The new Honda City was the second locally-assembled model done by Honda Malaysia, launched in a lavish ceremony back in April this year. Much rides on the success of this model as it was targetted to be a high volume seller and also as the model which will justify the heavy investment Honda Malaysia put into their new assembly plant in Pegoh. The City did not dissapoint, delivering several thousand bookings within a month of its launch. Now, almost five months after the launch, the booking has since reportedly exceeded 10,000 units with a waiting list for delivery touching six months !
The new Honda City is special to TOVA in that it's launch was the first new model launch event that I was officially invited by Honda to attend. In conjunction with the launch, Honda Malaysia also held a 3 days test-drive session for the regular motoring media. I did not participate in that event though and so my first experience driving the City was actually at a Honda dealer. That was a brand new unit purchased by the dealer specifically for test-drive duties and had around 300km on the clock when I took the wheels. I took the car 'around the block' a few times and thought the engine felt a bit tight and throttle response was a bit lack-lustre but fortunately my ample experience with Hondas tells me that it was very likely to be due to the fact that the car was brand new.
After my initial report on the City launch event, many of my Malaysian readers wrote in to urge for an early full-review. A short while after the launch, Honda Malaysia already had the Honda City available for test-drive by the media. However, I still intentionally held back. Having owned Hondas for 13 years and having very extensive experience with Hondas of all kinds from my active involvement in the enthusiasts scene, I know that a Honda engine does not give its best until after what might be called an 'extensive running-in period'. For normal usage, a mixture of city and highway/expressway driving, best performance comes only after a few thousand km of mileage. The improvements is not only in outright power but also the response of the engine to the throttle as well as how eager the engine is willing to rev up the power band. Based on experience, at the minimum, the engine should have at least 1 oil change - regular readers will probably even recall that Malaysia speedshop specialist Aerotech once dyno'ed a brand new 1.6l SOHC Civic before and after the 1000km service (which included an oil change) and found a small but significant 1ps increase all across the rpm band ! Since the standard Honda service schedule for the City calls for an engine oil change only after the first 5,000km (the 1,000 km service comprises a check-up package), I was actually aiming for the test-drive cars to accumulate at least 5,000km mileage.
Waiting for so long also had another beneficial side-effect. With at least 5 months of relatively hard usage, I am also able to check for how well the City is able to withstand the daily rigours and wear & tear. The test-drive unit I borrowed was a Zircon Blue unit and is one of the 4 test drive units Honda Malaysia has. I believe it has probably already gone through several test-drives with other car magazines. When it's not out on loan, the car is also used as part of the fleet of company cars that Honda Malaysia staff can use for their official travel duties. Thus it is relatively very heavily used and when I took the car, it had ~10,300km on the odometer - i.e. just done the 10,000km service. What perfect timing ! And at just a nice mileage for optimum engine performance too. I had the unit over the 'extended' weekend, picking it up on Friday and returning it on Tuesday.
When Honda Malaysia introduced the new City to the Malaysian market, technologically it was a sort of 'tour de force' on the target segment. For the price point at which it is being sold, the City introduced a level of technical features previously unenjoyed by car owners : ABS, EBD, Brake Assist, and dual-SRS (airbags). And on top of this Honda also threw in state of the art technologies and features that many buyers in this segment have not even heard of : the iDSI engine, CVT gearbox, a 7 speed sequential mode with the unique steering wheel mounted shifters, and EPS. So in many ways, buyers of the new City were buried with new technologies. Actually I think it's probably true to say many owners are still getting to grips with the new technologies in their City.
Dabbling with technology has it's fallbacks though. Many car buyers are fed on a diet of marketing jargon and sees only multi-valve implementations and other such things. Thus the iDSI engine for e.g., eventhough technologically state of the art was misunderstood by many people to be 'low-tech' because of it's SOHC 8V configuration while the technology of the CVT gearbox was relatively so new that many owners have been used to the regular 3 or 4 AT and initially had difficulties understanding its strength and how to exploit it.
