Introduction

Here are a list of categories of cars and the respective offers under different brands this festive season. If you are buying one of these, do make sure to read through the offers list before taking up a test drive.

Common offers

Specific offers

(Image source: VW India)

Firstly its a shame that I took a test drive of the Polo GT TSI this late – nearly five years after its launch in india. Since then its price is steadily increasing north. Nevertheless finally I managed to get my hands on this hot hatch and I was rather inquisitive to see what exactly the heat is all about 🙂

Specificiations of Polo GT TSI

First things first some specs out of my way

• 1.2 litre petrol engine, 4 cylinders
• 105 bhp power at 5000 rpm
• 175 Nm torque at 1500-4100
• < 5m turning radius
• 16 inch alloy wheels – so increased ground clearance
• 45 litre fuel tank 

Features of Polo GT TSI that matter

When you buy a hatchback buyers are left high and dry with so many omissions that companies undertake just to cut costs. Take the example of cars like Celerio, or Alto, etc which give just one airbag, or no ABS or only ABS and no airbags, no wipers, no defoggers – the list gets endless. Some argue that it is done to price the car in one particular price bracket. But these are not luxuries anymore. They are darn necessities of life. Why should I feel that only me as the driver needs an airbag? Why not my co passenger? As a matter of fact why not 8 airbags, why only two ? In 2017 we must look at a proper and safe car even if it costs much.

Some of the features Polo GT offers is very admirable compared to comptetion. Some of them I personally appreciated were these:

• ESP
• Hill hold control for DSG petrol
• Dual airbags and ABS
• Cruise control (on a hatchback !)
• Automatic climate control
• 16 inch alloy wheels – takes care of the ground clearance aspect for good

I fail to understand whether they offer the following – My feeling is they do not which is a bit of shame

• Anti pinch one touch windows for all sides
• Auto dimming rear view mirrors
• Rain sensing wipers and follow me home headlamps
• Navigation / Android auto and Apple car play

Drive experience

Coming to the drive itself, I took only a brief drive which had the following along the route

• Traffic – stop and go
• Broken roads
• Bad road humps
• Smooth stretches to accelerate quickly
• Slopes

The car is seemingly quiet upon start and does not let you know what is waiting to do when you press the pedal. Once you want to move you have three ways to use the car – D mode (completely auto) and Manual mode with tiptronic gear shifts and sport mode.

D-Mode

The D-mode is perhaps the best mode to drive this car in – it has precise understanding of the gear you are likely to be in and the dual clutch is just waiting to put the car quickly in to different gears just the way you expect the car to move about. If you are stressed out this is the mode to use and the car is always willing to work just the way you want it to and slices through traffic like butter. The chilling airconditioner also makes you very comfortable and long stretches of traffic jam would not be a bother anymore with the Polo GT.

Manual mode

The manual mode expects you to use the tiptronic transmission and for some reason VW have defined it in an anti progressive way – meaning we always expect + to be down and – to be up. In the GT its the other way round. for going higher you need to move the shift forward and for reducing gear move it backward. This is seriously counter intuitive and kills the joy of manual mode. If you want to know what I mean, drive the celerio AMT.

Sports mode

The sports mode is supposed to let you be on the same gear for a while longer to enhance pickup before gear change but it acts a bit sticky and just when you think it should be changing gear even on surges of acceleration it takes just that 1-2 seconds more which is disappointing. Again do not get me wrong here – its not unbearable – just could have been a bit more perfect. For the gears itself it does hold up pretty well and does not make you feel awkward. However it is still the D-mode i would prefer if you buy this car and it will never leave you feeling bad.

Ground clearance

All the reviews I see never really bother to cover this aspect properly. Somehow being in Bangalore for me this is one of the criteria to choose a car given the pathetic condition of our roads. Thankfully with VW deciding to give 16” wheels, the car did not even touch any of the most horribly designed road humps throughout the drive. I drove on them completely impressed with the way this car handles undulations on the road.

