Honda City Diesel Variants Discontinued In India

• The City’s 1.5-litre i-VTEC petrol engine was updated to BS6 in December 2019.
• Honda had updated the 1.5-litre to BS6 in January, but it is only available in the Amaze sedan.
• The 2020 City may have a diesel variant, though official documentation isn’t available yet.

Honda Car India has discontinued diesel variants of the City sedan in India. While sales are currently paused due to the coronavirus lockdown, April 1 was the first day of the BS6 era. Honda’s 1.5-litre diesel engine was BS4 compliant, so the carmaker has removed City diesel variants from its website. The BS6 City is petrol-only and costs between Rs 9.91 lakh and Rs 14.31 lakh (ex-showroom).

Interestingly, Honda had given all but the base diesel variants a price hike of Rs 5,000 in December when it launched the BS6 petrol City. This was because Honda had equipped the car with an updated Digipad 2.0 infotainment system with navigation, Android Auto and Apple CarPlay.

The City’s 1.5-litre i-DTEC diesel made 100PS of power and 200Nm of torque. There was no automatic on offer, but the manual transmission was a 6-speed instead of the 5-speed found in petrol-manual variants. The same engine is available in BS6 guise in the Amaze sub-4m sedan with both manual and continuously variable (CVT) transmissions.

In the BS6 era, the City is powered by a 1.5-litre i-VTEC petrol engine good for 119PS and 145Nm. It is coupled with a 5-speed manual as standard, but a 7-step CVT with steering-mounted paddle shifters is also available.

Plans to launch the 2020 City could be delayed until the end of April due to the coronavirus pandemic. The sedan is based on a new platform and is currently on sale in Thailand. A leaked registration document tells us that it will have the BS6 1.5-litre petrol engine, paired with both manual and CVT gearboxes. However, the BS6 1.5-litre diesel paired with manual and CVT ‘boxes from the Amaze could be offered as well.

The Thai-spec 2020 City has a single powertrain on offer -- a 122PS-173Nm 1.0-litre VTEC turbocharged petrol engine paired with the 7-step CVT. Although the City’s potential rivals such as the Hyundai Verna offer small turbo petrols, there are no reports of the VTEC turbo coming to our shores.

In India, the current-generation Honda City competes with the Skoda Rapid, Volkswagen Vento, and the Maruti Suzuki Ciaz.