Honda City VMT iDTEC (2014) Ownership Review: Brown Phantom


Thread Starter #76
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Updating after a long time.The City has run 69000 Kms and did 34000 Kms in 20 months with her.All is well with City except for 2-3 issues,which is annoying for me.The issues we are facing are,the brake bite is bit poor after crossing 100 Kmph(need to replace ABS modulator,which costs Rs.60K),RHS door(the one beside driver seat) power window got jammed and front bumper clips comes out and bumper comes out and we always go on fixing it on our own and need to replace the key fob battery cell as it worked for nearly 5 years and its just a small job and costs around Rs.100 to replace the battery.Thinking to get my City midlife makeover as I'm thinking to take over the car from my mom in few months and will use it as my daily ride and tell my mom to get an Automatic car for her daily commute to our school.
 
Thread Starter #77
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Honda City has crossed 70000 Kms plus and I don’t remember the odo as I’m not caring the car much and the Bosch Symphony horns,which is in my car has come to an end after 1.5 years of usage.Now need to change the horns to stock one or Hella Chrome Trumpets soon after 70K Kms service.

And we did 35000 Kms in nearly 2 years of ownership.

And the problems we are facing with Honda City are rear power window is not working,brakes bite is poor while braking hard and present Bosch Symphony horns have come to an end of its life after 1.5 years of usage.

Will get these fixed during 70000 Kms service,which will be giving it soon.

And,we are in a dilemma whether to sell off the City and get an AT car for mom or retain City for myself and get mom an AT car.Since I would be using the car soon,I feel selling off the City is not the right choice.Maybe next year we might sell this off if our priorities gets changed.
 
Thread Starter #78
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Honda City has completed 72000 Kms on the odo and got her serviced this week at Honda service center and got the clutch changed as it was hard along with new brake discs and pads,this was the big reason for vibrations and poor brake bite after crossing 100 Kmph.The bill we paid was Rs.27200 that includes clutch overhaul,which costed Rs.11.5k while brake discs and pads costed Rs.7500,service costed Rs.6900,fender lining cover(driver side) costed Rs.1700 and AC fuse costed Rs.100(problem was AC was not cooling when the car is in idle).And,the power window problem,which I mentioned before,is now working perfectly and started working on its own.

Now,need to change the horns and broken tail light this week as I'm first changing the horns to Hella Chrome as the present ones have come to an end of its life after 1.5 years of usage.
 
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Thread Starter #79
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Updating after a month.The car has run 74000 Kms and running smoothly after clutch replacement and brakes replacement.The City has seen much running last month and did around 2000 Kms in a month after 70000 Kms service and City is going to complete 2 years with us in another 2 weeks.Till now,we had run close to 40000 Kms in almost 2 years and running got reduced significantly,thanks to mom and got reduced from 25000 Kms per year to around 15000 Kms per year since mom took over the car last year.Since my mom is going for Swiss trip tomorrow,the City might see more running in these 2 weeks and might rake up around 1500-2000 Kms in 2 weeks and complete 2 years too with her.
 
Thread Starter #80
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Updating this thread after 4 months.Now,my City has crossed 80000 Kms few days ago and present odo is 80596 Kms before giving her for service today.Yes has given my city for 80K Kms service today and here is a sad update.I faced a strange issue when my mom was starting the car two days ago,the ignition didn’t turn up at all and after all dramas by turning the steering left and right,it finally came.But service guy discovered this problem and said that,lock set has been gone totally and if you order it,you will get it within a week and was told that it costs ₹14000.So,decided to wait for a week and get the whole lock set changed by paying ₹7000 as advance for ordering that part and he said it happened due to running and age.And,completed 2 years with her in July when the odo reading was around 75000 Kms and till now,we did 45000 Kms in 2.3 years.

I think this problem is common among all Hondas.He said that this particular case had happened in other Cities,Amazes,Jazz’es and Brios.