Body roll and suspension

The suspension is not exactly soft and more on the firmer side and hence you can expect slight body roll if you turn around corners sharply or go over real bad patches too fast. Again th car handles these bad patches well just that passengers inside may get pretty jostled at times.

Chassis and safety

This car comes with all the safety aspects you can think of – Dual airbags, ABS, ESP, Hill hold, etc. Most of all this is still the car with the reassuring european build even after a good 15 years since these cars started making in into the markets. Close the door and you get that reassuring thud which makes you feel safe at all times. God forbid you are involved in an accident with the Polo, you are bound to walk out alive for sure. Rest assured you are in one of the most safest car around.

Rear space

This sucks. No … Really. I mean it. This car should have been a 3-door car. Not a 5-door. I don’t know what VW were thinking when they designed this car for 5 people. Not even 4 people can sit properly if the front passengers are nearing 6 foot heights. The rest of them can forget enjoying sitting inside. The 2018 version of VW is much more roomy for this purpose. And its definitely a more spacious car. But you know how car manufacturers operate in India. They milk the consumers first for the old crappy products on sale currently and then bring in something new and make up a story that its so much more better than the older one and try to milk the buyers even more.

VW please do not fool people that this hatchback is the best for space and so on. No one will be able to believe it. Either bring the 2018 version out soon here for same price point or just dont mention space as a luxury element while advertising.

Fuel efficiency figures expected

I don’t go by ARAI figures or other such claims of mileage. Nowadays thankfully you dont need to go by the salesman’s word for mileage. There are systems that let you know the real time effeciency that the car is returning over a trip distance of a said number of kilometers. I did check the real world figures and it showed me 6.8kmpl for the Polo GT TSI. Agreed its a test drive car and most people always drive within 1st or 2nd gear. Its more of a performance automatic rather than something tuned for mileage. But even by extrapolated standards, I do not see this car giving anything beyond 10kmpl in city traffic.

If any of you are getting anything more than this, do let me know in the comments section and I will be glad to know how. There are cars that return 13-16/17 kmpl in hatchback category for petrol itself. So arguably the mileage figures of Polo does look a bit disturbing. Real world figures can touch a tad bit around 10 or slightly more. Do not expect anything more than this for an automatic vehicle.

Please do you research before blowing your money on a machine that burns your bank account at the petrol pumps often.

Conclusion

If you are looking at a powerful hatchback with an automatic transmission that steals the show the Polo GT TSI is for you. Safety and style are unquestionable and you get your money’s worth with this car. Rear space is a big disappointment and VW could have done well to utilize rear boot space for better rear space instead. However they chose not to do that due to not wanting to alter dynamics of driving.

The drive is powerful the car is nimble and makes you happy in stop and go traffic and your legs will thank you for the rest they get with the DSG gear shift. It is one of the most powerful cars in the category and it is there in the market for a reason. Driving enthusiasts. There is a waiting period of 8 weeks on the car and no discounts whatsover. That speaks a lot of where VW wanted to be with this car and they have been there since a long time now.

So if you do decide to invest on this car for the above reasons of power, ease of use – you will not be making a mistake.

I had never visited Rameswaram as far back as my memory goes and was not sure what to expect out of the Pamban bridge. My sons have special interest in digging up maps of all places and when I showed them where Rameswaram was they were more than eager to get there to see the historic Pamban bridge.

How to get there?

There were few options for me to get there: Rail, bus, car or part flight-then car. We booked a train from Bangalore to Madurai and then an Innova for the rest of our journey. We stayed at Astoria business hotel in Madurai on which I have a separate post if you would like to read.

The shortest distance is about 560km via Salem-Trichy-Pudukottai-Karaikkudi and would take nearly 10 to 11 hours of driving with stops in between. Since this was too much of drive, and I wanted to spend the night traveling the best option was train. I took a train from Bangalore to Madurai. Two common trains are the Tuticorin Express and Nagercoil Express. If you want to know the exact list of trains, click here. I reached Madurai at about 7:00 AM. Please be advised these trains can be late sometimes and if you have tickets in coaches S10 and beyond you can expect lots of people from unreserved compartments to be flooding these bogies as well. If you want to read my experience on that read my blog post here.

