A month with my Honda Amaze CVT: Pros, cons, & accessories planned

Paddle shifters are a joy to use. They feel very intuitive and add to the overall experience.

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It has been more than a month since we took delivery of the car. The odo stands at 14xx km, and the car is due for first service. I didnt post much about the Amaze, as I havent really driven it much. My dad is the primary user of this car and he does around 12-14km per day. I got to drive this car yesterday while coming back from a cousin’s wedding for 300kms, and here are my observations from the drive and a month of living with the car:

Positives:

• Engine+gearbox combo is a match made in heaven. The free revving vtec and 7 step CVT ensure that the engine never feels stressed. I particularly like how the CVT behaves during kickdown; it drops a step or two and holds on to it in a very nice manner, instead of getting confused.
• Surprisingly good paint quality. The silver shines when under sunlight. Finishing feels smooth and nice as well.
• Proper automatic gearbox in a sea of stupid AMT’s. This itself is a flex IMO.
• Boot feels humongous, swallowing whatever you throw at it. It feels really big after living with a 170 liter boot in the Chevy Beat for 13 years.
• Rear seat is a very comfy and cozy place to be in.
• Strong headlights. Lowbeam itself is really strong. The LED’s are a nice addition to the facelift, combined with auto headlamps.
• Paddle shifters are a joy to use. They feel very intuitive and add to the overall experience.
• Comfy suspension. On roads where our Beat used to crash into potholes, the Amaze glides over them smoothly.
• Powerful air con unit. I never felt the need of rear AC vents. Useful max cool option provided in the AC control unit.
• Although there is abundant cost cutting, for the price we paid the car feels sufficiently premium, and I guess that says something about the brand Honda. I mean unless someone with a Team-BHP eye starts looking at the car, he will not find it to be cheap.
• No waiting period, from booking the car to taking delivery, everything happened in 5 days.
• The car we bought(Elite edition) has some nice goodies like Tyre inflator, rear spoiler, TPMS(more on this later) for a nominal price increase.
• Peace of mind associated when the branding reads Honda.
• The car looks really elegant, despite of being a cut short sub 4m car.

Negatives:

• Perhaps the biggest con I have with this car is the front passenger seat. Honda got it all wrong. There is limited adjustment and you also have this floor hump incline on the left passenger footwell area(common to all Honda cars). For a person above 5 foot 8 inches, there is no underthigh support. I rarely sit in this seat and prefer to sit at the rear.
• Cost cutting is aplenty in this car. Halogen high mounted stop lamp, cheap sunvisors and IRVM, 2 rear parking sensors, no backlighting for the gear selector(although it is displayed on the speedo, it takes some time getting used to), no adjustable rear headrests( safety hindrance, as the provided headrests are useless), horrible noise insulation(typical Honda), no engine hood insulation.
• Cruise control is a big big miss. Surprisingly it is available on the manual, but not on the auto.
• Compliant suspension results in nervous handling. Car gets really bouncy at triple digit speeds.
• Brakes inspire no confidence at all. The pedal has no feel and takes a little more effort and distance to stop the car at your required will.
• 175 mm tyres make handling matters worse. I wish to upgrade to 195 mm once these wear out. This will probably improve braking and stability.
• Fuel tank is on the smaller side. This car takes 29-30 liters tops, where as my Beat sometimes takes in 32 liters.
• Rear suspension bottoms out when there is a full load of passengers. Feels annoying to look at when it happens.
• OEM speakers are flat. Audiophiles will upgrade for sure but for average joes this will not matter much. But I must mention, once I tweaked the equaliser settings, there was a day and night difference in sound quality. After tweaking the equaliser the sound quality feels decent enough.

Accessories installed from showroom:

• Steering cover: I really like the way OEM steering covers fit to the steering. This one is no different from my views. Price:700/-
• Ventilated seat cover for two seats: For the price and the functionality that these offer, I feel it is a good value add on. They additionally come with a massager function which I felt wasnt really useful. These seat covers cool the seats within no time. Price: 6500/- per seat.

Planned upgrades:

• I want to put LED bulbs in place of the halogens(indicators, reverse lights, number plate lights), but am a little unsure about daylight visibility.
• Sunfilms.
• I would like to swap the sunvisors wit the ones on the Honda City if they feel premium enough and if there is a possibility of doing so.
• The audio headunit is made by Alpine if I am not wrong. I saw Alpine branding on the remote given for the HU. The interface works for me and I dont know why people complain so much about the interface. The screen moves smoothly whenever you swipe on it and that is all that matters to me. Android auto is smooth and honestly that depends on the age of your phone.

Dealership experience:5/10:

Now this would have easily been a 7/10 if they handled some things smoothly but no. We bought our car from Pride Honda Madinaguda. There were two guys I dealt with, Vinod and Ayan. We mostly dealt with Vinod. We booked our car on 21 October and took delivery on 26 October. The car was brought to our home for a test drive the very next day after we booked it on our request. I did not drive the car at all due to a small incident which I will detail about below, but my dad drove the car for a good 10+ km and he liked it very much. I asked the sales guy that I would like to take the car on the ring road, but they refused stating that they needed to go back go the showroom due to time constraints.

There was a small scratch on the rear bumper. This was promptly fixed and repainted the very next day after delivery.

We were given a FASTAG of some other moron’s car. 500 rupees just went down the drain. Reason that Im cribbing so much about this is the way Vinod dealt with it. He just did not admit that there was a mistake from his side about delivering a wrong FASTAG. My dad had added 500 rupees to the FASTAG and some other guy was using it. The guy didnt recharge his FASTAG and we were left with an empty one. After 3 days with no resolution, I peeled and tore off the old one. Bought a new ICICI FASTAG from a vendor on the ORR entry point and it has been working like a charm.

I insisted my dad to get numberplate frames from the showroom during the installation. This was told to Vinod well in advance. But when my dad went to the showroom, Vinod started to give excuses and senseless answers to my dad. My dad was fed up of this. This sole incident made me to give 5/10 to the dealership experience.

TPMS has not been installed yet. It seems there is a problem from Honda’s side itself. There is some error code appearing post TPMS installation as stated by Vinod. He told us he will contact us immediately after this error code issue is resolved. I need to take this in writing shortly from the dealership, as I no longer trust them after the #3 incident.

I must appreciate how Vinod has handled one incident. Just before the day we booked the car, I took a test drive of a manual Amaze. 200m into the drive, I had to hard-brake at a traffic signal. There was this drunk guy on a Honda Shine SP who banged right into the rear of the car. I was scared of this being pushed on me, but I must appreciate how Vinod has handled one incident. Just before the day we booked the car, I took a test drive of a manual Amaze. 200m into the drive, I had to hard-brake at a traffic signal. There was this drunk guy on a Honda Shine SP who banged right into the rear of the car. I was scared of this being pushed on me, but Vinod handled it smoothly and the guy who hit the car paid 10k to the dealership 1 hour later.

Overall, I am very impressed with the car. Attaching a few pictures for viewing pleasure. Also, notice the exhaust tip that I installed. I liked it very much when I installed it on my Beat, but on the Amaze I am in two minds whether to remove it or keep it as is. Suggestions on this will be appreciated.

Also, the number plate series resemble the first letters of my initial and middle name.

Sorry for the long post, and a big thank you for making it till here.

Regards,

Saikishor

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