Honda City 2014 Problems

Although it was never a huge seller, the GM2 (Honda’s in-house code) Honda City four-door sedan was eventually replaced by the GM6 model, and with that update came a bigger car in pretty much every direction, further differentiating the City from the more popular Honda Jazz hatchback.The GM6 City was both longer and taller than the car it replaced and, crucially, there was an extra 50mm in the wheelbase, giving both a larger cabin and more boot space. Clearly, Honda had worked out that City buyers were a pragmatic bunch.Mechanically, not much had changed, though, and the 1.5-litre four-cylinder engine with its fairly meagre 88kW remained the only choice. You could still get a five-speed manual, but only in the entry-level version, and just about everybody who bought a City brand new specified the continuously variable transmission (CVT) anyway.Trim levels were also unchanged with the VTi the base version and the VTi-L for those who had a bit more to spend. The VTi-L step-up got you paddle shifters for the CVT (an affectation, to be sure) a leather-clad steering wheel, better stereo and 16-inch alloy wheels. Curiously, the VTi had simple, steel wheels of 15 inches.Generally, yes. Even though the City is built in Thailand and not Honda’s home-base of Japan, quality seems pretty good. You also get Honda’s engineering flair in the case of the zingy little engine with its variable valve timing and great fuel economy. But that doesn’t mean the City will appeal to keener drivers out there; the suspension is too soft and the steering too slow for that.If you don’t need the arguably more versatile packaging of a hatchback, then the City’s roomy interior and boot makes plenty of sense.Just bear in mind that `good’ doesn’t mean sexy.But in this case it does mean safe and the City scored the maximum five stars for safety in local independent testing.Like the vast majority of Hondas built anywhere in the world, the City seems to be pretty robust and able to go the distance. That, however, is on the proviso that it’s been maintained, but that goes for any make and model.Overall, instances of major failures and owner complaints are few and far between.Probably the most common problem exhibited by the Honda City is a CVT that shudders on take-off or slips or jerks when the driver applies a load to the driveline. The good news is that, unlike many CVTs from other makers, the Honda’s unit is a lot stronger (possibly due to the fact that Honda makes its own CVT to its own standards) and problems like these are often fixed with a change of transmission fluid to replace the old, dirty fluid.The exception is the model year 2014 City, a batch of which was fitted with an incorrect shaft within the transmission. Under high loads, this shaft could sheer off, leaving the vehicle with either no drive at all, or locked front wheels. A Honda dealer can check the VIN of a particular City and know whether it was affected by this.Most experts reckon the CVT fluid should be changed every 50,000km to keep everything running smoothly and reduce wear to a minimum.The exception to this good track record will be the City that has been neglected in regards to its routine maintenance. The complex little engine uses a maze of tiny oilways to power its variable valve timing and lift function (which gives the engine its sparkle). But if regular servicing has been missed, these oilways can soon fill up with sludge and dirt, at which point the engine can’t perform properly.The City also uses a timing chain, so that component should last the life of the car and not need periodic replacement like a toothed rubber belt in many other makes and models.The City GM6 was recalled twice, the first for that CVT with the dodgy internal shaft that could fail at any time. The other recall was for a batch of cars built across 2019 and 2020, in which the electric fuel pump could suddenly die, leaving you stranded wherever that failure occurred.You can search for more recall data at: https://www.vehiclerecalls.gov.au/That 2014 batch of Citys with the iffy shaft in their CVT are the ones to avoid now. Although if the car has been fixed as part of the associated safety recall, then the modified City should be just as robust as any other City. But if the City you’re looking at is a manual-transmission car, disregard the above as it was only the CVT that was affected.Beyond that, buy on condition and service history rather than build date.The majority of Citys have never strayed too far from the, er, city. Nor have they been embraced by couriers and Uber drivers, so you don’t see too many with a lot of kilometres on board.That said, there’s absolutely no reason to think that a well-serviced City won’t push through the 200,000km mark with lots of life left in it. In any case, a high percentage of Citys for sale right now have less than 100,000km on their odometers, suggesting lots of reliable motoring still to be had.We’d often advise against the version of any car with a CVT, but the Honda’s in-house CVT seems a lot better than most of the rest out there. So there’s no problem with a City with two pedals if that makes life easier. It will certainly make the car a lot easier to unload come trade-in time, too.And since the price difference between the VTi and the ritzier VTi-L version is a lot less now than when the car was brand new, there seems little reason not to opt for the more luxurious latter variant as a second-hand buy.Prices for early GM6 Citys start at around the $9000 or $10,000 mark, but they’ll nearly always be high-mileage cars (say, 160,000km or more, if that bothers you).Prices top out at closer to mid-to-high teens and for that, you’ll be buying a low-kilometre car in excellent condition. Just don’t forget to check the service history.Even though the City was not a huge seller here, parts and servicing are no problem. You can tap into the Honda dealer network and pay a little more, but the popularity of the Honda brand means there’s a huge aftermarket and enthusiast scene for the brand.Global popularity for Honda products generally means there’s also a healthy online marketplace for sourcing spare parts, service items and accessories.The City sales story is one of steadily falling volumes as the years have passed. Although the car sold a few thousand units in its first year or two of sales, buy the end of 2019, that figure had fallen to just over 600 sales for the year.That’s not a judgment on the Honda, but the reality of the small sedan market in this country as we shifted to hatchbacks and, notably, SUVs.