Commutation from Madurai

Once you are in Madurai – major places such as Kanyakumari, Rameswaram and Kodaikanal are all nearby – about 3 hours by drive. We took up an Innova on hire from Madurai to Rameswaram which costed us between 10-12 Rupees per kilometre. There is a fixed cost and and a variable cost split in this arrangement. Be aware that if you are going to the hills, then a separate hill stay charge of upto Rs.600/- is levied. This could be 100 or 200 higher depending on the market fluctuations.

Travel from Madurai to Rameswaram takes a good 3 hours by the time you reach you should be hungry for sure. As you go along the route, you will first enter Rameswaram via the Pamban bridge. Most vehicles make an undesignated stop here owing to the popularity of the bridge.

Pamban Bridge Railway

We went in the month of April which was presumed to be hotter but was not really so. Humid yes, but hot no. So you could go to Rameswaram within April end but no later. Best time to visit Rameswaram is between August to February when temperatures would likely be bearable. Its not so much the heat but the humidity which will kill you.

(image source: Wikipedia)

Pamban is an island that has the town of Rameswaram and it is linked to the mainland via the Pamban Bridge. It is the second largest sea bridge after Bandra-Worli Sea Link. The bridge is nearly 2km long and was rebuilt after the initial construction in 1914. Due to a cyclone that damaged the bridge in 1964, the Government had to repair it after. In 2013 the bridge got a damage due to a naval barge again. At a cost of 25 crores, the existing 65.23 metres (214.0 ft) long rolling type span was replaced with a 66 metres (217 ft) long single truss span which could be opened automatically.

The beauty of this bridge is that it even takes the weight of goods trains which are more heavier than passenger trains. At the same time when ships need to go through it can be opened up to allow them to pass. The sea with its myriad shades of blue, indigo and purple is a sight to behold at Pamban. The enormity and beauty of Pamban Railway cannot be stated and has to be seen with one’s own eyes.

This is a 4K video of a train passing through the Pamban Bridge which i hope you will enjoy. If you have a 40-55 inches TV, this would be worth a watch on that size of a TV, its almost as good as being there in real. Remember to set the resolution to 4K on YouTube.

What do you think of the Pamban Bridge experience? Write to me in the comments section.

In my last post I mentioned my experiences with the Huawei Honor Pro 8 in the first 24 hours of me buying it. In this post I wish to cover the good bits of the phone which are impressive enough to make a case to purchase it. So let’s then get down to business, shall we?

Camera

The dual lens camera is 12MP + 12MP RGB + Monochrome. What this means is professional quality fo pictures taken. The icing on the cake is wide aperture mode which allows you to adjust the aperture after the photo is taken which gives your images like what is shown below. The depth of field can be adjusted post taking the shot.

And trust me the camera is good. I mean really good. Almost close to Samsung which is the industry benchmark till now. Take a look yourself.

Battery

The 4000 mAH battery is there for a reason. For many people charging in between the day is a bit of hassle. For me too. This in spite of me having a 20000 mah power bank, a wireless charger and a fast charger with me always. Still the thought of battery dying down is irritating. Tugging cables along, scrambling for that cable to get that extra bit of juice – well all this is history with the Honor 8 Pro.

For the records, if i have 100% at 9am I still have 5% at 12am – a full 15 hours later. This is under heavy use – WhatsApp, videos on FB, hangout calls, phone calls, Virtual Reality video, Email sync, browsing, Wifi, LTE, Navigation – literally everything. Of course I am not a gamer but I think the phone would do well even if gaming were to be considered in the mix. Overall for the battery – a very big thumbs up !!

