Honda Pakistan Should Have Launched the new Honda City Before the 2016 Civic

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Honda Pakistan launched the fifth generation Honda City back in the January of 2009. The car has been in production for almost seven and a half years now. That’s a long time for any Honda car to be in production without a significant change. Honda is quite liked for the fact that they change the models of the cars soon after the international launch. But this time, Honda Atlas didn’t show any interest in the launch of the new shape City.

Also Read: Honda BR-V Would Have Been A Better Option Than HR-V In Pakistan

The 6th gen Honda City was launched in 2013 but Honda Atlas for some unknown reason decided to postpone the new car launch. Instead. The company wasted its energies, and I say wasted after a lot of deliberation, on the launched of a vehicle like Honda HRV. The launch of a car that already has a far superior substitute in the form of Honda Vezel was an absolute waste of time, resources, and effort. It makes you wonder who the person behind this brilliant move was. And Honda is not alone in this. Toyota Indus Motors thought they are making a perfect move with the launch of Toyota Prius, but that didn’t turn out too great for them as well.

Honda-HR-V-vs-Honda-Vezel-Hybrid-side-front

The 6th gen City is not a face-lifted 5th gen City. It has been designed and developed from the scratch and it based on Honda’s ‘Exciting H-Design’. It is the same platform, and design Honda uses for its popular Honda Jazz/Fit vehicles. The 6th gen City is definitely one of those cars that is punching way over its weight. It’s loaded with features and Honda also brought some exciting motors along with the new car as well. In India, the new gen Honda City comes with an upgraded version of the 1.5L engine that is available in the fifth gen City and also a new 1.5L Earth Dreams i-DTEC turbocharged diesel engine. Honda claims the new turbo motor delivers 26 kilometers in a liter of fuel.

honda-city-sixth-gen-2 honda-city-sixth-gen-1 New-2014-Honda-City-dashboard

Honda City was arguably the most wanted vehicle in Honda Pakistan’s arsenal (before the launch of the 2016 Civic). And it had Honda launched the new City instead of the HR-V, the company would have ruled the hearts and minds of Pakistani auto consumers. And the fact the Civic also looked like a half-baked product, it didn’t go as smoothly has the automaker has hoped for. In my humble opinion, Honda should have launched the new City before anything. Then they should have taken their time with the launch of new Civic instead of pushing its launch sooner to cover their mistakes. And that unnecessary panic resulted in the launch of a flagship vehicle that lacks quality and finish.

Some third party importers have imported 6th gen City aka Honda Grace hybrid cars in Pakistan, but they are far expensive than what one would like to spend on them. I recently came across a few imported City ads for in PakWheels listings, and the sellers were asking mindboggling Rs2.5 to 3 million for the car (depending upon various factors). Albeit these cars are hybrid but still that is a lot of money for a City. On an average, one can find 5th generation Honda City 2015 between Rs. 16 to 17.5 lacs depending upon the transmission and KM driven.

But what done is done. There isn’t much that can be done about it. But I must say that Honda Pakistan should be careful with the launch of the new City. The City is an all-star car and Honda carefully needs to plan its production and launch. Their reputation as a quality carmaker will take a major hit if the new City has the same issues the new Civic is having.

 

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23 Comments
  1. Zulfiqar Ali Soomro says

    launching Civic was a good move as it was much wanted in Pakistan following its launch worldwide but then again Atlas has not done a good job at it so far. It has several issues regarding its finishing which is not upto the mark expected from a 3million+ car and way trimmed down a version than the international one.
    so what makes you think City would have been that good? Atlas would have launched it and again we people would have drawn up comparisions with the ones going around i.e: a wild goose chase

  2. Zulfiqar Ali Soomro says

    I dont know what kind of people are market heads at Toyota, Honda and Suzuki. I mean zero understanding of the market dynamics? Why launch Prius and Vezel when their imports are already roaming the streets with almost 1/3rd the price. They should be fired asap and keep one of us Pakwheelers instead :p

  3. Sajjad Ashraf says

    I think Toyota, Honda and Suzuki have a secret deal among them, Toyota and Honda do not touch low end car market ranging from 8 to 13 lac, similarly Suzuki does not go near the high end car market

  4. Guest says

    Sort of, but then Suzuki launched Kizashi. Still, there is no competitor by Indua or Atlas in the 5o lakh price range, unless you consider Fortuner as a competitor of Kizashi.