Meanwhile,my cousin,who had 2012-13 brown Honda City SMT and a doctor too,had exchanged his old City with new 2019 City 2 months ago albeit V CVT in lunar silver colour as he felt Honda city is best in terms of comfort and drive after using old one for 7 years and he did nearly 1L Kms in 7 years.But,he felt that 2013 one is the best as he didn’t like the present one much but when I asked him “Why did you buy another Honda City when you have other options like Vento,Verna,Rapid,Creta,Seltos and Hector”.He replied,Creta is one bakwaas vehicle(his FIL owns one and my cousin,who bought that City,owns an i10 too)and didn’t feel VFM while Verna felt too low compared to City and asked him why didn’t you try others like Vento/Rapid,Seltos and Hector.He replied,”both Seltos and Hector are overpriced as per me and I didn’t even look at Vento/Rapid,so I ended up buying Honda City again due to its comfort and driving pleasure”.

But,this car is mostly used by his B-I-L as he has i10 for his commute and stays far away from Hyderabad due to his job.
 
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Thread Starter #81
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Got a challan on my City when we were going to Warangal a month ago and recent pics of my City taken during Ayudha Puja.
 

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Thread Starter #82
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Honda City has completed 83000 Kms and the present odo is 83400 Kms and got the ignition lock replaced recently.Last month,along with Innova,City also had share of its running by doing 2000 Kms in whole November month.

There is nothing much to update about Honda City as it is used within city limits and rarely sees highways.And,ordered Paytm Fastag for the City,thanks to new govt rules,had to order the Fastag for the City too as dad already got Fastag for the Innova from nearby toll plaza in April 2019.
 
Thread Starter #83
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Long time since I updated about the City.The City has run 87500 Kms and had some good usage last week and was used by us during my cousin's marriage last month.Apart from that,the City is restricted for city usage only.But,my dad is again preferring to take the City over Innova sometimes when he will not be in the mood to take the Innova and btw,we did 52000 Kms with the City in 2.7 years.And,got some new additions/changes too recently.

1.Got Fastag from Airtel instead of Paytm as I found Paytm customer service is poor and the fastag in the car is working flawlessly without any issues
2.Changed the horn to Hella Chrome trumpets at my regular car accessories shop
3.Got new number plates from Turbo plates,which I found it through instagram,which costed me Rs.3000

Thats all folks for now!Now,waiting to give her for 90,000 Kms service soon.

And,forgot to update that I got an FE of 24 Kmpl(tankful to tankful)when my dad sent my driver for work and since he has to go far away from our school,he took the ORR route and did around 150 Kms on ORR itself and speed he did was within 100 Kmph(thanks to speed guns)and used cruise control on ORR too to avoid speed challans on ORR.

How we got the FE of 24 Kmpl?My driver had filled Rs.500 of Diesel,which translates to 7.19 liters and had taken ORR to go to that place,where my dad gave him work to submit some documents.Did 150 Kms on ORR and around 20-22 Kms within city traffic next day and total FE I got was close to 24 Kmpl,which is too good for an almost 6 year old car,which has run close to 90,000 Kms.
 
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Thread Starter #84
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Updating this thread after a month and a half. Our Honda City has run 88241 Kms and in this 1.5 months, we did only 700 Kms and thanks to lockdown, the running has come down significantly and 10 days before lockdown, we did a highway trip in this car and that was the last highway trip done in this car. Now, the car is sitting idle at home and had taken out this car just for few Kms drive 2 weeks ago and that's all. After that, the front left tyre of the car has lost pressure and need to replace with stepney but decided to get it done after the lockdown as we are not taking it out.

And we are planning to sell off this car after the lockdown or in few months (depending on our situations) as the running has been reduced drastically and mom is facing back issues since last few months and now we are slowly realizing that having a Diesel car is not our cup of tea anymore due to reduced usage and running might get reduced to 15 Kms per day by this year end as we had purchased a new house, which is under construction and mom's workplace will become closer to our new house as her workplace is just 15-20 mins drive from our new house.

Hence, with the ever increasing traffic and less difference between Diesel and Petrol, I felt that having another Diesel car is not sensible anymore. But, the only reason we bought another Diesel car is because we had thought at first that we will be having more usage everyday but in last 1-1.5 years, the usage of Honda City has been reduced drastically to 25 Kms per day (up and down). But,typical Indian dads (my dad btw) is now slowly realizing that having a Diesel car and buying another Diesel car doesn't make sense anymore due to less running and less fuel cost difference between petrol and diesel.Hence,we are planning to sell off the City and buy a Petrol AT for city running while we have Innova for highway or touring purposes.