The City and the Jazz shares a common platform so their key design features are similar, with changes due to the sedan and hatch configuration. We have discussed in some detail most of the common technologies and features in my 1.4l Jazz review. So I think it will be redundant to talk about the iDSI engine, CVT, G-CON, or the magic seats in this article. For this review, I will just focus on some core areas : performance, a look at how well the unit I borrowed managed to stood up to 10,000 and 4 months of relatively heavy usage and finally what I hope would be a quick but unique look at the City through the eyes of an enthusiast !
As normal, the topic of the performance of the City has to start with its engine. Coded the L15A, it displaces 1.5l and is SOHC 8V with iDSI and is spec'ed for 88ps at 5500rpm with the max torque of 13.4kgm coming in at a very low 2,700rpm. Redline is at 6000rpm. It is the same 'series' (what we enthusiasts calls the 'L-series' or the iDSI design) as the 1.4l L13A on the Jazz. I have covered this engine series in detail in my Jazz review, looking at its design philosophy, why it comes in SOHC and 8V and also the iDSI principle. The City's L15A is basically the same engine except for the larger displacement which is due to a longer stroke. This longer stroke gives the L15A quite significantly higher torque than the Jazz's L13A. This relationship is clearly seen from the two power/torque charts on the left, taken from the 'Honda Japan' website (the JDM engines are basically the same as the local versions). See how the torque of the City's L15A is much higher throughout the entire rpm range. The CVT gearbox on the City is also more or less the same unit as that on the Jazz except for the addition of the fancy 7-speed mode.
Therefore I was expecting basically the same driving behaviour from the City as from the Jazz except that the City will feel quite a bit more preppy due to the much better torque of the engine. And this is borne out right from the start. For normal driving, the CVT gearbox behaves the same in both cars and the City responsed similarly to the 1.4l Jazz except that it feels more torquey throughout the normal rpm range used during regular driving (around 2000-4000rpm).
WOT on the City is somewhat different than on the Jazz though. I wonder if it's because I did not have sufficient time with the Jazz or whether the operational characteristic of the two car's CVT are really different but on the City, go WOT at any rpm and the rpm immediately jumps to around 3500-4500rpm. It holds steady there while the car starts accelerating at a good pace. However, instead of holding until the car has reached a certain speed - e.g. ~110kph like on the Jazz, here on the City it seems to be more time related. By this I mean to say that the revs are held steady at around 3500-4500rpm for around 2-3 seconds before the CVT starts to let the revs climb up again, irregardless of the speed. Revs finally hits around 5500-6000rpm and stays steady there allowing the City to accelerate at full speed.
This WOT operating characteristic of the City unfortunately can interfere with the absolute acceleration of the City under normal driving conditions. As an example, in one case I decided to overtake a slower car on a country trunk road, single lane each side. So the overtaking manuveure will need to take place against on-coming traffic. I switch to 'S'-mode and cut out and WOT'ed. Revs immediately climbed to ~4000rpm and the City picked up speed pretty well. However after a relatively short while - not long enough for the overtaking to be completed as I was still only side by side with the car being overtaken - the CVT allowed the revs to start climbing up from 4000rpm. Even with the better torque of the City's L15A, this still slowed down its acceleration quite significantly. As a result, I ended up almost over-committing in this particular overtaking attempt. The on-coming car closed up alarmingly fast before I could gain enough to cut back into my lane again ahead of the overtaken car with relatively little space to spare. In this particular instance, holding the revs at 4000rpm for only 2-3 seconds is insufficient to allow the car to pick-up enough speed. But fortunately for the City, Honda has also equipped it with a unique '7 speed mode'.
