth as butter and I am kind of envious of you for a couple of aspects.

Thank you, Avi bhai! From the TBHP perspective, the Civic is an "old" car (c. 2006) and probably doesn't generate as much enthusiasm as some of the newer models. However, I believe in being as detailed as possible so that someone else who might want to buy a Civic gets some information and another perspective to base his/her decision on.

Originally Posted by mobike008

One is your wife seems to enjoy driving as much as you do ( mine is rather the opposite) and secondly, you are getting chances one after the other to hit the highways ensuring you hit the 5K kms mark even though you buying the BQ much after my car.

Thanks once again! The missus will quite like reading this. Unfortunately, she leaves all the start-stop in-city traffic navigation to me and snatches the keys from me when we hit the open road :(.

However, it makes highway driving really relaxed for us. We can go really long distances without theoretically taking long breaks!

By the way I think WA and BQ are separated only by 2-3 days. We took delivery of BQ on 31st July. I believe WA entered your life in the last week of July as well.

Right now I'm taking it a bit slow. The approach road to our house is now broken because of some HMWSSB works and I have to "off-road" to get out. I'm trying to avoid it as much as possible. The daily commute can't be avoided of course. Let's see how long the municipality work lasts.

In fact, here's a video (6.5 mins) of the route I need to take now to hit the main road -

YouTube - "Off-roading" in interior Deepthisri Nagar

Apologies for the bad audio and video quality. At the 04:27 mark you can hear the under-body hit BQ takes on this route.

Originally Posted by mobike008

I note that you seemed to have forgotten to update the FE that you have gotten for the last trip out of town and your city FE as well. Care to update the same?

The in-city FE ranges from anywhere between 9.7 to 10.7 kmpl depending on how much start-stop traffic BQ sees during that tankful. Those two are the worst/best I've seen over tankfuls, using the standard "yellow light to yellow light" or "auto-cutoff to auto-cutoff" measures.

On the highway the FE is at least 13.5 kmpl. I didn't measure exactly, but this is roughly the figure I got when I calculated the FE from both of the highway outings. Both of these involved a decent amount of in-town/city driving (12-15%).

Originally Posted by mobike008

Also, keen to know what other spends are planned for BQ in near future

I'm still very broke, and there's that horn issue which "might" get resolved under warranty. So once that is resolved, I plan to upgrade the headlights first and foremost. Wife has been asking for window tints, so that's on the cards sometime before summer hits.

I don't see a point in changing tyres right now. I'll wait until the current set of tyres live their lives out.

Oh by the way, I did order some car cleaning supplies from the US - a shampoo and some microfiber towels. I'll talk about them once I put them to good use!

Regards,
spadix

[vasoo]

Spadix, good to see some detailed notes about your car. I am too lazy to write anything even though my car has run about 8000 kms so far. And you seem to have a very keen eye/ear for finding out problems/rattles/issues. I never came across any issue with my car so far, even after driving a lot on pretty rough roads on my Mich PLCs during the last Kerala trip. Now another trip is in the offing during Xmas vacation, this time again to Kottayam, Trivandrum, Thekkady, Ponmudi etc....

[spadix]

Originally Posted by vasoo

Spadix, good to see some detailed notes about your car. I am too lazy to write anything even though my car has run about 8000 kms so far. And you seem to have a very keen eye/ear for finding out problems/rattles/issues. I never came across any issue with my car so far, even after driving a lot on pretty rough roads on my Mich PLCs during the last Kerala trip. Now another trip is in the offing during Xmas vacation, this time again to Kottayam, Trivandrum, Thekkady, Ponmudi etc....

Thanks for the compliments, vasoo! Enjoy your vacation. I have a 1700-km round-trip drive coming up later this month.

Regarding the rattles, I don't hear them on smooth roads or even on speed breakers. The latter is because I slow down considerably now (by the way, the other day, BQ easily cleared a 'breaker that had an Innova scraping its belly against! -- the speeds were similar and the Innova looked to be "empty").

I can hear the rattles only when I'm going at normal city driving speeds on rough/ridged roads (or cattle-catchers for that matter) and/or when I'm in a gear that's too high for the speed of the vehicle (happens every once in a while because of certain traffic conditions/events), in which case a certain amount of vibration can't be avoided.