I have shortlisted few cars as a replacement for City Diesel like another Honda City albeit CVT Petrol,Verna DCT, Venue DCT, Creta DCT or Seltos DCT while in used considering an Octavia along with Corolla Altis, Elantra or a Superb or if there are no plans of selling the City for another 1-2 years, will get the car fully restored to new by getting dents repaired, replacing an expensive ABS sensor, get the tyres changed as present Yokohama S-Drives need replacement.

So, thats all for now!
 
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Thread Starter #85
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Drove our Honda City after ages and I got fairly impressed with it!Though petrol is the best in the City,even Diesel is also good in terms of driveability too.After driving this extensively for 3 days,I feel Honda City is light and more easier to drive in city and even its power is also good in city.But,only problem Im facing is AC cooling.It has become poor and I need to get the AC of this car serviced along with full car service coz its close to 90,000 Kms on the odo.Apart from that,the car is good and after driving her,I dont feel like selling it off too early and decided to use it as my daily ride by making my mom to get her a new car,a Petrol AT car for herself.Though my cousin had suggested me to sell this off,but I dont feel like letting her go due to its light and easy to drive nature along with mileage too.

And,this car has completed 6 years of its original age(the previous owner had bought this car in the month of May I guess) and I'll be completing 3 years with her in July.The present odo of this car is close to 89000 Kms and need 1000 Kms more to complete 90000 Kms.
 
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Thread Starter #86
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Completed 3 years with her recently and did 57000 Kms till now with her although the odo is close 93500 Kms.Since unlock 1.0,I've been driving this car a lot more than my mom these days and even dad is also preferring to drive this car over our Innova due to easy to drive nature and FE.On this Monday,which was also my birthday that day,I've had a 100 Kms drive within the city limits,driven by myself all the time,with my friends as a birthday drive and car was used a lot during this lockdown more than our Innova.

Since I've completed 3 years with her,planning to get mid makeover for her soon and got the insurance renewed to Royal Sundaram on 1st Aug in which we paid the premium of around Rs.16k.Now,the next thing apart from makeover is to get 90,000 Kms service done,which is long due since unlock 1.0.Apart from that,I still love this car and I don't want to sell it for atleast another 1-1.5 years and I myself prefer driving this car over our Innova.
 
Thread Starter #87
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Gave our City for 90,000 Kms service,which was long due since lockdown(err what is that) today when the odo was close to 94000 Kms and got the estimation of Rs.8k for normal service and I've excluded WA/WB as its a rip-off done by A.S.S guys.Meanwhile,I got my City's alloys painted to gloss black a week ago and will be posting pics soon.

Meanwhile,I had got the time to check the FE of the City after long time.I'm getting around 16.5 to 18 Kmpl in city itself when driven carefully with AC and last 3 tankfills got me overall mileage of 17 Kmpl and most of the time driven in city limits itself.1st fill got me around 17.8 Kmpl while last 2 fills got me around 16.8 Kmpl and tyres are also in end of its life as it has run close to 43000 Kms in 2.5 years.Hope FE will increase more and more after this service.
 
Thread Starter #88
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Updating this thread after a long time!

Forgot that I had completed 4 years of ownership with this car in the month of July. At the time of completing 4 years of ownership, we did 78k Kms (odo was around 1,13,000 Kms at that time). Till date, we did 82k Kms (present odo is a shade more than 1,17,000 Kms) and apart from minor issues like ABS warning light, which I'm planning to source it from a scrap market and AC cooling (although cooling well post the AC filter replacement, but still not satisfied with it), the car is a joy to drive.

Recent developments with the car apart from normal services were when I got the tyres changed to Yokohama Earth-1 195/60R15 when the odo was at 99000 Kms in November 2020 and running fine after 18000 Kms post upgrade and got the whole car repainted as well as it had dents and scratches in March this year for 20k.

