Confused between the Honda twins: Elevate vs City Hybrid

My son loves the VW Virtus GT with the dreaded/loved DSG. I’ve somehow managed to convince him otherwise.

BHPian lsjey recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

Context:

We want a fuss free and reliable car for mostly city usage with occasional highway drives. We already have a 5th Gen City in Chennai. Our initial thought was to take this car and use temporarily in Bangalore for about six to nine months before buying a car. We decided against it as there are issues with other state registrations in Bangalore. So we need a new car in Bangalore ASAP.

Our Requiremets:

1. Should be a safe car. No compromises. Minimum of 6 airbags, ADAS, ESC, TC, EBD, ABS are appreciated much.
2. Car should be from either Toyota, Honda, Hyundai or Maruti only. Reliability of the product and service are very important for us. Looks and performance interest my son though.
3. No BEVs for us as we are not convinced on buying a tech that is changing fast. We do not want to be tech pioneers.
4. Should be able to seat 5 people in reasonable comfort.
5. Primary use will be inside Bangalore for commuting to office and home (KR Puram- Marathahalli- Bellandur - Whitefield). This will be approximately 18 KMS daily roundtrip.
6. There will be occasional highway drives ~ 500 KMs a month.
7. Should be automatic transmission.
8. Believe that hybrids are the best option, but are open to pure ICE drivetrains.
9. Budget is 20 - 25 lakhs. We cannot stretch beyond this.
10. My son will be the primary driver for this car. He is a newbie driver.

What have we shortlisted:

• Honda Elevate top spec CVT: This was selected just because we already own a Honda city. Hyryder hybrid was eliminated as it was more expensive than hybrid City.
• 5th Gen Honda City ZX CVT: Ticks all boxes. I love it. Better looking car compared to Elevate.
• EHEV City top spec: Will be great for city driving and returns great fuel economy. I’m fully sold on this.
• Top spec Verna with DCT: Looks of this car did not go down well with my son. I’m not a fan of DCT. All other Hyundai cars were rejected by my son.

Now the proverbial wrench in the works:

• My son loves the VW Virtus GT with the dreaded/loved DSG. I’ve somehow managed to convince him otherwise. Will we be wrong in choosing the Honda over Virtus? It will be my son who will do the bulk of the driving.
• Well there goes the question? Which car should we choose?
• Elevate top spec CVT or 5th Gen City ICE top spec CVT or the 5th Gen City eHEV top spec? If other car makes sense for our requirements, do let us know.

We are also looking at suggestions on dealers as well. Thanks folks

Here's what BHPian 07CR had to say on the matter:

Since you are open to Hyundai, you can also check out the Kia Seltos. DCT issues are fewer than VW/SKODA (with addition of ISG and Auto hold, it might be even lower) and your son can enjoy the sporty setup of Kia vs the soft Hyundais. Fuss free maintenance and reliability is another given and shared trait between the Korean duos. I might be a little biased towards Kia as I own a Seltos Facelift GT Line DCT and Sonet Turbo iMT. Both have been absolutely niggle and rattle free (touchwood!).

Hyryder is another option, if you can bear the wait timelines and relatively drab interior quality.

Of your shortlisted cars, I will prefer the Verna DCT, purely because of the 1.5Turbo's performance and excellent DCT. Value proposition is also great.

Second in line would be the Hybrid City. Would avoid the petrol City and Elevate, as I feel both cars are pretty outdated by 2024 standards.

Here's what BHPian skarthiksr had to say on the matter:

For your budget, your choice should be the City e:HEV. It is an excellent car giving the best of both features and fuel efficiency. The bootspace is the only issue I observed in that car and Honda unfortunately neither offers rear seat flat fold nor 60:40 which makes it kind of unusable for any airport pickup/drop kind of use-cases. However, if boots space is not an issue for you, you should definitely consider the e:HEV. Even for overcoming the boot space issue, you can measure the exact dimensions of the boot and buy a new set of luggages accordingly which can make the best use of the available space. Last year, there were even discounts on the e:HEV(Even on ZX), so you can check with the dealership, but they might ask for a higher booking amount upfront as I was told that no dealer stocks the e:HEV and they procure it only on order.

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