I wanted to round off my "The first 100 days" series with some likes/dislikes based on 3 months and 5k kms of driving, but it's already 4 months and 6k kms now. This set of likes and dislikes is very different in nature from the one I posted here. That earlier list was essentially just a list of features, primarily, and not experiences. This current one has more of an experiential flavour to it, obviously. I don't have the list with me right now. I can reproduce most of it from memory but I'll do it once and I'll do it right, over the weekend.

One small update - and this is something I referred to in an earlier post - is that yesterday I got hold of the car cleaning supplies I had ordered from the US. A friend very kindly brought them down for me. I'll put them to use this weekend and write a small report about the results.

Regards,
spadix

[spadix]

On Dec. 16 we went on a 5-day round-trip drive - Hyderabad -> Tirumala -> Tenali -> Bhimavaram -> Hyderabad - managing one temple visit (TTD atop Tirumala hill on the auspicious day of 'Vaikuntha Ekadasi' which was Dec. 17), one visit to old family friends and attending a close friend's wedding. In the process BQ went past both the 7k and 8k kms mark. The round trip was 1669.9 kms (6367.8 -> 8037.7).

We were pleasantly surprised. BQ was almost fully loaded - 4 people + trunk choked with luggage - and cleared all of the mountainous speed breakers and ditches en route. There were a couple of very very minor scrapes on small/gentle speed breakers but that was mostly my overconfidence after having seem BQ's exemplary behaviour over the monstrous ones .
Here are some highlights (both good and bad) for each day of the trip -

Day 1 - 16 Dec (Hyd to Tirumala via Kurnool, Nandyal, Kadapa, Rajampet - 596.9 kms)
Good bits: BQ's power and poise while going up the Tirumala ghats including the 3 hairpins despite being fully loaded (5 people now with luggage for this stretch). I never had to engage 1st gear despite the load!

Bad bits: Absolutely horrid road conditions at Nandyal. In fact the entire stretch from Kurnool to Nandyal was nothing to write home about but Nandyal bypass road itself takes the cake. Also the senselessness of traffic (even the heavy traffic) overtaking on blind corners on the Eastern ghats around Nandyal and on the curvy Kadapa - Rajampet road.

The Kadapa - Rajampet road is actually very good but the recent rains have given rise to huge, deep potholes that spring up suddenly and randomly and even have tractors and buses/trucks swerving to avoid them. Also, villages en route are "protected" by 1 - 1.5 ft tall speed breakers with crumbling/eroding bases. Strict caution advised.

Day 2 - 17 Dec (local driving in Tirumala - 6.1 kms)

Day 3 - 18 Dec (Tirumala to Tenali via Tirupati, Renigunta, Nayudupeta and NH5 from Nayudupeta up to Guntur almost - 429.8 kms)
Good bits: Descending the Tirumala ghat at 5 am in the midst of clouds and wintry early morning fog. Heavenly!

Bad bits: Missing the Renigunta bypass and encountering some badly eroded roads in the town. One unavoidable scrape. BQ's right ORVM got scraped by a parked bicycle in a very narrow lane in Tenali. Driver error. Great day otherwise. We just didn't realize how the 400-odd kms had gone.

Day 4 - 19 Dec (Tenali to Bhimavaram via Vijayawada and NH5 up to almost Tadepalligudem and then a country road - 188.6 kms)
Good bits: Driving on a narrow country road in the midst of paddy fields as farmers were putting the harvested crop out on the road (to get crushed by the passing vehicles). Some of these bundles of crop were around 2 ft tall (almost coming up to the top of the wheels). While BQ had no trouble negotiating these, I have some stuck blades of grass all over the underbody to show for even now .

Bad bits: None.

Day 5 - 20 Dec (Bhimavaram to Hyderabad via Vijayawada and Suryapet (NH5 then NH9) - 448.5 kms)
Good bits: The drive back along the country roads and the NH5 stretch up to Vijayawada.