CVT 7-speed mode was designed by Honda to cater for owners who are unable to get used to the unique feeling of driving a CVT gearbox. CVT gearboxes has the unique ability to slip the gear ratio for optimal acceleration and the feeling when this happens can often be similar to the case when there is clutch slip. Because of this problem, Honda designed a new program to the CVT ECU whereby instead of continually slipping the gear ratios, it slips them via seven distinct stages, effectively creating 7 distinct 'virtual' gear-ratios. During the Tokyo Motor Show, Honda put up a moving model of the new Odyssey's 2.4 DOHC iVTEC engine and CVT gearbox. This CVT gearbox is also fitted with the 7-speed mode and Honda actually had the moving model simulate the 7 speed modes. I took an AVI video of this in operation which can be downloaded by clicking on the image of the cut-out engine on the left. The AVI file is 2Mb in size but the wait is well worth it. It clearly shows the CVT principle in operation and towards the end of the simulation, it can be clearly seen that the pulleys are moved in 'staggered' steps and this illustrates how the 7-speed mode is implemented.
For the driving enthusiasts, the 7-speed mode is the key to overcoming whatever shortcomings the operating characteristic of the CVT program has. Again, I find that best results are obtained via a combination of S-mode and 7-speed mode. For acceleration from a stand-still for e.g., I found that the best technique is to get into 7-speed mode (from S-mode). Then press the downshift button once. This moves the 7-speed mode from an auto to a manual shift option. And at standstill, the CVT will be in 1st gear. Now floor the throttle and the CVT behaves exactly like a regular gearbox with a very high geared 1st gear. The car accelerates at a good pace - maximum drive is available at the front wheels since the gear ratio is fixed. We need to observe the tacho carefully now because we want to get the CVT out of 7 speed mode just immediately before the CVT shifts into 2nd gear. This will be around 5500-5800rpm. So once engine revs hits 5500rpm, press the 7-speed button to switch back into S-mode. We need to press when the tacho needle reaches 5500rpm because of possible delay in reflexes. If we try to switch at 5800rpm, it may be too late and the CVT would probably have switched to 2nd gear. But if we time it just nicely, the engine revs stays at around 5800rpm for as long as we keep the throttle at WOT. This immediately places the CVT at the highest possible gear ratio for the speed the car is now travelling at and thus ensures maximum acceleration. So, from standstill, getting into 1st gear allows us to get to max engine revs as fast as we can without going through the stage where we are accelerating but the CVT is slipping the gears at the same time. And once at max revs, we will have max acceleration for as long as we want. This is the key to the City's max acceleration from standstill. When I use this method, I find I was easily able to pull ahead of the general traffic at the toll-gates and traffic lights.
The same technique can be used to good effect for extracting maximum acceleration from a 'rolling start'. For example, when I later needed to overtake another car in the same trunk road as above, what I did was I switched to S-mode and then into 7-speed mode. Next I downshift to the lowest possible gear ratio. The 'idiot-proof' designed into the CVT 7-speed mode is very useful here as I just have to keep pressing the downshift button until the CVT won't downshift anymore because any further downshifting will over-rev the engine. Thus when this is done, the CVT gearbox would be running at the lowest possible gear for the car's speed and thus the highest possible fixed gear ratio. Now I cut out to overtake the car and floored the throttle. Maximum drive is transmitted to the front wheels since the gear ratio is fixed. There is no interference from slipping gear ratios. Engine revs climbs to 5500rpm and I switch back to S-mode again (this means we have to keep an eye on the tacho and the road as well so do this with extra care !). With engine revs at max (~5800rpm), we now have maximum acceleration. With this technique, overtaking was done much more effectively and without any drama. Certainly I did not over-commit at any of the overtaking manuevres I did when using this technique.