  5. Guest says

    Premise of the author:

    1. City is not the flagship, while Civic is the flagship as far as Pakistani market is under discussion.

    2. City did not have as much hype, therefore slight quality problems would be ignored by the customers.

    3. City does not cost as much, neither would it have introduced a new price bracket. Civic X introduced a new (higher) price bracket much to the chagrin of everybody and further exacerbated the dissatisfaction problem.

    4. By having a City 6th gen in the mix, Atlas would not feel overly pressured to bring something new quickly and they would have had time to perfect the art of Civic X before they went for the highly expected launch.

  6. Ahmed says

    Honda has definitely skipped the 6th gen City. No point in launching it now I guess when it’s almost near the end of model cycle.

  7. Zulfiqar Ali Soomro says

    you’re right but we still probably would have got a dissimilar City in terms of features and a dozen comparisons here as to why it is costly than the international version. why expect good off our Big 3? that is my point. happens often now from low end to high end cars. which is a good thing PW is keeping us aware

  8. Asif says

    Why it gives us a feeling that pakwheeks is spending its full energies to dent the popularity of civicx. Almost everyday we use to witness a new article with a different heading but same content. Doesn’t it look quite odd? Did they behave similarly on the launch of corolla? About which most of their articles were full of praises. Things look very strange as I myself always had all generations of civic n didn’t had this kind of disgusting feeling as the content writer wanna get us like in case of 9th generation. PW should not focus this much on this subject that reader start sniffing about real dynamics n should focus on some other activities tooo.

  9. Guest again says

    Corolla didn’t have ugly looking door welds. It also came with a trunk liner.

    PW doesn’t want to dent the popularity of Civic X (you don’t know properly, because you wrote 9th gen Lolz). And there is no use trying to dent the popularity as people already had paid 5 bn even before the launch even before knowing what they would get.

    In fact PW wants the Civic X to be even more popular but they also want people to get their money’s worth in the form of good build quality, good fit & finish and good trunk liner :).

  10. AbdulB1 says

    Honda city has worst quality , just look at rusty city on roads. Honda has avoided galvanized steel usage to reduce production cost and quality .t

  11. Muizz says

    They do actually PW is wanted to be a automobile mafia to get some money indeed during the launch of corolla they used to appraise it disregarding the fact that they are using the low quality material for interior and exterior which most the local automobile car manufacturers practicing here since the launch of Civic X,they are publishing the articles in which they compare the PKDM model with the American one is it fair? you can go back to history and recall the fact that whenever Civic launches its bring us new features and so a leap ahead from corolla and people like you buys a Xli woth over 17lacs without power windows.

  12. Usman Haider Sheikh says

    Toyota was also criticized for its shortcomings such as lack of safety and anti theft features abs, airbags, immobilizer. for poor fuel economy in 1.6 auto variants in 10th generation due to 4 speed auto transmission. for poor handling compared to city even (uptill 10th generation) but in 11th generation, even with trying hard I couldn’t find any such issue(especially 2016 feature update) as they have provided 9 trims to suit each market and most quality issues are minor and usually solved immediately at delivery by dealership.

    that said, since civic x is the most anticipated car of the year everyone was expecting a lot where Honda Atlas failed to deliver. When Toyota can deliver a better car than 9th gen Civic for less price then I expected Honda to be a lot better with them raised prices as there was more to this car than multi-link suspension and 1.5 turbo engine which both are really great upgrades and a first for Pakistani market.

    also fanboyism apart cars have gotten a lot more expensive so one has to be practical when making purchase decisions and it is consumers’ awareness that forces the companies to deliver better products. Hasn’t Indus Toyota equipped Immobilizer? Hasn’t PakSuzuki introduced Wagon R?

