Honda City VTi-L automatic 2009 Review

Honda City VTi-L automatic

What we liked
>> Light car frugality with small car packaging
>> Typical Honda finish and comfort inside
>> Air conditioning works a treat

Not so much
>> Pricey
>> There are more interesting light cars around
>> Lack of stability control is disturbing

Overall rating: 3.0/5.0
Engine/Drivetrain/Chassis: 3.5/5.0
Price, Packaging and Practicality: 3.0/5.0
Safety: 3.0/5.0
Behind the wheel: 3.0/5.0
X-factor: 3.0/5.0

About our ratings

OVERVIEW
As is frequently the case with small or light cars, Honda's City sedan is a more conservative design than the Jazz hatchback on which it's based. Honda expects the City to appeal to two different buyer types: the tech-savvy Gen-Y buyers without a family and the older 'empty nesters' -- also without a family (cohabitating).

So the City is intended to carry friends rather than family. That means that somewhere along the line, hatchbacks became synonymous with families, weekend recreation and shopping; while small sedans appear to be affiliated with clubbing and bowls!

This new Honda will, for many Australians, recall the upright three-door hatch sold here in the 1980s, but the new car offers more substance in the current climate. It is, frankly, not a car with a lot of character, but it carries out its intended function pretty well. Buyers should make up their own minds from a test drive, of course, but Honda appears to have nailed the design parameters for its target demographic.

PRICE AND EQUIPMENT
Honda has priced the City at a high entry level, which is a bit of a gamble. It pre-supposes that when other light-car competitors rise in price -- as they certainly will -- prospective buyers will forget what seemed a high price on release and judge the car on the basis of how it compares against suddenly more expensive competitors. For some sort of explanation as to why, see our separate story here.

The danger is that the City may be discounted from the running in any purchasing decision as much as six months out from the decision-making time. That's the calculated risk that Honda's taking -- that the City may be tarred with the 'too expensive' brush into the indeterminate future. On the whole though, there seems to be a reasonable chance of a profitable outcome for Honda.

By virtue of the car's regional demographic not placing the same precedence on stability control that we in Australia do, neither the City nor the Jazz offer this feature (see SAFETY below). When you spend 90 per cent of your driving time commuting in heavy, slow traffic, stability control takes a back seat to a premium audio and an icy-cold air conditioning system, Honda argues. Credit to the City, it provides both those things.

Getting to the nub of it, the base-grade City VTi is priced from $20,490 for the manual variant or $22,790 for the automatic. Standard features at this level include: air conditioning, cruise control, remote central locking, electric mirrors/windows, a 60/40 splitfold rear seat and an iPod/MP3-compatible CD audio system.

There's only one other level of trim in the City range, the VTi-L, which, in manual form, is just $200 more expensive than the VTi auto at $22,990. The VTi automatic adds the same additional $2300 charge for an all-up price of $25,290.

Over the VTi's specification, the VTi-L extra features include: 16-inch alloy wheels (replacing the 15-inch steel wheels of the VTi), telescopic adjustment for the leather-bound steering wheel, chrome door handles, chrome exhaust, driver's seatback map pocket, rear-seat undertray, rear armrest with cupholder, upper-grade seat and door fabric, centre console armrest, boot-lid lining, fog lights and a rear 'bee-sting' radio aerial.

MECHANICAL
As mentioned at the outset, the City and the Jazz hatchback share the same platform. It's a fairly conventional set-up in the sense of being suspended by MacPherson struts at the front and a torsion beam at the rear. For the rack-and-pinion steering, Honda has adopted electric power assistance.

Power is supplied by a 1.5-litre SOHC four-cylinder engine with i-VTEC variable valve timing for the four valves in each cylinder. Euro IV-compliant, the surprisingly undersquare engine develops 88kW of power and 145Nm of torque (the latter from a high 4800rpm), with 91 RON fuel consumption in the combined cycle measuring 6.3L/100km for manual variants or 6.6 for the autos.

Drive to the front wheels is relayed through either the standard five-speed manual transmission or the optional five-speed automatic.

Check out our international launch coverage of the City (here) for more.

PACKAGING
By the standards of small cars, the City's interior design is relatively stylish and functional. This reviewer hopes to be decades away from a hip replacement, but felt that for older drivers and passengers, the City offers easy access and, with the car's seats mounted quite high -- which allows rear-seat passengers to poke their toes comfortably under the front seats -- initial impressions from the front suggest that the driving position is rather commanding.

Once the driver is accustomed to the elevated seating, the driving position is very good, with clearly legible instruments in plain sight and controls that are light and easy to use falling within ready reach of the driver. The steering wheel is an appropriate size to balance the level of power assistance and -- with the VTi-L grade's leather-bound rim -- is grippy and comfortable.

Front passenger legroom was borderline for this reviewer, but okay for the co-driver. He, on the other hand, felt the rear-seat headroom was marginal, contrary to the views of this writer. The front-seat travel could have extended a little further back, but there was no issue with kneeroom in the back.

