“The Honda Amaze comes offers impressive interiors and a good overall quality but needs to work on the soft suspension and hard clutch,” says owner Jayesh Bhagchandani.
Honda India launched the Amaze compact sedan in the country in 2013 with a diesel heart and the model was quick to take the Japanese manufacturer back to its days of glory. A potent product with a frugal heart, the Amaze manages to do impressive numbers on the sales chart even two years after launch and sales do not seem to buoy down any soon. Our ardent reader, Jayesh Bhagchandani recently bought an Amaze i-DTEC diesel that has kept him happy over the past months. But it hasn’t been a smooth ride as he had hoped for. Here is what Jayesh has to say after four months of ownership.
I am very much thankful to the MotorBeam team for their hard-work and efforts for providing us the latest. trusted and reliable information from the world of automobiles. Generally, on the basis of your reviews, I usually purchase and suggest vehicles to others as well and recently I purchased the Honda Amaze S i-DTEC. It has been around four months that I have owned it and it’s a wonderful car but there are some points it lacks which Honda should improve and that will be beneficial to them in the long run. I would like to share some of my experiences with the Amaze i-DTEC, which I think the company must work upon to improve the car.
It all started on 8th February 2015. I took a drive from Ahmedabad to Daman, a 365 kms long journey, one way. I started my journey at 6 AM and reached the Ahmedabad-Vadodara Expressway at 6:30 AM. I had decided that I will drive non-stop and will complete my journey as early as possible, I started my journey at around 6:40 AM with the expressway being smooth, I was able to drive my Amaze at the speed of 125 km/hr. The ride was very smooth till Vadodara and there were no jerks, no vibrations of the steering wheel that I previously had on my 2007 Maruti Suzuki Wagon R LXi. The best part of the Amaze though was its mileage on the expressway as it returned 22.9 km/l between the speeds of 90 to 125 km/hr with the AC on. It was seriously an impressive figure for me as my car till today has done 3750 kms. After the completion of the expressway, there were some bad roads due to a flyover under construction and here is where I noticed the weakness of the Amaze’s suspension.
Those who have driven the Ford Classic and Figo will catch the Honda Amaze’s poor suspension quickly as the Classic and Figo are of the same breed i.e of Ford. On the Amaze, the suspension is soft. I was virtually feeling the small jerks and bumps. I had driven the Ford Classic and Figo on the Ajmer-Jaipur Expressway around two months back and it was very good, I will salute the Ford engineers for this. Coming back to the Amaze, the best thing about it is its interiors and back seat. The interior quality and its fit and finishing is really fantastic and luxurious as well. I would say better than that of the Classic. I am 5″10″ and I was very comfortable in the rear seat as the space has been nicely designed and is very comfortable. But I was quite disappointed with the suspension of the Amaze.
The grip was not so good as compared to that of the Ford Classic and the Figo. At high speeds, I was not confident while overtaking a heavy vehicle. In a similar scenario, I will go with an American or German car i.e the Volkswagen Polo or Vento. One has to not worry while driving at high speeds in these cars, it seems like the Polo, Classic, Figo and Vento are glued to the road while you overtake heavy vehicles. The 14-inch tyres are small for the Amaze and Honda must think of increasing it. No doubt the Amaze is better than the Maruti DZire, but not as good as the above-mentioned chaps.
The ABS on the Honda Amaze had done its job very well. I would like to thank Honda for giving ABS as a standard feature in the Amaze diesel. We need this feature in all other cars as well and during this tour it helped me a lot. When I reached Bharuch, it was confirmed that the rear suspension of the Amaze is lacking. Some road-repairing work was going on here and driving on it confirmed the same as well. As I had also driven this car on some potholes previously, my overall experience was not good towards its rear suspension. Last but not the least, the clutch is very hard on the Amaze diesel. When I purchased the car in last November, I suffered from pain in my left leg for initial 2-4 days due to the hard clutch.
No doubt at high gears, it speeds up quickly with lesser jerks, but when the car is at the speed of 20 km/hr, it really gets difficult to operate the clutch. But now I have been habituated to it. In the long run though, this problem will come up again and I am prepared for this. As a humble request to Honda, please try and make the clutch lighter so that other customers won’t face this problem. On the other hand, the Maruti DZire’s clutch is too light in comparison to that of the Amaze. In fact, the clutch on the Ford Classic is also light. Weight and the height are well balanced on the Honda Amaze and it won’t let you down. I noticed this when driving on an ‘S’ type road on the state highway at a speed of around 80-100 km/hr and this really surprised me.
My overall experience with the Honda Amaze has been good. In city traffic, the fuel efficiency of the Amaze is very good and at present, it is returning 20.9 km/l, which I think is not bad, especially if you own a sedan like this. As it is four months old, I haven’t had any high maintenance costs incurred. But I did read in the owners manual that you need to compulsorily service the car twice a year comprising of the oil change along with its filter and other parts. Per-service cost of the Amaze is around Rs. 5000-6000/- + service tax, as per my dealer i.e Landmark Honda Ahmedabad.
Whereas, a Volkswagen car needs to be serviced at least once a year or at 15,000 kms whichever is earlier and the service cost is around Rs. 10,000-12,000/-. At Ford, you need to service the car twice a year but the oil-change is just once or at 10,000 kms. I received this information from the owners of these cars. The Honda dealer also stated that whether you run your car for 10,000 kms or not, you need to change the oil every 6 months as mandatory along with the other parts. Existing owners could please elaborate on this.
I am really impressed with the seats of the Amaze as they are very comfortable as I was stuck at the Vadodara-Surat Highway for two and a half hours and I was seated for almost nine hours. I wasn’t feeling tired after I reached home and was able to do my work after the drive. Honda has really done its home work very well, but I do want Honda to look into these points that I have mentioned about and improve on the same.