In a 'high speed chase' - e.g. when trying to follow another car which was speeding very fast, this technique will give us the best performance. But to be honest, the need to monitor the tacho closely and the need to switch between 7-speed and S-mode constantly (once we have to slow down, we have to repeat the sequence again) is quite tiring and counter-productive to the fun of the 'chase'. For cases like this, I actually find using just the 7-speed mode is more fun. The compromise in acceleration is more than neutralized by the convenience of not having to constantly switch to and fro S and 7speed mode and the need to monitor the tacho. For maximum fun, manual gear shifting in 7-speed mode is the best though for better performance, letting the CVT switch the gears automatically is better. Because the gears are maintained logically via software, the ECU will actually downshift a few gears at a time if necessary. I.e. if travelling at slow speeds, the CVT will try to get into at least 5th gear as much as possible. Flooring the throttle will cause a downshift to 3rd or sometimes even 2nd gear immediately, bypassing the gears in between. So, unless it's a 'grudge match', having fun is usually best done in 7-speed manual mode. When I 'chased' the speeding Perodua Kembara (a very popular mini-SUV in Malaysia with quite preppy performance), 7-speed manual mode was what I used and it was certainly a lot of fun (it was done late at night on a practically empty road). Shifting the gears using the shifters on the steering wheel a real joy to do.
However having said all this, I have to highlight that it is necessary to do all these only when we want to extract maximum acceleration out of the City. For regular driving and indeed if we give outselves plenty of space when overtaking, just using the 'D'-mode was already much more than sufficient to give plenty of performance.
The City and its engine/gearbox can often surprise unsuspecting people. One very amusing incident happened when I drove the City to my club's committee meeting. Four members of my committee wanted to test-drive the car. So all five of us pilled into the car. I was in the front passenger seat while one of the committees was the driver. One of the guys at the back yelled for us to start the engine and get it moving. However, the engine was actually already running. "It's already started" I yelled back. "It cannot be, it's so quiet and there's no vibration at all" came the response. Praise indeed !
We got moving and they took turns driving the City. As if to prove my point about the 7-speed mode and driving enthusiasts, ALL of them quickly drove only in the 7-speed manual mode. At the end of their test-drives, all of them were smiling in glee. One of them even seriously asked me if he should change his car to a City. "My fiancee already has the EF7 CRX so we certainly don't need to have two performance Hondas in the family". So he was sufficiently impressed by the City and the 7-speed mode to consider changing his old CD6 Accord SiR (H22A DOHC VTEC 200ps with manual gearbox) for a new City !
Throughout the test-drive, I too find myself finding an excuse to switch to the 7-speed mode all the time. And usually I end up using the manual shifting option. Changing gears using the steering wheel shifter was tremendous fun. Indeed, I think Honda's one big mistake on the City is in naming the button for switching on the 7-speed mode. It shouldn't read '7-speed mode'. Really. It should instead be like on the left !
One significant improvement the City has over the Jazz is its ride quality as well as its handling. The City comes with 185/60/14 wheels compared to the 1.4l Jazz which is fitted with 175/65/14. This means the Jazz actually comes with slightly (insignificant) larger but quite thinner tyres. Furthermore in my Jazz review I wrote how I felt the springs are too soft. For the City, Honda have improved the suspension by quite a lot from the angle of performance. The springs are quite clearly harder on the City. And a better combination of spring rate and shocks damping rate also gave the City a relatively comfortable ride. But what took a leap forward is the handling. Taking corners is a lot more stable with the City. Indeed when I was testing the City's cornering abilities, I was frequently impressed very much by how the relatively thin tyres managed to keep the cornering tight and true without any squealing ! And it allowed me to take the City in tight corners at speeds that really impressed me (for a car in this class).
Along with this improved performance, the City had surprisingly good ride quality too. Most rough roads were handled with poise with only a slight transmission of the shock coming through into the cabin.