Virtual Reality viewer

The Honor 8 Pro doubles as a VR viewer and Google cardboard videos look great on this viewer. My only grouse is that the casing for the phone could have been more sturdier in some manner but you cannot expect more for free. This aside the Jaunt VR application is awesome and it tracks your eye movements to operate buttons within which is super cool. The lens kept falling off but hey like I said before – if its free I cannot complain much you see 🙂

Storage and RAM

128GB storage and 6GB memory – at a full 7000 INR undercutting 1+5. Period – Enough said. If you have to know more details, the OS itself seems to take about 20GB leaving a little over 100GB for other stuff – but hey again – nothing to complain here.

Huawei’s RAM management is very strict and background process sync is controlled and throttled. For me this is a big plus. I am not a big fan of too much of sync happening over the background so this works well for me. Kudos again.

Sound output

I compared the sound output of Honor 8 pro vs the iPhone SE – a rather unlikely bunch to compare against. But still I connected these over bluetooth to my Beats Pill + bluetooth speaker. And no prizes for guessing who wins in terms of overall fidelity here. The honor goes to the Honor 8 pro. The separation of treble and bass and all the frequencies is very even across the band and its accoustically appealing.

The iPhone on the other hand was not so clearly separate with the tones and the difference is telling. You can listen to yourself.

Honor 8 pro & Beats Pill+

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_BkTHoP121yUDl1LTgyMU14WXM/view?usp=sharing

Apple iPhone SE & Beats Pill+

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_BkTHoP121yckpTWk1Td21xMVE/view?usp=sharing

Other stuff

Fast charging – Awesome again – not much heating of the phone, in about an hour we are ready to go with full charge. Good job here.

I am hating to write lengthy reviews these days, and wanted to write this post a bit more differently. I just bought a Honor 8 pro from Huawei and wanted to bring up some of the things about this phone in this article. What better way is there rather than letting pictures speak for themselves …. So shall we jump in then ?

Phone Body

The front is made of Gorilla Glass, and I was expecting the rear of the phone to be glass as well but it seems to be made of ceramic or plastic which is not matte. Bottom line is that the front surface is extremely reflective, and the rear – very very slippery. The rear is also a fingerprint magnet which is no good again.

If you are not careful with this phone, you are bound to drop it very very easily. So a case and a strong tempered glass is absolutely essential. I happened to have the bad luck of letting it slip from my hand, but with not much damage except for a bit of scratches on the screen guard which was supplied.

Fingerprint scanner

This is one of the fastest implementation of the fingerprint scanner. I can confidently say its faster than Apple too. Place your finger on the “Backside” of the phone and you see the home screen or the app you were at when locked in a fraction of a second. Nothing more. But there is a flipside of this implementation.

You need to reach out to the backside of the phone always and in some situations you will not be able to do so and you will feel stuck. This is the reason rear finger print scanners are not always good.

The lack of a dedicated home button on the front means you need to always lift the phone and fumble to find that fingerprint sensor or type that long passcode to open the phone. Pretty irritating. Sorry Huawei – no marks for this.

The lack of double tap to open the screen to on state is also a sorely missed feature. A double tap does not do anything but a reverse knock on the screen takes a screenshot.

Display

Frankly even though the 5.7” QHD display is of 515 ppi pixel density, what is more interesting is the brightness of the display is very questionable in sunlight. So much so when the setting was to be at auto, and display at max brightness, I still couldn’t see a thing on the screen. You can see for yourself.

Indoor with auto setting

Display is clear and no issues reading stuff in this situation

Outdoor with auto setting – shade

Very very refective, but could see the screen though not very clearly. You need to have a viewing angle which is suitable for your eyes.

Outdoor with auto setting – in direct sunlight

You feel like throwing this phone away. Period. Nothing visible. My Samsung Note 5 was much better in this department. See for yourself.