Bad bits: VJA - HYD. Broken two-lane undivided road narrowed down even more by construction activity. Extremely heavy traffic. Even worse drivers - the worst highway driving I've ever seen in my life. Misery compounded by TDP 'hartals'/'rasta rokos' at Ibrahimpatnam and Kodada. I'll never drive this stretch again in its present condition. This is extreme torture. Western outskirts of VJA to LB Nagar/ORR junction in Hyderabad took around 7 hrs (~250 kms) including a one hour lunch break (absolutely essential to recharge in the midst of the torture) and another hour lost to the 'rasta rokos'.

Overall, I think the broken roads (esp. VJA to Hyd and the Nandyal stretch) were bad enough to increase the intensity of the couple of rattles BQ is suffering from. I also have a feeling that the engine mounting points need to be tightened up a little. I'll get this and more addressed (hopefully to my satisfaction) during the 3rd free service at 10k kms which falls due at the end of January 2011.

I wish you all and BQ a very happy and prosperous New Year!

Regards,
spadix

[rr_zen]

@spadix: I too have the issue of bad odour emanating from the AC on cold start in my Civic. Yet to take this up with the A.S.S. Any idea how this was sorted out in your vehicle ? Thanks

[shuvc]

Originally Posted by spadix

Car pulls to the left sometimes - no pattern detected - Service center testing didn't reveal any issues, seems to be a function of roads with bad camber

I felt the same problem within the first couple of days of ownership at around 100kmph along with a bit of wheel vibration. Went to the workshop. They indicated nothing was wrong. I was dead sure something was wrong. Since I had planned to change tyres, I decided not to pursue it with Honda.

Got the tyres changed, wheels balanced afresh and voila, issues resolved. It's never recurred since.

Originally Posted by spadix

Parcel tray rattle (rear left) - Not fixed/recurred

This crops up in my car when the subwoofer is really pumped up and that too for certain really low frequencies. I've managed it somewhat by jamming bits of seat-foam between the tray and the glass, to the left and right of the stop lamp. However, there was no rattle before the subwoofer came into the equation.

Originally Posted by spadix

Bad odour from AC vents on a cold start - Fixed

How did they do it?

Originally Posted by spadix

Dashboard or steering wheel horn boss rattle - Fixed, but a new squeak/rattle has developed over the last couple of days. Don't know if these two are related.

This one really bugs me. And just as in your case, it's mainly audible at relatively sedate speeds in slightly rough/uneven roads. Workshop has not been able to do much about it. They seem to fix it (4 times now) and it comes back. Maybe the road that I test it near the workshop does not trigger off the rattle.
Last week, the mechanic said, they need to dismantle the boss and the airbag !

Originally Posted by spadix

Horn boss loose contact - horn doesn't sound sometimes when the button is pressed - Service center testing revealed no issues but I still face this issue from time to time

Now that you mention it, this may have happened to me a few times. Mainly the LHS of the steering boss. I thought maybe I had not pressed it properly. Will need to observe this from now on.

[dot]

Originally Posted by shuvc

This one really bugs me. And just as in your case, it's mainly audible at relatively sedate speeds in slightly rough/uneven roads. Workshop has not been able to do much about it. They seem to fix it (4 times now) and it comes back. Maybe the road that I test it near the workshop does not trigger off the rattle.
Last week, the mechanic said, they need to dismantle the boss and the airbag !

My Civic also had a similar rattle around the horn cover which seemed to come at low speeds and over bumps. Honda fellow took 2 mins to tighen a screw which is behind the steering wheel. Noise went off and has not come back yet. Maybe in your car that particular screw is constantly coming off due to some misalignment. Maybe that can be replaced (my two cents..)

[spadix]

Originally Posted by rr_zen

@spadix: I too have the issue of bad odour emanating from the AC on cold start in my Civic. Yet to take this up with the A.S.S. Any idea how this was sorted out in your vehicle ? Thanks

Originally Posted by shuvc

How did they do it?

The SA told me that they just cleaned the vents and air pathways and cleared some dust and debris. In fact during the 1st FS they actually sprayed some nice-smelling powder inside which has since cleared up.

Now (2 months after the 2nd FS) I get a slightly noticeable whiff of staleness when I start the blower after a cold start, but only an extremely negligible (if at all) hint of that bad odour.

