Retain my pristine 4th gen Honda City or upgrade to an electric SUV?

Since parents are retired and aging, the low slung sedans/Hatchback are a no go. We need something that they can walk into to get seated, than crouch into.

BHPian govindremesh recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

Background

The 4th gen Honda City was a blockbuster in terms of sales. Honda's gamble of cutting a bit on quality for features worked well and they put a record number of Honda City's on the road for that generation. As one of my friends suggested - the 4th Gen Honda City became the "Alto of the upper middle class of our parent's generation". The car was so successful and VFM that it's the only generation of City that's sold along with its next generation.

While there are expert critics on this forum who have written off the car due to the corners that Honda cut (no offence intended to those people or their views), I can confidently say that for most people on and off Team Bhp, the 4th Gen City has been a delight to own and operate.

We too have one of those, a 2015 Honda City V MT i-vtec with 41K on the Odometer. The car is serving us well and there have been no nasty surprises in either reliability or service. Except for accident repairs (most of which was due to transporters mishandling the car during dad's job transfers), no service bill has exceeded the 7K per year mark , with the car always being serviced at Honda service. The only exception being the bill which we got yesterday - 16K which included brake system overhaul (Brake pad change, cylinder change, disc skimming - I wonder how many of these were actually done ) and AC gas top up along with the usual oil change service.

In short- the car we have is total VFM (We paid a OTR price of 10.xx lakhs back then in Kochi), cheap from a maintenance point of view, a delight to drive and spacious enough for our (literally) tall family to go on long road trips comfortably.

The topic of discussion

The itch to upgrade has started. Looking at my (parent's) requirements for the next car, it seems we don't have many options that will be a step up from the Honda City considering the requirements below.

Our requirements are:

• Tall vehicle (SUV like) - since parents are retired and aging, the low slung sedans/Hatchback are a no go. We need something that they can walk into to get seated, than crouch into.
• Fuss free Ownership - Fill it , shut it forget it. Rules out the Germans, Indians and anything with a DCT
• Fun to drive - despite being two decades old , the "vtec kicked in yo" is a feeling that still gives thrills and is a major requirement to accomplish overtakes on narrow KL roads which are dominated by high-ego drivers. With the now upsized tires, the City goes through the corners while gripping the road like a leech
• Safety - The structure should be capable of "withstanding further loading". The passenger compartment should be safe. Again a requirement for KL roads as described in the point above. Very nice to have 6 airbags, but can also make do with 2 or more.
• Should have an automatic transmission (if applicable)
• Electric propulsion preferred as we have a solar power plant at home and are/will be overproducing electricity by a significant margin. The car will have low running (~600 km/month). Break even for investment on EV is not a concern, we prefer the green credentials and next gen of propulsion.
• Budget of OTR 20 lakh +/-5 lakh (in Kerala) for the new car.
• This new car will be retained for a minimum of 10 years, if not more.
• The new car will rarely make long trips (>300 KM) and will mostly be used by my parents for local commuting and visits to neighbouring cities within a 100 KM radius of where they live.

The problem

Having been a purchase advisor for family members who upgraded to mini SUVs in recent times, I've had the opportunity to test a lot of cars in the 15-25 L, mostly Mini/Micro SUVs between early 2023 and now. Having done that, I've not yet found a car that feels like a step up in overall experience compared to the Honda City we have while fulfilling our requirements. Some examples:

Petrol cars:

• Hyundai Creta/Kia Seltos- Cousin's 2021 Seltos DCT had a DCT failure. Hence bad reliability. CVT and iMT felt boring to drive. My own bias against Hyundai/Kia for their double standards in safety makes the matters worse! Hence ruled out
• HyRyder strong Hybrid - smaller car, Hybrid not worth it for our running.
• Honda Elevate - doesn't feel as exciting or a step up. Feels like a lateral upgrade. The Gen 5 city is low slung, hence not considered. The CVT performs way better than expected in terms of performance, so no problem with that. Unpopular opinion- flooring the throttle gives a quicker initial-go from the CVT compared to the DSG which has a bit of a lag before surging ahead.
• MG - I'm biased against owning a Chinese engineered product that's supposed to serve for 10+ years. I don't even buy a Chinese engineered phone/home appliance, so a car is a strict no-no.
• Nissan/Renault- My uncle owns a Kicks 1.3 Turbo (MT) and it's a hoot to drive. Weirdly, the seats do not go low enough, so my line of sight is the headliner of the car (I'm 6 foot tall). The current state of Nissan/Renault does not offer confidence to buy from them either.
• VW/Skoda - Neither reliable nor low cost of maintenance, even when considering 1L TSI + torque converter AT drivetrain.