Other Nifty Features

There are some other nifty features on this phone which I found good and useful and would be reasons for you to consider this phone. Let’s look at them one by one

Easy mark as read for messages

Even though this is not so much of a deal breaker, nevertheless it makes life so easy to swipe left and say mark as read by tapping once or twice max.

Info folder for SMS

These days we get lots of informative messages from Banks, notifications from Amazon, and so on… Huawei has decided to put these into an info folder for easy reference. Something I liked a lot.

Swipe down search

Pretty nifty as it is in the iPhone. Swipe down on home screen and you can search for your favorite apps. Was not the case with Note 5 from Samsung as it had two levels to reach to get there which was extremely annoying.

In another post I will talk about the selling point of this phone – its Camera & Battery, and we will compare Sound outputs between Honor and Apple on bluetooth.

Hope you enjoyed this post ! If so, please like, and share further.

(image souce: Wikipedia)

It’s almost predictable what Spiderman movies would be like. Spin few webs here and there, save a big vehicle from disaster – a train or a ship or a plane, love a girl and use his skills to impress her and in the end fight an enemy, starting off with some small attacks being handled.

But Spiderman homecoming takes it to another level. The first half is barely interesting even for kids and I am not sure how Marvel thought they can keep the audience glued to the screen. The 3D effects are NOT the most brilliant or spectacular either. Bringing in the character of Stark to this movie the focus is split between the super heroes as well.

Add to that a friend knows who spiderman is makes it worse. Just to save the world from weapons of mass destruction spiderman brings down a plane carrying those weapons. I mean as though a person handling owning these weapons only had a planeful of them – kind of absurd for a company like Marvel to think of.

In short – its definitely NOT value for your money and you are better off waiting for it to appear on amazon or google movies to watch it at home. If you want to read how badly Spiderman did at the box office in USA, click here to read what Forbes has to say as well. You can see that the profits dip is one of the worst for the second week.

Save your money – and put it on something better at the box office.

The earlier blog post discussed at length on the Honda WRV interiors and exteriors and the drive experience. If you missed it you can read it here.

This post discusses the accessories that the WRV comes with and the different customization options provided by Honda to make your WRV ownership even more exciting.

Side and front body decals make the car look even better than normal. The front bumper guard will protect the car’s underside from scratches and dents while the roof rails lend a SUV style appeal to the car. The logo projector is similar to puddle lamps in cars like XUV which help you to understand what you are stepping on at night. There is also a rear bumper protector which makes it useful. There are also body side molds which helps in congested places like mall parking lots to prevent people from banging their car doors against yours.

Some other stuff include seat covers of different types and garnishes all over the body at different places. Nifty door handle protectors, parking sensors with buzzer and rear camera on rear view mirror means that you do not need a separate stereo system for the same.

Honda also provides rear spoiler, front armrest, wifi device for car, steering wheel covers, different types of mats, and rear tray nets besides mud guards and car covers.

With this extensive accessory list, Honda sure has given lots of options for buyers to make their WRV more complete. Customers have sure been pampered with many options when they buy the WRV.

So what are you waiting for – if you have the WRV – go ahead and indulge yourselves!

There was much fanfare over the launch of the green line for Namma Metro, which was considered an important milestone for Bengaluru. There were lots of things which were positive about this development.

• Much of the underground work was completed and functional
• The critical link between Jayanagar and Malleswaram sides were fixed
• The distance covered by the metro was now longer and much more viable
• More importantly South Bangalore was connected to the West and to East

The map from WikiPedia is worth looking at. It shows the exact extent of coverage of the Metro within the city with the Green and Purple lines

(image source: By Doc.aneesh – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=18874026

While the east to west Bangalore covers about 18km of distance, that of South to North covers about 24km of distance. In absolute numbers this is relatively decent but the real extent is seen in the benefits for the passengers.

Important areas are now more accessible such as the city central railway station, KR Market, Vidhana Soudha and Malleswaram shopping areas. Puttenahalli and JP Nagar are residential and semi industrial areas, Banashankari has a Bus terminal which is a major interchange connecting different parts of Bangalore. RV road, Jayanagar and south end circle are areas of commercial activity and green spaces including Lalbagh as well as educational institutions such as National College, BMS College, KIMS, etc.