Even after the car has run 1,17,000 Kms on the odo, the car's engine is butter smooth and gearbox still feels like a butter. The clutch of this car is not too hard as VAG Diesels and too light as Hyundai Diesels but felt decent to my taste. Remember, my car is running on 2nd set of clutch, which I got it replaced during 70k Kms service in 2019 and present set of clutch has run 45k Kms till date.

In the month of August (just few days after completing 4 years of ownership with the car), I got it serviced when the odo was at 1,13,600 Kms and I was surprised to see that I got a bill of 6.3k, which I felt reasonable for a car, which has run more than 1,10,000 Kms. Apart from regular service, I got the AC filter and airfilter replaced, which costed me extra 1k for that. One thing I felt post this service is, Honda's parts might be expensive but in terms of regular servicing, its very cheap and reasonable to maintain.

Before that, I got 1L Kms service done in the end of December 2020 and paid the bill of 17.5k.

When I wanted to keep this car for sometime due to its rear seat comfort and space and FE, my cousin was/is simply pestering me to sell this car as this car has run more than 1L Kms and he simply loathes sedans as he is a SUV fanboy. He was like, sell off the City as it became old and get a C-SUV like Sonet Diesel AT as it has better GC compared to the City.

But, I never felt the need of selling this car even after the car has run more than 1L Kms on the odo as this car is running smoothly apart from few niggles and whenever I drive this car in the city traffic, I felt the need of having an AT car but resist myself sometimes from doing so. Anyway, decided that our next car will be an AT as my parents are becoming old and I felt an AT car would suffice our needs since the car will be driven within city limits and occasionally on highways.

Recently, when I was looking for the replacement for our City and, in fact, had TD'ed each and every so called C-SUVs like Sonet and Nexon within the budget of 15L as we aren't keen on another sedan due to low GC but felt rear seat comfort and space in these so called C-SUV's are poor when compared to the City. For instance, my mom had travelled in her cousin's Nexon for nearly couple of times and she was saying that the rear leg space in Nexon is very poor compared to our City. After hearing this, I felt its very hard to replace the City in terms of rear seat comfort and leg space. C-SUVs might have advantage of having more GC than a sedan, but they lack in rear seat space and comfort when compared to any other sedan or my City, which has a class leading rear seat comfort and leg space. Heck, I even thought of replacing it with a Polo GT TSI as it'll be easier to drive for mom but she straightaway rejected it saying that "too small" for her. Hence, I later felt that another City (CVT) can replace this City. But, later, we might have to compromise the rear seat comfort and leg space for higher GC as our road conditions are becoming worse day by day.

Since I'm planning to move out of country soon, I'm planning to let go off and get a Petrol AT car as our running will get reduced in the near future.

And, since last lockdown during the first wave of Covid in 2020, the car has been used more and did close to 30k Kms since mid-May 2020 and the car is doing 2000 Kms per month these days as my dad is preferring to take this car over our other car, Innova and more than my mom, the car is driven by myself as well these days.

Overall, I can say that we are happy with this car as it impressed us a lot in terms of rear seat comfort and leg space, FE, service costs but there are few disappointments like average build quality but never felt unsafe despite this car having 2 airbags and ABS but misses on other safety features like ESP, TC, VSM and extra airbags and few niggles.

Ciao until next update!
 
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Thread Starter #89
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An update after a long time:

Got the car restored in Dec 22 by getting dents removed all around the body and also, replaced suspension, engine mounts and gearbox mounts and odo was at 145k Kms when I got it restored. Since we had decided to keep this one for sometime, got it done.

Now, the car has run 173k Kms on the odo when I last saw and still going strong. From Dec 22 till date, did nearly 30k Kms on the odo until we got ourselves a new car, Innova Hycross Hybrid and, also myself moved to USA for higher studies. But, mom will be using it for her daily commute to office.

Also, replaced the tyres to MRF Perfinza in March this year.

Will be replacing the car hopefully next year with AT like Verna, Virtus or Seltos as it'll be turning 10 next year and mom is finding difficulties in driving an MT car in city traffic due to leg pains though she still drives it without any hiccups.

Also, this is the car, which we had retained it for more than 5 years and completed 6 years of ownership with this last month.
 

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