In the terms of high speed handling, the City fared well too. I didn't feel the car 'float' (i.e. the steering going light or the car feeling like it's going to fly off the road) at speeds of up to 150kph. I didn't have a chance to go higher - not because the City lacks power to do so, but because it picked up speed so fast I always get blocked by slower moving cars ! In any case I didn't want to go faster because 150kph was my target and my opinion is 'flying' around at crazily high speeds is not what the City is designed to do. Getting to 150kph was my target also because I was specifically asked by my colleague, who just took delivery of his City at around the same time as I had the car on loan, to check out the issue about noise at high speeds. Many owners of the City had specific complains about 'wind-noise' which reportedly becomes a problem at 140kph. My colleague of course couldn't take his brand new City to 140kph so I agreed to check out the Honda unit. And to make sure I tested it properly, I decided to go right up to 150kph. Well, basically at 150kph I did not find 'wind noise' to be a problem. There were a lot of wind noise, but not excessively so in relation for a car in this class. Here I will have to highlight that the City is a compact car after all and some degree of wind-noise is unavoidable. Certainly hoping for noise levels as low as those in luxury sedans will be a futile exercise. So the Honda Malaysia unit in my humble opinion exhibited wind noise level which are about par for a car of its class.
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The unit I borrowed has a serial number of '11', i.e. the 11th car off the production line. As I wrote at the beginning of this article, I believe the unit has gone through several loans for test-drive reviews plus it's also used more or less as a workhorse by Honda employees for their official travels. As such, in relative terms, it must have gone through quite its fair share of wear and tear - 10,000km in four months, a mileage which for me personally is more typical of mileage for nearly a whole year !
For this review, I was interested in a few areas on the City in relation to wear and tear. The most important one would be the much hyped issue of the biege coloured interior. Many detractors have tried to play up the supposed vulnerability of the light coloured interior to stains and dirt. Again, the Zircon Blue City I had on loan has gone through probably more than the typical year of such wear and tear so I casted a critical eye on the interior to see if it suffered any undue wear.
One of the areas most exposed to wear and tear would be the area around the door
open/close handles. Whenever I open the door from the inside, I like to rest my hand on the
area just beside the handle so as to have leverage to pull the lever. Over a typical journey,
the door would be opened and closed at least twice - once from the inside & outside. If we assume each
journey to last say an average of 30km, 10,000km would mean 330 journeys in theory and thus the
door would be opened from the inside at least 330 times. If the biege interior really is that
bad for tolerating stains, wear and tear and such, certainly the area around the door open/close
handle will be the first to show it. The photo on the left shows this area and clearly there is
no visible wear and tear nor any signs of discolouration or stains. I next check the seats and
the areas of the interior which are fabric. The PVC part of the interior can conceiveably be
cleaned using interior waxes and cleaning fluid but fabric is quite susceptible to wear and tear.
Getting into and out of the car imposes quite a bit of wear and tear on the side of the driver's
seat near the door. But the seats did not show any sign of wear and tear or discolouration.
After close inspection of the interior of the City, personally I feel that all the hooh-hah about the supposed vulnerability of the beige coloured interior is quite over-hyped. I think many of the so-called problems with a light coloured interior are quite unfounded and with care, the City's light coloured interior should last very well. Indeed many luxury cars similarly have very light coloured interiors and they certainly seem none the worse for it.
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As with all true TOVA style review, the enthusiast's approach is a core of the review and here in this section, I am going to take a quick but hardcore look at the more popular ways the City is modified according to the preferences of the enthusiast. I will only cover a few selected areas and most of them should not void the waranty anyway.
The first and probably the most important area would be the looks. The City is of the new generation design which features a tall-ish boxy look with a flowing aerodynamic design. The tall boxy look gives generous interior space while the flowing aerodynamic design gives a low coefficient of drag (a measure of wind resistance). However together the two do look a bit out of place in each other's company. So eventhough looks is an acquired taste, the City's design really have more than its fair share of polarised opinions ! To me personally, I think the main 'problem' with the City's look is at its rear, or more accurately the boot area. But to me personally I feel this 'problem' is minor and can easily be 'fixed' with the addition of a nice boot spoiler ! Of course the real hardcore will love to go the whole hog and fit the fantastic looking Mugen City bodykit as well ! Who can blame us if what we get will be the incredible looking Mugen City on the left (taken from the Mugen website)? This kit is very expensive though as it needs to be fully imported from Japan. But personally I feel just the boot spoiler will be quite sufficient !
