1,000 km with my Honda Elevate CVT: 10 observations including space

Overall mileage is around 11.5-12 km/L with 35% highway usage.

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Short observations about the first 1000kms with my Elevate ZX MT.

• Looks. I won’t say much because looks can be very subjective so imo it does look striking especially from the front. The rear, well it’s a pretty common CSUV stance and general look with the ‘connected’ taillights. Add to the fact that it’s still a pretty uncommon vehicle on road and that does turn a few heads and prompts questions at fuel pumps. I also felt the Lunar silver color makes the vehicle seem larger than it actually is and it also helps to not really notice/focus on the bonnet that much while driving (compared to other brighter colors)

• Ride quality is excellent, the car soaks up bad roads really well with not much body roll or thuds. The handling is also sedan like with low body roll and excellent steering feel. It really does feel like a point and shoot kinda vehicle in the twisties which belies it’s size. The ground clearance is impressive and it will be very hard to graze the bottom.

• Engine is noisy and makes a loud not too pleasant grunt especially when you rev it over 4k rpm. In contrast the brio we have sounds a lot smoother and refined in comparison. The engine is very tractable though and it can potter around in the city in 3rd gear and climb over speed breakers in 2nd with no knocking. The gearbox is a slick affair and is a joy to use, clutch travel is a bit long but thankfully light. Power-wise I never felt the engine lacked grunt or found it wanting, be it in the hills or on the highways or while executing overtakes. I did take it easy the first 1000kms and will now explore the upper range of the rev band more effectively.

• Fuel efficiency is not great but ok, on a tank to tank basis I got between 11.5-12.5kmpl consistently with around 35% highway use.

• Features and quality. I love the tan interiors and the simplistic clean interior design, to me it just looks classy and not flashy which suits my tastes. Gives off a kind of German feel (the first time I saw it reminded me of the F10 BMW interiors). The seats are very comfortable and provide good lumbar support, sometimes I get mild lower back pain on very long drives in other cars but not in the elevate. The screen quality and response is excellent although the voice recognition is a hit or miss. The leatherette on the dashboard and door panels look and feel quite good and overall a nice place to be in. A sliding armrest is sorely missed. Sunglasses holder, cooled glovebox would have been nice to have. On the plus side, wireless android auto works like a charm and wireless charging is a nice touch, although for long journeys with Android auto it would be better off to have it plugged in via cable since the phone tends to heat up while using wireless AA and simultaneously wirelessly charging effectively not charging but maintaining the same battery level. It would also have been nice if the wireless charger had active cooling or some ventilation since it does heat up in there. USB A ports in 2023 just doesn’t make much sense but good to have nevertheless.

• Audio quality is surprisingly good even though it’s not a branded system which believe is tuned or designed by Alpine? It’s a 8 speaker system and even with no dedicated subwoofer it has substantial bass and a clean sound even at higher volumes. The FM reception seemed a bit weak compared to other cars.

• ADAS. The ADAS features in the car are well designed and well calibrated, I didn’t find them intrusive at all and generally it seems to be doing its thing in the background. The Lane departure and Lane Keep assist work really well and it’s a pleasure to use on well marked highways. The adaptive cruise control is another feature that works really well and when set to the ‘near’ setting, feels very natural in the way it slows down when approaching a vehicle that is traveling at a slower speed than you. However it is quite abrupt and sudden when it comes to 2 wheelers in your path. Thankfully I never had to experience the Collision mitigation in action yet (did come across a couple of warnings when passing a line of parked cars on narrow roads)

• Rear seats and luggage. I can’t comment much on the rear seats and comfort since I haven’t experienced it much but my whoever did sit at the back didn’t really have any complaints. The rear armrest doesn’t have a pull tab which is surprising and makes it difficult to pull out. Boot space is rather large and although I haven’t done any airport runs yet, I doubt I would be lacking for space.

• The AC in this car is fantastic and is one of the best I’ve experienced. It chills the cabin quickly and maintains the temperature in the cabin very well. It’s too strong I would say because I sometimes need to set it to 24 or 25 degrees and it’s still blowing chilled air out the vents!

•  Convenience features. The keyless system works perfectly and Honda has paid good attention to details like how the car unlocks as soon as your fingers grab the inside of the exterior door handle, you don’t even need to touch the request sensor button. There are a myriad of customizable options like auto lock when walking away, change how long the car will wait to auto lock if no activity after unlocking etc, there are loads of options for every feature, like how the trip meters can be customized to reset on a full tank. One thing that would have been nice was be a trip journey meter in addition to Trip A and Trip B but you can customize the trip meters to reset on engine turn off/on.

The only issue I’ve had so far with the vehicle was that Honda connect app didn’t work on delivery. The app threw up an error saying ‘Something went wrong’, the dealership had escalated the issue with Honda support and it finally got fixed 12 days after delivery.

Other than that niggle, I’m very satisfied and couldn’t be happier with the car and the whole process from booking the car to delivery. The sales executive was very helpful and ensured things went smoothly. Overall a very pleasant experience with Coastal Honda, Goa.

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