  13. Usman Haider Sheikh says

    city was due for shape change as its been 7 years where as 9th gen civic was only 4 years old and delay of another year wouldn’t have been a problem. also if it was introduced in 2017 we’d have option of manual transmission right at the launch.

  14. Usman Haider Sheikh says

    brother I don’t understand which new features you are talking about as they even removed some like iMiD. they couldn’t skip electronic parking brake or multi-link suspension because it is standard in international market. 1.5T was necessary as numbers indicate that when paired with cvt transmission, 1.8 engine is slower than corolla’s 1.8 cvt. rest you can see that they didn’t bother about a faceplate even for front navigation which looks like a tablet glued to dash. the hinge for rear infotainment is soo thick yet prone of breaking and they couldn’t manage cabling through it which hangs out, looks cheap and ugly..

  15. memphis says

    Yes you are right I do see a lot of rusted cities on the road, are you sure about the galvanization part?

  16. M Usman says

    Absolutely right..

  17. AbdulB1 says

    If u r in doubt why not search the Internet? Many people in India too complained about this for cars there.

  18. Maximus Brand says

    How you’ve assessed that the Civic’s 1.8L engine is performing slower than the Corolla’s 1.8L? I do possess the most recent versions of both automobiles at my garage and I best know as which one is built for the real-time upshot. As far engine’s autopsy is concerned, do express your insight / analogy in some logical way so that the public would admire your sentiments in subsequent manner.

  19. Usman Haider Sheikh says

    I clearly mentioned the numbers indicate that, which numbers? google official 0-100 time of both cars, civic is .3 sec slower (10.4 for civic, 10.1 for corolla). civic’s peak torque comes 300 rpm later than corolla, in fact when 9th gen was offered with cvt in American market it was slower than prosematic varient you can find that on American civic forums and the 1.8 in 10th gen is detuned to 139 hp(Honda atlas has mentioned 104 kW for 9th and 103 kW for 10th gen in specs on their website) for emissions compared to 141 hp of 9th gen. My argument is against quality issues from Atlas that are worse for a car that costs more than competitor’s flagship, rest civic is a driver’s car due to that multi-link suspension and handling it would be fun even if offered with only a 100hp engine and such small difference in power doesn’t matter on public roads. even after using much lighter materials, even plastic as a part of front frame, civic is merely 2 kg lighter than corolla. :/

  20. Dr Faseeh UL Rehman says

    I think honda has no plan to launch 6th generation city in Pakistan,company had already delayed it alot.i think after a couple of years international market will be enjoying 7th generation city.
    Then why honda will launch their old model city in Pakistan ?

  21. Maximus Brand says

    Okay; then how this creepy Civic has grabbed the Best Car of the Year Award at Detroit Motor Show held this year in US? I’m not sure as to whether the 1.8L has ever been released in US, according to Honda, they’ve only released either 174 HP 1.5-Liter Turbocharged DOHC, 4-Cylinder Engine with Direct Injection or 158 HP 2.0-Liter DOHC i-VTEC 4-Cylinder Engine in USA. As far comparative weight of both Civic and Corolla are concerned, please do validate it again from the concerned quarters as Toyota’s Operational Manager once told me the difference of 100kg approx. Carbon emission is a universal issue from now which has even forced Mercedes and their rivals to build the automobiles, inclining the reliance on electricity rather than the fuel. Thank you for your insight anyway!

  22. Usman Haider Sheikh says

    1.8 hasn’t been released in US, and the car in US is much better than ours in features, quality for same price. the weight for civic ranges from 1121-1308 kg and for corolla 1245-1300 kg according to variant, according to the figures circulating around pakwheels, 1275kg is PKDM grande’s weight and 1273 for PKDM civic vti oriel 1.8. which is believable when one compares 0-100 times of both cars.

  23. Usman Haider Sheikh says

    Where did I write that American 10th gen is with r18?? I said 9th gen with 1.8 cvt was slower than 1.8 civic with prosematic over there. My research is validated but you need to read carefully. Toyota’s operation manager might be talking about weight difference between 10th vs 11th gen corolla or 9th gen civic vs 11th gen corolla as 11th gen corolla is bigger than both of these.

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