Key to the looks of the City would be the wheels. As I have written many times before, the hardcore enthusiast is completely obsessed with the wheels - a set of large 'sports' rims and tyres are a must to complete the look of any Honda and so the wheels will almost always be the first to go. Indeed within my Honda club for e.g., the life expectancy of the stock rim/tyre combo of any new car can probably be measured in days and I even have a member who took delivery of his new City only to drive immediately to the rim/tyre shop to trade-in the stock 14" items for a set of imported (from Japan) 16" rims complete with matching tyres ! The stocky design of the new City means that the stock 14" wheels looks flimsy and tiny. The most popular size to change to is 15" because this is the more conservative move but cases of 16" and 17" is not unusual. When upgrading the wheels, the tyre size should be properly selected using the 'inch-up' rule-of-thumb. Tyres are unusual in that it's measurement is via a mixture of metric and imperial system. Thus the stock City tyres are measured by 185/60/R14; 185 millimetre wide at 60% profile and a 14 inch rim size ! With the 'inch-up' rule of thumb, the guideline is that for every inch up in size of the rims, the width is increased by 10mm and the profile decreased by 10%. Thus if we wish to upgrade to 15" rims, then the proper tyre size to use would be 195/50/15 and for 16", 205/40/16. Note however that the profile of the tyres gets thinner as we go up in rim size and by the time we reach 17" rim size, the tyre size would be 215/30/17 and that would be very thin indeed. Alternate tyre sizes to that derived using the 'inch-up' guideline can also be determined by calculating the diameter of the tyre using sizes 'close-by'; e.g. 195/55/15 instead of 195/50/15. Personally I would prefer to keep to tyre diameters that do not vary from the stock size by more than 5%, better if 3%. Be aware that sizes derived from the 'inch-up' guideline won't be exactly the correct diameter anyway.
Lowering of the City will be another much talked about mod for the City. From the enthusiasts eyes, the City's wheel to fender gap is considered too large. Actually to be honest, practically all cars will have too large a stock wheel to fender gap in the eyes of the enthusiast. But by the same token, I think no-one can really argue that by suitably lowering the car, it will look very much sportier. For the enthusiast's consideration, I present the black City on the right. This gorgeous unit belongs to a member of my club and comes with a boot spoiler, very large 17" wheels, and has been suitably lowered using Tanabe springs used with the stock absorbers. Personally I feel the car looks fantastic especially via its side profile and I think most enthusiast would agree with me. Note the very thin tyre profile that has to be used with the 17" wheels.
A couple of important points to make however. Some of the items might interfere with the durability and reliability of some components of the car and this may result in an 'impact' on the 3 years warantty that comes with the car. For the wheels for e.g., a recent talk-point is that Honda has supposedly stated that the EPS on the City is not compatible with anything larger than 14" wheels. I myself am very surprised at this news. Accordingly, I contacted Honda Malaysia for clarification of this item. Apparently Honda R&D Thailand's feedback to the question of putting 15" wheels on the City is that the EPS as supplied on the City is 'set-up' to work with only 14" wheels. However, at this moment no further details are available yet with regards to the technical reasons. Personally I do not see any solid reason why the EPS will develop problems when asked to work with 15" rather than 14" wheels. When we increase the size of the wheels, the biggest impact is the larger angular momentum. In an 'alloy rim', most of the weight are located at the edge, i.e. the 'rim'. So as the size goes up, most of the rim's weight goes further and further away from the center of the wheel and accordingly, so the angular momentum (I hope this is the correct term to use as my physics is a bit rusty) increases. Therefore large wheels will have several impacts on the car - the larger angular momentum makes it harder to spin the wheels plus the larger wheels as a whole will be heavier too (unless we go exotic alloys like Magnesium rims). So larger wheels slows down the acceleration of the car. Then the heavier wheels puts more load and stress on various components of the suspension; the bearings for e.g. Conceptually, the EPS when set-up to work with the stock 14" wheels may not be operating optimally if we go 15" due to the heavier wheels. If so, this may lead to a heavier steering feel. Theoretically if we go too large a size, the EPS servo motor may be overloaded but seriously I doubt it will happen.
