A few personal observations after 2 days of driving the car
1) Good
-Nice steering weight and rack ratio. Direct and seating position makes the car feel sporty and easy to drive
- Auto brake hold is well programmed. Works better than my own car which can sometimes grab the brakes too abruptly when I want to keep moving slowly.
- Cabin materials is nice and while driving it feels comparable to German C segment cars. The smooth and meaty leather steering wheel makes up for a lot of this.
- Responsive engine + CVT for cruising around. Car glides very nicely on the roll at higher speeds
- Stock Sound system is not bad at all playing Spotify at extreme quality settings. My expectations were much lower so I was pleasantly surprised.
- Lots of cubby holes and compartments for kick knacks, keys, cards etc.
2) Gripes
- No glove box lights
- No vanity mirror lights
- No rear passenger reading lights. Only roof and front passenger/driver lights.
- Radio reception is poor.
- Garmin GPS is not integrated to the car telemetry and needs time to find/lock satellites unlike German car OEM Navi systems which always work even without satellite line of sight.
- No electric seats for front passenger.
- NVH could be better, as engine roar can be quite noticeable on harder acceleration. Expected better based on reviews.
- Not a smooth silky refined engine sound and is a bit rough sounding on hard acceleration.
Overall, this C segment car definitely feels a few notches up the usual Jap C segment cars. Can compare with German marques in my opinion, so Honda has done decently well in bench marking the car to German rivals.