Honda Amaze Facelift Long Term Review – First Report

Honda Amaze Facelift Long Term Review

The Honda Amaze diesel impresses with its driveability and easy to use nature

I have been a Honda fanboy right from the early days of the brand in India, when they used to sell the older versions of the City and Accord, which were really something to drive and own! While the City, Accord and then the Civic got some really good success for Honda and created a premium appeal for the automaker here, the company then started launching mass-market offerings like the Brio, Amaze and Mobilio to grow their customer base. The Amaze was known for its quirky exteriors and interiors but Honda improved the package some time back when they gave the compact sedan a mid-life facelift.

The compact sedan segment today has a lot of competition. There is the Maruti DZire which sits at the top while the other cars like the Hyundai Xcent, Tata Tigor and Zest, Ford Aspire, Honda Amaze and Volkswagen Ameo are rivalling each other. The Amaze might not be a hot-seller but it has definitely got a lot of sales for Honda and it even used to be the second highest selling car in its segment for many months. When Honda facelifted the car, they improvised on a lot of things like the exteriors and interiors while the good things like the fuel efficiency and driving dynamics remain unchanged.

Talking about the exteriors, you just cannot deny that it is very difficult for automakers to make a compact sedan (read under 4-metres) look like a proper sedan. Hardly a couple of them have managed to get it right. The Amaze is one of those few compact sedans that doesn’t exactly look like a boot was stuck on the hatch without any thought. Thanks to its sharp creases and lines, the Amaze looks proportionate from most angles but the side profile still isn’t the best-looking out there. At the front, you get a revised bumper and grille while at the rear you get tweaked tail lights. The new front fascia makes the Amaze look very mature compared to the older car. The headlights have good throw in the low beam but I would have liked the high beam to be a tad more powerful.

The dashboard also gets a new design now which again looks far better than the odd looking unit earlier. The instrument cluster gets bright blue lights which tend to get a bit distracting at night and the solution to this is to reduce the light’s brightness. The quality of materials on the inside isn’t the best out there but is okay for this price point. Where the Amaze really excels is comfort and practicality. The front seats are large in size and the cushioning is on the softer side. The driving position is excellent but the steering alignment on our test car is a bit off which means I need to hold the steering turned slightly towards the left if I want the car to go straight.

The interiors of the Amaze excel in practicality with good storage spaces

I always tend to remove my mobile phone, wallet, keys and other small things from my pocket when I’m driving and that’s where the Amaze really impressed me. The number of storage spaces and cubby holes in the cabin is just brilliant and the doors also get a 1-litre bottle holder each. There is more than enough space to keep all your things from flying. However, I do have quite a few grouses with the equipment list. First up, the audio system is a very basic unit and on my first day with the car, I struggled to find the Bluetooth pairing option. The sound quality from the speakers is just so-so. Secondly, you do get steering-mounted audio controls but Honda seems to have mixed up the signing on the ‘Volume’ and ‘Channel’ buttons because ideally, the volume button should get + and – signs while the channel button should get < and > signs, but here it is the opposite and that’s confusing until you finally get used to it.

Some other bits missing on the Honda Amaze are push button start, request sensor on the front doors and reverse parking sensors. I stay in Mumbai and don’t feel the need to describe the tight parking spaces and it becomes a bit cumbersome without sensors, let alone a camera! The ORVMs are electrically adjustable but they don’t shut when you lock the car, instead, you need to shut them separately using a button. What I really love about the Amaze is the AC which cools the cabin in a jiffy and even on the hottest days here, the air conditioning does a good job with the blower speed set to 4 or 5 after the vehicle has been standing in the sun for long. I am driving the car 95% of the times and haven’t really got a chance to travel while sitting at the rear but the feedback that I’ve received from passengers has been pretty positive thanks to the generous space and soft cushioning, coupled with the fairly large windows.

Our test car comes with the 1.5-litre i-DTEC diesel engine (100 PS and 200 Nm) which is mated to a 5-speed gearbox, unlike the Jazz and BR-V which get a 6-speed unit. The motor is really noisy all the time and it gets annoying unless you turn up the music volume to mask the clatter. The engine has excellent driveability and the low-end is decent while the mid-range feels extremely punchy. Post 1800 RPM, the Amaze accelerates very quickly till 3700 RPM or so. The top speed is limited to 140 km/hr and the powerplant never feels strained or out of breath. In fact, it seems to have punch to attain much higher speeds too. Even at higher RPMs, the engine noise filters inside the cabin and you keep hearing a constant humming sound. Fuel efficiency is splendid and I’ve been getting 15-16 km/l under very hard driving while on a long highway cruise, I managed almost 22 km/l. However, my previous Jazz diesel long termer had better efficiency thanks to the 6-speed gearbox.

Honda cars are fun to drive but I wish my long term car had better brakes

The Amaze has a brilliant chassis and that’s what makes the car so much fun to drive. The steering is light at city speeds and weighs up decently on the highways. It offers excellent feel and feedback. That coupled to the sorted suspension set-up makes the Amaze very chuckable around corners. The suspension gobbles up potholes and provides a smooth ride, with the vehicle staying planted most of the times. However, the clutch on our test car seems to have worn out and I’ve been noticing since day 1 that the pedal feels a bit harder to operate compared to other Honda cars in general. The brakes are below average and while they feel sharp at low speeds, high-speed braking is scary and the compact sedan doesn’t stop how you expect it to, in hard braking situations. There is simply no confidence from the brakes in emergency situations. However, I would attribute this issue only with our test car since it has earlier been driven and tested by quite a lot of people. Even the tyres are just about average but these have been plonked in the Amaze in the interest of fuel efficiency.

The Honda Amaze might not be the perfect compact sedan yet but I really love it for its driving manners, performance from the diesel engine and the excellent fuel efficiency which I’m getting. The comfortable seats are a good place to be in when you go for long drives and the compact dimensions of the car make it feel very chuckable in traffic. The Amaze is reasonably priced and has many things going for it. There are definitely some flaws but most of them won’t be deal-breakers for anyone I think. Mated to Honda’s well-spread service network, the Amaze does make a strong case for itself.

Further Reading –

Honda Amaze Facelift Review
Honda Amaze Review
Honda Amaze Long Term Review – Final Report
Maruti DZire vs Honda Amaze vs Tata Zest vs Hyundai Xcent
Honda Amaze vs Ford Aspire vs Hyundai Xcent vs Tata Zest