Honda has designed the seats in the 'Euro' mould of 'U-shaped' lower cushion and firm contouring for support, but they tend to be shaped for people of smaller frames and this reviewer was grateful for the proximity of the centre console on the left side of the driver's footwell; it provided additional bracing mid-corner.

The City's boot is deep and runs forward a decent distance, but the strut towers (for a torsion beam suspension system?) intrude at the sides.

Outside, Honda's designers have gone for a conservative, slightly heavy look for the City. It's a distinctively 'Accord Euro' look at the front and -- with its short rear overhang and that high boot -- channels Toyota Prius and Seat Cordoba around the rear flanks. Strange as that sounds -- and it's an outcome of packing as much boot space into an aerodynamic shape as possible -- the City is an attractive car and we can't see how it won't be a winner. 

SAFETY
The City -- and the Jazz with which it shares platform and underpinnings -- is not available with stability control, even as an option. The electronic safety aid will not be offered in the VFACTS light-car segment Honda siblings for another two years. That will be almost certainly the Achilles Heel for City and Jazz. Honda tells us that stability control has not been a 'must' in Asian countries for which the City was primarily designed.

But to discount the City for that, when most of its light car competitors don't offer that feature as anything other than an option -- if at all -- is perhaps selling the City too short on safety.

Honda builds into the specification of both grades standard secondary safety features like side-impact thorax-protecting airbags for the front-seat occupants and side-curtain airbags to protect the heads of all outboard seat occupants in addition to the frontal-impact airbags. All seatbelts are the three-point (lap/sash) inertia-reel type with pre-tensioners and 'double load' force limiters for the front seats.

While not a substitute for stability control, the City does boast ABS/EBD and Brake Assist.

COMPETITORS
The VFACTS light-car segment is really a two-tier basket. In the top tier, you have premium offerings like the City, which are virtually in a position to compete with small cars. Then there's the other tier -- and it's this bargain-basement tier in which the City's sedan-based competitors reside!

As a premium offering in the light car segment, the City would match up with some of the European cars and classier cars from Asia. The fact is, though, there are no cars in this segment that meet that definition and are also sedans. Holden has a Barina sedan and Toyota's Yaris comes with a boot also, but both would fall well short of the City in a lot of ways, although both are a heck of a lot cheaper too.

Volkswagen used to sell a Chinese-built Polo sedan here and Ford has confirmed it will bring in a sedan variant of the Fiesta. Add to those two the Chinese Mazda2 sedan which is not likely to come here. For the moment though, only the Barina and Yaris pose any threat to the three-box City in the light segment.

Buyers unconstrained by VFACTS demarcation will likely cross-shop the City against small cars as well. Not very much more moolah will get you into a Ford Focus sedan, Hyundai Elantra, the Mitsubishi Lancer sedan, Nissan Tiida sedan, Suzuki SX4 sedan and Toyota's Corolla sedan. As a point of fact, the Tiida, SX4 and Corolla can be purchased at a price lower than the entry-level City VTi manual, but there are some sacrifices in those cases. Automatic variants are not necessarily going to run five-speed transmissions, for example.

A newcomer that might find itself up against the City is the Kia Cerato, a car that even looks similar to the Honda. It is a nominally larger car though, being allotted to the small-car segment by VFACTS. Kia has priced the Cerato at entry level below the price of the base-grade City VTi, but while you get a stronger-performing 2.0-litre engine in the Korean car, the City has an extra ratio in its automatic transmission option.

ON THE ROAD
The engine is noisy from around 4000rpm, but it's reasonably free of vibration up to the redline. It's a willing unit with a peaky feel about it. Coupled to a five-speed automatic, the engine didn't have the whole power/performance combo happening -- particularly in higher gears, but that's the sacrifice one makes with a small-capacity engine and a self-shifter, even one as good as this.

Changes were smooth indeed and there was respectable acceleration in lower gears. The transmission selector was not ideal for manual shifting, but this is a fairly conservatively packaged small car after all, and not likely to be purchased for its split-second gear-changing potential.

With its electrically-assisted steering, the City provided light weight for parking and a progressive increase as speeds rise. It remained consistent and predictable across the range.

Feedback was in the category of adequate for the type of buyer interested in the City. Turn-in was initially slow, but the City would then bite and turn with reasonable levels of grip. Handling was a little more lively on a trailing throttle and, based on a limited drive program, tracked well exiting the corner with a gentle application of power.

None of this comes as a surprise when one looks at the car's suspension specs; Macpherson struts at the front and a torsion beam behind. Ride was European-firm. Secondary-level ride was quite adequate but larger bumps were almost jarring.

For a small car with a large-volume interior and a small-displacement engine, the air conditioning made a better than fair stab at keeping the cabin cool on a low-30s day in Sydney for the drive program. Nor did the aircon appear to draw power from the engine at the expense of performance.

Based on Honda's Northern Beaches drive program for the City launch, there was virtually no opportunity to explore the City's touring ability and open-road composure. As a 'round-towner, the City seems a very capable car, but you'll have to wait for our seven-day test to learn how the City copes out of the suburbs.