This seems like a design issue with the Civic. I think there's either a narrow and/or heavily bent portion of the pathway where air gets trapped overnight and goes stale (some moisture build-up could also be happening because of the narrow width and/or bend). This is just armchair speculation, though.

Originally Posted by shuvc

I felt the same problem within the first couple of days of ownership at around 100kmph along with a bit of wheel vibration. Went to the workshop. They indicated nothing was wrong. I was dead sure something was wrong. Since I had planned to change tyres, I decided not to pursue it with Honda.

Got the tyres changed, wheels balanced afresh and voila, issues resolved. It's never recurred since.

I need to get this done one way or the other. The SA said that they couldn't uncover any issues during their test runs (2nd FS) but in any case this last long trip and the current condition of the roads near where I live have thrown the balance and/or alignment out of whack. I could sense a lot of car/steering wheel vibration at 90-100 kmph just today morning on an open, empty stretch of smooth road where I've never experienced this kind of thing before (at similar speeds).

I just hope that, if really there was an alignment/balance issue all this while, that no lasting or costly damage has been done to the suspension :(.

Originally Posted by shuvc

This crops up in my car when the subwoofer is really pumped up and that too for certain really low frequencies. I've managed it somewhat by jamming bits of seat-foam between the tray and the glass, to the left and right of the stop lamp. However, there was no rattle before the subwoofer came into the equation.

When this was fixed during the 1st FS the SA told me that it was the stop-lamp mounted on the parcel tray that was the culprit. It cropped up a couple of weeks before the 2nd FS was due. I reported it again and they said they fixed it, but I heard the moment I drove out of the service centre! It becomes really annoying now over rough roads or when the RPM is < 1500.

Originally Posted by shuvc

Last week, the mechanic said, they need to dismantle the boss and the airbag !

Originally Posted by dot

My Civic also had a similar rattle around the horn cover which seemed to come at low speeds and over bumps. Honda fellow took 2 mins to tighen a screw which is behind the steering wheel. Noise went off and has not come back yet. Maybe in your car that particular screw is constantly coming off due to some misalignment. Maybe that can be replaced (my two cents..)

Thanks for the update, dot! I'll put my foot down when I visit the A.S.S. for the 3rd FS and ensure these are fixed to my satisfaction. Here I am in a 15+-lac rattle box that's perfect in every other way, and there Honda is advertising their wins in the latest JD Power Initial Quality Surveys for the Jazz, City and the Civic!

I had/have a bunch of problems in this area.

The one that I reported and got fixed was apparently with the glove box. I haven't heard that since.

Then I heard the glass/plastic over the speedo + temp + fuel gauges rattle one day and only just that one day. It's never happened before and since!

Right now BQ is blessed with this creaking/squeaking from the steering wheel assembly, *and* that assembly/housing cover (top) that refuses to stay locked down.

Originally Posted by shuvc

Now that you mention it, this may have happened to me a few times. Mainly the LHS of the steering boss. I thought maybe I had not pressed it properly. Will need to observe this from now on.

For me it was the RHS of the boss (that's the side I happen to use -- it's possible that the LHS has it but I just don't use it so don't know). Perhap's dot's suggested screw replacement fix can fix this issue as well?

Regards,
spadix

[dot]

Originally Posted by spadix

Thanks for the update, dot!

Welcome anyday. You helped me in choosing the color of my Civic (GTO's thread), this is the least I could do!

I hope the rattle goes away in your car (and Shuvc's) for good with any solution.

[shuvc]

Ok. I think I'll eat my words. Kept keenly looking out for the dash rattle. It is indeed coming from within the steering boss.
Now what do I do? Do I live with it or let them open up the boss?

[spadix]

Originally Posted by shuvc

Ok. I think I'll eat my words. Kept keenly looking out for the dash rattle. It is indeed coming from within the steering boss.
Now what do I do? Do I live with it or let them open up the boss?

Yeah it's mostly from the steering boss OR the plastic covers around the steering column.

(Of course, the rattle from the speedo cover has re-started since I made my last post. )

Given the complexity of the assembly I guess we might want to live with it. The trouble is that, should anything go wrong, they'll be loath to accept responsibility because they'll be liable to fix it under warranty.

I'm in two minds about this myself, now.

Regards,
spadix