Because we love to talk about lowering our cars here in TOVA, in this review, it is appropriate to point out that doing so will most probably lead to problems with the car's waranty. Just like with the wheels, even if we do not talk about the waranty, we will still need to be aware that lowering will lead to larger stress and probably accelerated wear and tear of many components. According to Honda, the stock drive shafts are designed to work at an optimum angle which is derived with the stock ride height. Lower the ride height of the car and the operating angle is changed and this may impact the life-span of the CV joints. Using a set of lower sports springs (e.g. the Tanabe springs in the car above) with the stock shocks will also shorten the life-span of the shocks as they are now forced to work harder with the harder springs. Some items have very un-suspecting side-effects. When the City was first launched, Honda Malaysia was already working on optional bodykit accessories. One of the first items was the boot (trunk) spoiler but the problem with the Honda Access spoiler is that it was very expensive (over a thousand Malaysian dollars). According to Honda Malaysia, besides the high build quality and the fact that it had to be imported from Japan, the spoiler also comes as a whole kit, complete with replacement springs for the boot cover. The reason is because a good quality rear spoiler is a very solid -and heavy- item and apparently Honda is so thorough in the design of their cars that the amount of effort needed to lift the boot cover is an integral part of the overall design ! This also means that simply adding a rear spoiler will make the boot cover more difficult to lift and for those cars which has hydraulic lifters, it will also reduce the lifespan of those items. So, even something as simple as adding a rear spoiler will have its undesirable side impacts as well ! It is for this reason that Honda makes a big fuss when we talk about things like lowering the car or putting larger wheels. Nevertheless, here my objective is only to make the enthusiast aware of the side effects of some of the more popular 'upgrades' we like to do to our cars. My personal experience with Honda is that they always over-engineer their cars and so even if the theory says that lowering springs will wear out the shocks faster for e.g., the actual impact may not be that large in the absolute sense because the stock shocks will typically last way over their official rated lifespan anyway. Nevertheless, the important thing is being aware and being prepared.
One 'controversial' observation that struck me as an enthusiast would be just how 'nice' the stock air-filter system design was for mounting the popular open element air-filter. The air-filter pipe from the throttle body connects to a large resonance chamber which then attaches to the stock air-filter box just in front of it. Now if we remove the air-filter and it box, as the photo on the left will clearly show to the enthusiast, it becomes a perfect place to mount say, a HKS Super-Power-Flow open element air-filter - it will be facing right into the air-flow !
Finally, I would like to end this section with an item which I believe will, for a change, benefit without any side effects. This is the City's lack of provision of the so-called 'dead pedal', i.e. a fixed pedal where we can rest our left foot which is not used when driving an automatic car. For hard-driving, this dead-pedal provides a very useful place for us to brace ourselves using the left-foot - during hard braking or fast cornering. And during the more 'aggressive' driving sessions I had with the City, I really do find the lack of this dead-pedal to intefere with the ultimate fun. Because the right foot is busy working the pedals and there is no place to brace the left foot, I find myself moving quite a lot around the seat during the 'high speed chase' with that Perodua Kembara for e.g. I wonder if a dead-pedal can be retrofitted to the City. With the fantastic fun one can have with the City, especially in 7-speed manual shifter mode, I really feel the dead-pedal will contribute tremendously to the driving fun !