KR Market and Chickpet are some of the oldest areas in Bangalore and hosts the famous shops of SP Road, vegetable and fruit markets as well as shops selling lots of other stuff from photo frames to books and everything in between.

People who travel from Banashankari are now able to reach Byappanahalli much more easily and this reduces the time it takes for them to come to work which was otherwise a good 2 hours each way during the day.

Similary connections to North Bangalore and shopping areas such as Malleswaram is definitely making a lot of people happy as they can now access the many shops in and around the area including the famed Mantri Mall, CTR, Janata, Asha Sweets, Veena Stores and many more.

In fact Mantri already boasted of Greens in the vicinity but now also has the Centrium with an asking price tag upwards of 4 to 5 crores. Given that for the effluent the metro runs right near their apartment (almost into it) this project is a good buy. The Kempegowda interchange is something to write about in another post.

I parked my car at CMH road station and reached Malleswaram in about 30 minutes max which was an otherwise impossible task on a regular weekday. Even on Sunday morning 730am the rush inside the train was unimaginable. Given the frequency is nearly 15 minutes once, this is the most immediate issue that BMRCL will have to solve. With countries like Singapore having an every 2 minute train service, Bangalore seems like a tortoise, but I guess the government will understand this sooner than later.

I had to take tokens from CMH to Malleswaram and the cost for 4 people one way was 112 rupees. Its not exactly steep but its not exactly cheap either. For me by cab the entire journey for the same place would be about 200 bucks for 4 people. Its almost on par with nations like Singapore who charge about 2-3$ for an up and down journey.

Links:
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b8/Inside_the_MRT_train%2C_Singapore.jpg)

(https://previews.123rf.com/images/jennzhen/jennzhen1512/jennzhen151200034/54240440-Singapore-Dec-13-2015-Singapore-MRT-train-station-Bukit-Panjang-The-Mass-Rapid-Transit-or-MRT-formin-Stock-Photo.jpg

This said the reason I keep comparing to Singapore is simple. They have one of the best MRT and LRT services in the world (of course the London Tube is much more complex no doubt).

(https://static.standard.co.uk/s3fs-public/thumbnails/image/2016/05/06/15/tube.jpg

In another post let me tell you about my visit to CTR using the train 🙂

Introduction to Honda WRV

I had the chance to give my Civic for service at Dakshin Honda. During that time, I got a chance to look at the Honda WRV and drive the car. From a long time after reading many reviews and watching many videos, today I got a chance to drive the car personally. I opted for the Diesel version since I know a good deal about Honda’s petrol engines already being an owner of a Civic and a City earlier. The diesel engine is something new since sometime now and it was prudential for me to try it out.

Engine Options and Variants

As usual the car comes with two engine options a 1.2L petrol and a 1.5L diesel. The petrol is a 4 cylinder SOHC iVTEC engine at 1200 cc, churning out 90bhp of power at 6000 RPM and 110NM of Toruqe at 4800 RPM. The diesel on the other hand is a 4 cylinder DOHC iDTEC unit, at 1500 cc, churning out a 100bhp at 3600 RPM, and a torque of 200NM at 1750 RPM which is very healthy at least on paper. Among other features it comes with 16 inch alloy wheels which frankly in my opinion could very well upsize to 17 or even 18 inches.

On the variants there are two types SMT and VX-MT which I will explain a bit later.

Exteriors

The WRV has a muscular look, and while its sides are taken straight from the jazz, the front now sports a grill which has elements from the new Amaze, City, and BRV. Still there are few elements such as headlamps which are distinct and make the car gets its unique spot in the Honda lineup. The tail lamps are stylish too and unique in the segment. The overall exterior proportions are well rounded for a car of this category and no complaints in this department.

