Honda Cars India Ltd. — Honda City S-MT, 2011

Address:

Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, 695004

My City - SMT, a 2011 model car has run approximately 68000km in the 6 years of my ownership. It has always been used gently and has been maintained well. After the last service performed in december, the car displayed a few issues - the first of which was a hissing/ stuck debris kind of noise which would emanate from the passenger side AC vents intermittently. It then progressed to low air speed from all vents and then to totally no cooling, again intermittently, seemingly triggered by uneven roads or broken roads. Everytime I tried to get it inspected the issue would stop and again crop up when I'm out on long drives. My recent Pune trip turned out to be a nightmare due to this issue. Finally the issue progressed to a hollow rotary rattling noise from the engine room, which I got checked out from my regular service center in Bangalore.

After much time spent on inspection, they concluded that the compressor has gone bad and I would have to replace it at a cost of ~45000 INR. Now, note that this car has done only 68000km till date and is just 6 years old on 12th April 2017.How can a part which generally runs the life of the car expire at such low mileage? What could have caused it? If the part is something which expires so easily, why was I not told of it when I bought the car?

At present the car has stopped cooling completely(again) and I've had to call the service guys to check it out.

Honda, for an ardent fan of Honda vehicles, this is hard to digest, especially considering I have recommended and got my father as well as my uncle to go for a Honda Jazz recently...