After two years of struggling with the seats of our City GXi we gave up and got them re-upholstered. They are now much less uncomfortable than before.

At the place where we got the upholstery

done -- it’s one of the most popular in Coimbatore, and rather expensive -- they told us that they get lots of Honda Citys and Skodas. I wonder what makes automobile manufacturers insensitive to the backaches of their customers.

Let me explain. If you use your City for short drives, 25 km each way on a commute, for instance,  in yor city, you might not have much of a problem with it. Take a long drive, like 300 km, and you’re likely to have a bad backache because there’s a little hump in the middle of the backrest that makes you wish you were sway-backed. If you use your pedals a lot, like I do, then your back is likely to be even in worse condition.

I tried a wedge-shaped cushion for some time to sort of flatten the backrest but that was only one of the problems. The upholstery generally was too hard. My wife gets terrible backaches sitting in this car for anything upwards of half an hour. We told the Honda dealers here, TVS, about the terrible seats several times. They nodded and listened sypmpathetically and said "Yes, sir," and that was it. There’s no evidence that they passed on the feedback to Honda Siel, and, if they did, Honda haven’t got back to us.

The pity is that it’s a nice car in every other way. It’s easy to drive: the steering is precise, the gearshift easy, the engine responsive, and fuel efficiency all right. The only other little problem I have is that the forward column on the driver’s side obstructs the view considerably on the right side, but I won’t say much about that because practically ever car now has these large pillars that cut off bits of your field of vision unless you stretch your neck to see what’s coming at you.

Two general comments on cars in India: traffic comes up close, to within two or three inches of your vehicle at peak hour. It would be very nice to be able to see the ends of your vehicle in your windscreen/rearview mirrors. Older cars used to be like that, but in none of the newer cars can you see these. Two, since traffic comes up close, and from all over the place, it would be useful to have the driver’s field of vision ideally at 135 degrees (10:30 on a clock to 3.00) completely unobstructed, which means slim A pillars.

Wish manufacturers would learn.

Purchase Price (INR):	Rs 8,00,000
Dealer Name and City:	TVS Honda, Coimbatore
Model Year:	2004