Interiors

Coming to the interiors, Honda has a few interesting things to look at. Firstly the dashboard is well made and feels plush and nice. The stereo system is very flat and does not stick out like in other cars. Blends well with the dash and its like a perfect fit. Though I did not get a chance to use the system too much, by the overall looks its a nice touch screen unit which does the job of what people look out most for – navigation, music, phone connectivity etc. However no Android Auto or Apple Car play – sorry, if you need these look elsewhere.

The seat space in the rear is phenomenal. Being 5’10” and keeping the driver seat at my comfort level, I could still sit at the back with quite some knee room to spare. There is one another thing Honda have changed since quite some time now. And that is the gear shift. The earlier shift was like a stick and was rather flimsy to use with a rounded head. The new one is much better and is a delight in terms of proportions and slots seamlessly into the different gears. The dashboard has more rectangular edges rather than circular and this is not necessarily so bad looking either. Its just left to the tastes of different users as such.

You can also notice in the images that there is indeed a dead pedal and Honda have thankfully not omitted it. Your longer highway cruises would now be better with that rested left leg. And yes needless to say top end variants will come with cruise control as well as steering mounted audio and phone controls. There are also lots of cubby holes in the car making it possible to store multiple things all around. The middle storage compartment has some Civic-ish cues as well though not as good. You can also notice a chilled cup holder next to the AC vent in the photos.

The selling point in this car is the Sun-Roof. No other car in its category provides this feature and Honda have done in offering this feature here. However the practicality of such a feature is questionable as driving with an open sun roof would surely affect the aerodynamics of the vehicle a bit. In Indian conditions with so much dust, pollution, mosquitoes, rains, and what not – this feature would best be in closed mode, rather than the other way round. Not a big deal breaker for sensible people – honestly.

Wouldn’t mind having it, but won’t die to have it.

The front seats also have rear pockets to place those magazines and possibly even a Macbook Air or so. The rear has ample space for occupants. The floor height is slightly raised for middle occupant, so it would be a bit uncomfortable for longer journeys and one will need to switch places frequently. You can also notice a quarter glass after the C-Pillar which adds to more roominess and light within the cabin.

Drive

I specifically wanted to test drive the 1500 Diesel as I had never driven a Honda Diesel before. Given I own a Civic now which is 1800cc, I did not want to drive the lack lustre 1200cc petrol of the WR-V. So diesel it had to be and diesel it was. A few things about this drive

1. The test drive route was long enough for me to test most parts of the driveability but short enough to return to base soon as well
2. The engine is noisy – there have been reviews about the Honda’s noisy diesel engine in its other cars such as Jazz, Amaze, City etc and here its no better. If you buy this variant the noise comes along with you
3. The steering is butter smooth – even better than the city or the civic I would say. Its an absolute joy to use in whatever condition of traffic. It is so sensitive, responsive and accurate that you really don’t have to try too much to manouvre
4. In the showroom the clutch of the WR-V was very hard in stationary state of the vehicle so I was dreading whether it would be as hard during the drive as well but I am happy to say that the clutch was super soft and easy to use during the drive and rest assured you will not get a pain in your legs so soon with this car
5. There is no automatic variant yet, but if news reports are correct then Honda might bring in the 1.5L variant mated to CVT just like in the city pretty soon
6. There is a 2 month waiting period on this car now already

Engine and NVH

And now to the drive. Well I hate to say this – but the diesel engine – is a disappointment. Coming from driving a Nissan Sunny which is known for its young at heart and roaring to race character, this WR-V engine seemed to be mostly tuned for more mileage and subsequently that meant removing the driving oomph from the car. This is more of a Point A to Point B engine. Sometimes I felt this was worse than an automatic Jazz. I am not sure what Honda was thinking here but people do not buy diesel just for mileage but also for proper use of the higher powered engine. If you have driven the Nissan Sunny Diesel, or the Scorpio or XUV diesel, or even Figo or Ecosport diesel – that level of urgency, revv happiness, and response is sorely missing. I double checked many times just to clarify this doubt and this car shows no urgency for acceleration on this variant.