Electric cars

• Nexon EV (pre-facelift): All of us liked the car, but it's much smaller than our City. Tata's service remains a gamble. The facelift fixes any complaints we had with the lack of features.
• MG ZS EV - refer my previous comment about MG
• Hyundai Kona - My usual rental in the Netherlands, but it's small and boring to drive. Steering feels like it's not connected to the wheels.

The question

What do you all think of this situation, upgrade or keep?

Unless I've completely missed something on the market , the analysis points me to the fact that it might be wise to hold on to our current car for another 2 years, by which a lot more EVs in the 20-30 lakh space will be available.

The cars we're looking out for are:

• Honda Elevate EV
• Toyota/Maruti eVx
• Hyundai Creta EV (can swallow the bias if the product is good)
• Surprises from Nissan (Ariya launch in India)
• Skoda launches and prices the Enyaq at around 30 L (Unlikely)
• Tata/Mahindra gen 2 EVs (Can take the gamble on service if the product is well priced)

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

The best course of action for you is to hold on to your current car. Give it some love - thorough damping, a speaker upgrade, better headlights, new set of 7D mats etc. You should invest in good quality underbody anti rust coating. You can also have the door beadings of the current Gen5 car fitted to improve sound insulation. These were absent on Gen4 due to cost cutting, and are a direct fit.

Keep the City for another 3 years and reevaluate your situation then. The EV market will look very different then. If you ‘upgrade’ to the likes of Elevate or the 1.5 NA Seltos/Creta etc, you will be spending twice of what you paid back then for essentially the same car, with minor feature additions. Ergo, you will by paying solely and solely for inflation.

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

+1 to Shreyans Jain

You should be able to see better options in the next 2-3 years. This will also help you increase the budget if necessary. 41k kms is nothing for today's cars so you can comfortably keep it.

BTW, you may want to reevaluate your concerns on Chinese origins yet again - I know a family who ended up buying 2 MG ZS EV. Their garage also consists of an Audi A6 and a Hyundai Ioniq 5 too.

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

Given the rise in prices - the 20L segment is the new 10L segment; which is why you aren't seeing anything that truly feels like a step up.

Your biggest challenge is finding a reliable, safe, and fun to drive product - you can pick any 2; but not all 3.

Given your low running, if you can hold on to the city and increase your budget - that would be ideal.

Other options are to go the pre-owned way : maybe a 2020 CRV if you are lucky to find one; or a pre-owned X1 with the TC gearbox.

And finally the third option is to compromise - the Kushaq 1.0TSi with discounts & long warranty packages could work given your low running if they're ok with a few days downtime in a year. Apart from the AC & EPC issues - nothing really stands out and those seem to have been more or less resolved in newer batches. Parts will be expensive - but let's be honest : Honda, Toyota, Kia, Hyundai parts will be similarly priced as I've learnt the hard way.
if they have a driver - maybe an Innova / XUV700 could be worth considering at a slightly higher budget.

Here's what BHPian UD17 had to say on the matter:

Your car is too new to upgrade. I own 2013 Gen3 Honda City as my daily run, at 128K Kms. The car rides as new even now and is quite reliable. I too was etched to upgrade but instead i did:

• Replaced full suspension, window control button and all door beadings and many other loose pieces around the car
• Changed the tyre to Yokohama Earth-1 185 65R15, Added New battery
• Changed the seat covers (older one had some wrinkles and discoloration after 11 year of use) and added leather steering cover
• Complete interior deep cleaning and exterior paint restoration
• Major service by changing all filters, oil and other consumables

The car feels much tight and refreshed now. Spent around 2L rupees and i feel its well spent overall. I bought 70mai 810 4K duel channel dashcam as well and would install it during this weekend.

Further there are few more options, i.e. Change the headlight assembly, add a 10'' screen, change the silver trim in the dashboard.

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

I also have a 2015 V MT ivtec. It's done even less mileage than yours. I've decided to keep it for as long as I can as it's the most trouble free cars I've owned right beside my Innova. If you plan to upgrade from it, it's hard to find these days specially with same reliability and fuss free ownership. Only a Japanese car will give you that. If you have to buy a new car you can consider Elevate. It's not really an upgrade but since you can't park a Hycross in your garage due to space constraints, this is the closest to City's ownership experience you'll get. Unlike me, If you're not obsessed with reliability and low cost of maintenance, you can go with any car you like from Hyundai to Skoda to Jeep etc.

Read BHPian comments for more insights and information.