If you go right back into Honda history, you may recall the original Honda City was a tiny hatchback with odd, upright looks and a good dollop of charm. But fast forward to 2009 when this version, the GM2 hit showrooms, and the whole City concept had grown up somewhat.Yes, it was still a small car and undercut the Honda Civic in terms of price and size, but didn’t Honda already have the Jazz hatchback to fill the gap left by the original City?Or course it did. So where did that leave the City? Well, kind of in a no-man’s-land, and considering it was more or less mechanically a Jazz in sedan’s clothes, Honda was making things hard for itself. At this end of the market, hatchbacks were always the stronger players in Australia, by a huge margin in most cases, too. So the City’s straight-laced duds were pretty much guaranteed to hold it back.Launched here in 2009, the City was built in Thailand and was available in VTi and VTi-L specifications. All Cities were four-door sedans and the engine was the same in every variant; a 1.5-litre four-cylinder engine making 88kW and 145Nm. The only mechanical choice lay in the transmission and you could have a five-speed manual or a five-speed conventional automatic.But even though it was somewhat ignored by new-car buyers, as a used-car buy, the Honda starts to come back into the running as buyers’ original concerns over fashion and fripperies are replaced by a focus on reliability and long-term prospects.The City was a slow seller, but that had nothing to do with its quality or reliability. Instead, the somewhat dowdy four-door sedan styling was the sticking point, combined with the fact that everybody in this market segment really wanted a hatchback Honda Jazz.As a used-car, however, that fashionista stuff goes straight out the window, and the City re-emerges as a smart buy thanks to its sharp build quality and long-term prospects. This type of car was also usually bought brand-new by pretty conservative buyers who understood proper maintenance. And that makes the City an even better bet now.The City faithfully follows decades of Honda tradition by being well made and reliable. Chronic problems are few and most owners have enjoyed trouble-free experiences with the Honda.Although it’s a very clever mechanical system, Honda’s V-Tec variable valve timing system operates on tiny oilways and passages. That means any dirt of sludge in the oil is bad news as it can block these oilways and cause the V-Tec to simply not work. It’s certainly not a common problem on these cars, but a check of the service history is mandatory.We’ve also heard of a few Citys where the heater’s blower motor has failed. The first symptom will be a fan that only works on the flat-out setting. Replacing the fan is the only permanent fix, apparently.The majority of other complaints surround the build quality (this was a Thai-built car, not Japanese, remember) and things like high levels of interior noise. Again, the thinner carpet fitted to many Thai-built cars might be the culprit. Either way, the City never quite measured up to Honda’s otherwise lofty quality standards.The City is relatively free of recall notices apart form one major safety issue. The car was caught up in the Takata airbag fiasco that saw millions of cars affected by potentially faulty airbags that could injure and even kill passengers in a crash.As time passed and more and more cars were added to the list of affected vehicles, more and more recalls were issued for these airbags. A Honda dealer should be able to identify whether your car has been fixed or not. In some states, cars that have not had their Takata airbags replaced cannot even be re-registered.Beyond that, the City has a pretty clean record with just one other recall being for a potential fault within the clever V-Tec engine valve assembly. In some cases, a spring could break, allowing the car to stall without warning.You can check the details at https://www.vehiclerecalls.gov.au/.Since pretty much all Citys of this generation were affected by the Takara airbag recall, there’s not much to choose between the various years. Buy on condition and service history rather than build date.There’s the odd City out there from this generation with better than 200,000km on board, backing up the car’s reputation for overall reliability. But most of them for sale right now have travelled fewer kilometres than that, backing up the typical usage profile of the people who bought them brand-new.You can still find them with less then 100,000km showing, but we wouldn’t be put off by one with 160,000km on the odometer, provided the service history is complete and intact.A facelift in 2012 was the only real change to the City formula across its 'GM2' lifespan. And while it didn’t amount to a whole lot, it did bring thicker windscreen glass and carpets to help muffle some of the interior noise the vehicle was criticised for when new. Beyond that, buy purely on condition and service history.And, of course, if the budget will allow, buy the VTi-L for its extra standard equipment, since the price difference between VTi-L and the base-model VTi will be very small now.Prices start at around the $7000 to $8000 mark and top out at about $12,000 for exceptionally clean examples with moderate kilometres. Those prices are, in fact, pretty much line-ball with the City’s stablemate the Jazz. And given the latter’s hatchback layout and much greater popularity, that starts to make the City look a bit expensive, to be honest. That said, somewhere around $10K for a modern small sedan with a decent pedigree and plenty of life left in it is hardly extortion, is it?Even though the City was not a huge seller here, parts and servicing are no problem. You can tap into the Honda dealer network and pay a little more, but the popularity of the Honda brand means there’s a huge aftermarket and enthusiast scene for the brand.Global popularity for Honda products generally means there’s also a healthy online marketplace for sourcing spare parts, service items and accessories. Be wary of any overseas seller you haven’t used before, as aftermarket parts quality can vary enormously.Buyer indifference when it was brand new meant the City is now pretty thin on the ground as a used buy. In fact, after a brief flurry of sales when it was first launched, annual sales of the City dropped back to less than 2000 per year. Even a price-cut for the facelifted version in 2012 couldn’t stop the rot and probably less than a thousand City’s were sold after that.And that is why there’s now maybe a half a dozen GM2 Citys for sale even on the bigger online sales sites. Compared with the 40 or 50 Honda Jazzes from the same period for sale right now, you can see how the consumers voted.