Accelerating this engine makes so much noise inside the vehicle that one wonders what is all that damping setup doing in the car. Engine noise will filter through easily and its not a great experience as such. Just for comparision – you cannot hear the Civic engine inside the car. Apple to Orange comparision really I agree, but its a Honda to Honda comparison at least.

Torque

The grunt is there. But not the acceleration accordingly. I even went real slow on higher gears to check the torque. The torque is disappointing too. Beyond a point – say about 10kmph the car starts rattling begging for clutch to be held. This is quite where the Nissan Sunny shines through – low end torque. Even the Civic manages upto 5kmph on petrol engines without stalling. Honda sure has to rework on this tuning to improve it to a better state of tune if they want the torque to be managed better.

Suspension

The suspension in the WR-V is spongy. And it is really spongy. You go on a road hump or a deep pothole with speed and this car throws the occupants either sideways or bobs up and down. That is quite normal on any car, but the whole point is that this jumping about does not settle down so easily. Even with 210mm of ground clearance you still fear it will go all the way down to scrape the bump. And that is definitely not a good feeling. For a comparison I do not get that feeling with my Celerio, or even for that matter with the Duster too. I wouldn’t say Scorpio is great in that regard but there are some smaller cars that can put WR-V to shame.

Agreed this is not about making the suspension rigid but rather soft and luxurious. But it is seriously not helping in WR-V case to achieve what is desired. So its best you drive this car slowly and steadily. If you want road worthiness and suspension awesomeness go to a renault showroom.

Steering

One word : Awesome. Period.

Airconditioning

This is one department for which Honda is well known for and in the case of WR-V it is no surprise that the air conditioning is super cool. Chills you to the bone and pretty quickly. Well done Honda.

Tyres, Ground clearance

The tyres are stable and can be upsized as well by another inch or two if needed – so lots of customization possible here. Ground clearance is good enough to ensure vehicle does not scrape anywhere.

Pricing & Conclusion

The asking price for top variant is higher than Ford Ecosport by almost 75000-80000 and touches nearly 13 lacs on road. Ford provides 6 airbags which Honda offers only two for instance. There are so many features others offer which Honda may not have. The car is steeply priced no doubt and the going points for this car is mileage, space, ground clearance, feature set and steering – though not necessarily a punchy drive. You can download the brochure here.

In the long run this car would keep you satisfied and won’t get damaged due to bad roads in and around city. Highway trips won’t be exciting but rather sedate as the car would likely pick up speed at steady speed and does not like to be revved. Honda should quickly fix the pedal press versus response time problem in order to make this car even better. They can focus on better damping of engine noise within the car as well and provide an option to have sporty suspension as well which is slightly more rigid.

If this car were to have its top variant at 10 lacs this would have been the best value for money in the market so far. But Honda is like any other company and after all it has to price the car either slightly below or slightly above its competitors. So it has decided to be in the 10-12L bracket.

Still this is a car that will keep you happy even though some parts of the experience is slightly disappointing or not upto the mark. If you have the money and want a car that has mostly everything – the WR-V will not disappoint you. But at the end of the day it is a car, not an SUV or even an MUV for that matter. The traits of an SUV are great suspension, handling abilities and punchy engine – Honda has some catching up to do in this departments.

And without an automatic variant – its one star less again for the final ratings.

But then in India buying gadgets such as head units for cars could turn out pretty expensive and only few can afford it. Personally I believe if you can afford a good smartphone, you can afford a good head unit for your car as well. Having said that, lets get straight down to the product review of the SONY XAV-AX100 AV Receiver

Sony XAV AX-100 head unit

If you are wanting a good head unit that supports Android and Apple driving modes, keeps you less distracted and makes you more disciplined – look no further purchase the SONY XAV-AX100 AV Receiver now.