The City really sparked a minor revolution in the car market here when it was launched. Even before its launch, Honda dealers were already taking in orders for the car by the hundreds. I myself actually witnessed a couple handing over their cheque for their deposit of their order weeks before the launch, and they did that after simply browsing through the catalog ! No doubt Honda Malaysia's policy of being willing to refund in full all deposits with no questions asked was key to this success. Within a few weeks after its launch, the number of orders had already reached several thousands. A friend of mine took delivery of his City at around the same time as I had my Zircon Blue unit on loan and his car's serial number is already touching 5,000. This proves that within 4 months after its launch, Honda Malaysia had actually delivered 5000 units of City to their owners and at that time, the waiting list had already touched 6 months ! Really, no other model previously from any other manufacturer had such an impact. It was easily the most successful non-national car ever to go on sale here in Malaysia. What made it so successful ? Contrary to what many may be led to believe, I think it's not just price alone. There have been plenty of non-national cars which sold cheaper than the City but none have come close to its success. To me, I think the City's success rides on it's unique balance of price vs features & functions.
In the first place, the Honda brand still carries a lot of weight irregardless of what happened to the City and the Accord previously. More importantly, the City introduced a level of technical specs hereto unheard of by car-buyers in this price level - ABS with EBD, Brake Assist, dual Airbags - no other non-national car at or near this price range comes close to this level of specifications. To seal off this already excellent package, Honda designed the City into a very good all rounder - balancing the domestic demands of a family car (versatility, carrying capcity, etc) with a VERY NICE mix of enticing features for the driving enthusiast, enough to keep him/her occupied with its technical complexity for e.g. for days and enough to let him/her enjoy driving the car for hours.
This blend of domestic and enthuaists feature is I think most critical to the success of the City. After all, if just price vs features alone, there are plenty of alternatives on the market, with the ex Honda representative selling several models, some of which even features a sequential shifter and tons of fancy sounding features. I think it is the ability of the City to make the spouse happy for those trips to IKEA and the nursery for quite bulky furnitures and pots of plants, to the ability of the City to allow the owner to cart that brand new bodykit home for fitting or the ability to bring a smile during hard driving. And to make this available at a price point that had previously been the exclusive domain of the national car or non-japanese brands. This then is the key to the City's success.
I think that it is clear that the City practically represents a 'culture shock' - technology-wise - for buyers in its market segment. As highlighted, never before had a car in this low a price point been fitted with the complete features the City has : ABS, EBD, Brake Assist and dual-SRS (airbags). And to deliver the knock-out punch, Honda also fitted the City with state of the art technologies; the iDSI engine tuned for optimal fuel economy, the excellent CVT gearbox with the enticing 7-speed mode, and an Electrical Power Steering system. Thus to me, it is not surprising why the City succeeded. Like I said, it was a technological 'Tour De Force' - vintage Honda at their best. What ? it can't be done ? well, not to Honda ! The priviledge of experiencing leading edge technologies, previously the exclusive domain of cars beyond the reach of us mere mortals, but Honda brought this right to within the reach of the mass car buying public. This is why their motto is most appropriate : "The Power of Dreams" !
In many ways this review is very unusual for me. The test-drive was one of the most fun I had but the article was one of the most stressful I had to write. It was fun because the City was tremendous fun to drive, especially in the 7-speed manual mode. But it was stressful because a number of my ASEAN based readers (who are fortunate enough to get the City in their local line-up) told me they are eagerly waiting for this review ! So I was really stressed out that I might not be able to meet their high expectations from me for this review. Well, here is my review, finally completed and I hope those readers are not too dissapointed ! Honestly, I have tried my best and I hope they have enjoyed reading this review.
To discuss this article, please visit our TOVA forum's special discussion thread at TOVA Forum.
Wong KN
November 2003
© Temple of VTEC Asia
Many thanks to Honda Malaysia for the loan of this extremely fun car for this test-drive.