It’s not had a single relaxed moment since it entered our long-term fold. The Honda City has had to wiggle through narrow roads, sidestep potholes and dodge pedestrians who think they own the road. It’s been the city for the City and in a month of urban grind the average speed of each journey has been a crawling 17kph. You could run faster. Thinking back, it’s not surprising that the Honda automatic hasn’t had a chance to stretch its legs yet. Need to wade through cross-town traffic or trudge to a far-flung suburb like Powai and the City is the car for the 35-odd kilometre round trip, the one that you can drive to and fro without feeling fatigued for the rest of the day.
List out the things that bug you the most in traffic and the City has a solution for each of them. The
cab-forward, slightly MPV-ish design gives you a great all-round view of every lunatic cab trying to edge you out.
The 1.5 iDSI motor lacks top-end wallop but it’s got a nice flat torque curve which, from a crawl, doesn’t leave you feeling shortchanged when you flex your right foot. You do get that annoying ‘rubber band’ effect, typical of a CVT, where the revs rise and drop before road speed increases. But the City is pretty responsive for an auto and you can zip through the gaps in Mumbai traffic that open and close like the mouth of a cave in an Indiana Jones movie. But where the auto really comes into its own is in tedious stop-start conditions where you bless the absence of a clutch. We’ve never liked automatics. They compromise on performance and fuel efficiency but the convenience they offer in return, especially in a city like Mumbai, is difficult to ignore. The City returned an average of 9.1kpl and fell far off the double-digit zone. In absolute terms, these figures aren’t impressive, and most small cars are more frugal. But take into account it’s a 1.5-litre engine and an automatic and you get the picture — this is quite the most fuel-efficient automatic in the country.
An added bonus is the most comfortable back seat we have sat in, this side of a big Merc. The low floor lets you sit upright and you don’t need to indulge in a spot of yoga every time you emerge from a long drive. The sole cabin light in the City, however, wasn’t enough to light up the large cabin and its central position doesn’t allow it to illuminate either the front or back sufficiently.
There are other gripes too. The City is difficult to reverse and park, the high and long boot making it difficult to judge where the rear end stops. The electric steering, though finger light and ideal for manoeuvring through traffic, has a strange feel. It feels heavy just as you start off and then suddenly frees up.
Apart from a loose belt on the cassette deck, we have had no problems with the City yet. The air con, however, does not cool as fast as it ideally should and we toasted for a few extra minutes in Mumbai’s merciless summer. The whiney and noisy CVT engine can get irritating if you’ve not listening to Iron Maiden, AC/DC, or something equally loud on the stereo. The City lacks the performance and fun factor of the earlier City, but what our City is doing superbly is living up to its name as the perfect urban car.

LOG BOOK
Distance covered 3,250km
Average speed 17kph
Fuel consumption
Average fuel consumption 9.1kpl
No. of fillings (brimmed) 12
worst 7.8kpl
Best 10.6kpl
Total petrol cost Rs 13,571
Faults Cassette deck belt
Likes Forward visibility, back seat
Dislikes Inadequate cabin light

Captions:
Driving position good.

Roof lamp inadequate.