Dee Jay

Well the Honda Vezel is a good choice given the price tag. It is just that since it has a DCT it would act up if you drive it too much in traffic (frequent crawling when the vehicle in front moves a few inches). But, yet again Vezels have been around in Sri Lanka since 2014 and it has had no other major issues. The mechanics now have got to know on how to repair the DCTs as well and provide warranty as well. It has decent ground clearance and good options and good cabin structure and safety features. If you are buying a Vezel be sure to get it checked from the agents and obtain a status report and check the Usable Battery Capacity as well. The other options available in the price range would be a 2nd hand MG ZS (the newer option) or older CRVs, RAV 4s, Harriers etc. and if you could stretch your budget a little further you would be able to find a good Korean SUV like a Sportage etc. Since you are taking the vehicle on lease be mindful not to spend all the money you have to buy the vehicle as you will be needing another couple of hundred thousands to do required timely maintenance. Be sure to properly examine and get the vehicle through the agents or Car C.....s so that you can get a proper picture on the status of the vehicle you are going to buy

Change the smart key battery

Well you need not worry about DCT transmission or GDI engine related issues in the first 5 years of ownership since it is covered by KIA warranty. And as @matroska mentioned since you are buying from the agent you will not be stranded where there is only the expensive route to take. If the engine or the gearbox are found to cause issues in Sri Lankan conditions as with how certain models proved to be (Montero, Vezel etc); then what will affect you is resale value, when you try to sell off the vehicle where a lot of negative reputation would surround the particular model. The GDI engine and DCT combined would possibly give higher performance and better fuel figures than the Vitara, MG and Raize etc. But, if it will actually return 13 km/l in the city is for an actual owner to comment. But, bringing in the vehicle to the agent during the warranty period is not a bad thing isn't it? Most of the agents do the maintenance work free of charge during the warranty I guess. On top of that, they would surely perform a better job than most of the average garages you find. But, of course it will be troublesome if you are residing in an area which does not have a KIA service center

As per the scan report IMA Battery Usable Capacity is 75%. That means the battery is in very good condition as per this report. Most probably the previous owner has replaced the hybrid battery since this battery is having the maximum usable capacity in terms of a IMA hybrid battery. Was this scan report obtained from the agents? If you trust this report there doesn't seem to be any issues related to the hybrid battery. What's the manufacture year of this GP1? When it comes to the condition of the car; a scan report alone is not sufficient to tell that. You will need to go on a test drive and see how it drives, check if the previous owner has maintained and serviced the car regularly (see records), condition of body panels to see is there are any bad accident repair jobs, suspension noises, tire condition and since this is GP1 be sure to check if this has the famous oil burn issue So, if the above criteria are up to your satisfaction the car would be in good condition. Since, you are talking about a used car there would be some sort repairs that you will have to do eventually

you might be able to setup the time properly using the Gathers head unit. As @iRage mentioned Internavi is Honda's system of gathering telemetry data and also providing traffic and navigation related services. In my Civic there's an internavi premium Japanese head-unit (pretty old one) and that updates time based on a GPS signal. But, yes the time is set according to Japanese time zone. However, there was a setting in the head-unit to adjust the displayed time by adding/ subtracting some hours/ minutes from the time fetched via the GPS signal so it displays the relevant time here in SL once adjusted. I found about this setting through a YouTube video as once when my head-unit was removed to fix a screen mirroring device to my car and they forgot to connect the GPS receiver related wire or something and the time was no longer displayed on the head unit. Then they removed the unit again and reconnected but then the time displayed was Japanese standard time. Try to find a Japanese tutorial regarding the specific Gathers head-unit most probably there'll be a similar setting for your head-unit as well.

@Klord the guy myself and @trinity mentioned also applies a nano coating on top of the windshield after polishing. The cost varies as per the condition of the windshield with him; so I guess since your Civic is pretty new (mine is a FD series Civic with no polishing done yet) there might not be that much of viper scratches in your windshield which should mean some price around the figure quoted by Kl*** P***. Both, places seems to be good, so get a quote and decide where you would get the job done

@Klord as @trinity has mentioned try getting the wiper blades replaced with genuine ones from Stafford or another supplier who brings down the original ones (would cost around 4,000 to 5,000 LKR I guess). Yes, I've been to this place to get my headlights cleaned and he did a good job with that. It's quite near to the University of Moratuwa. I asked how much he would charge to polish my windshield and he quoted 12,000 as it had some minor viper scratches in it. I didn't get it done though.

Niceee ? please upload some pics if possible

They might have accidentally sprayed some lacquer/paint over the windshield as well I guess since they tried sandpaper on the windshield When they try to do that it actually damages the windshield more I guess. Well, I wouldn't risk of doing it DIY since I'm not much experienced with the job. Since, this is your 1st car I guess better to get it done from a professional since you are already disappointed of the status of the car after the repair. A professional might charge you something from 5,000 to 15,000 I guess depending on the state of the windshield.

this might be due to the accident repair when the repair guys were painting and cutting surrounding panels paint dust might have come up as a layer on top of the windshield happened to me once as well.. It will go away if you properly polish the windshield ..

Was it after the accident repair?? or was it there prior to that?

Well I think as @iRage mentioned in the previous Raize thread it will boil down to agent support and parts availability etc. as the case in Japan. So, the Toyota could prove to be more popular because of their dealer network. But, when it comes to parts, since both share the same internals and majority of the externals this would be a level ground. Another thing to note is that both being gray imports; both would share the same 3rd party car sales warranties.. Like you said interesting times ahead For me like @kush mentioned the Stonic is a better package than the Raize.. But, I read somewhere it has a dual clutch transmission.. So, with how Vezels and the new Honda hybrids are faring in SL I feel people might stay away from it. But, the agent warranty of 5 years should give you hassle free motoring for a considerable number of years

Glad that you were able to finally sort out matters with them.. But, since they are charging us a thumping amount they should be responsible and should pay attention to detail more than that. But, sadly the thing in Sri Lanka is skilled labour in this area is minimal and the shops are using under-skilled workers who do shoddy jobs like that and in the end we owners have to undergo the hassle and learn to live with that Thing to note is to have a proper look at the work performed prior to collecting the vehicle after a collision repair and to get them to correct the issues that can be noticed to the naked eye before making the payment. Maybe the agents do a quality job as they should have trained workers in their body shops..

Nice ride @iRage and thanks for updating the thread and re-uploading the pics!!

Do a search in the forum there were a few recent threads discussing luxury tax. Luxury tax was there before; but the method of taxing was amended a couple of months back (from a particular cylinder capacity upwards to a CIF based one). Here you will find the official press release by the finance ministry. If the CIF value exceeds 35 lakhs then the value beyond that is subject to a luxury tax. (eg: vehicle CIF is 40 lakhs you pay 5 lakhs as a luxury tax). The normal engine capacity based taxation also applies based on the cylinder capacity of the vehicle and it is not connected with the luxury tax. So, basically let's say you import a vehicle with a CIF value of 40 lakhs and a CC capacity of 998cc you have to pay the luxury tax of 5 lakhs plus the applicable tax for the 998cc (which is around 2 million).

@TDS if you are going for the Raise 2WD just have a look at the Kia Stonic from a sale or the agents. Saw in an article that it is costing under 5 million at the agents (might be the lowest grade) but worth to explore other options and see cause I genuinely don't feel that you should spend a huge sum of money on a Raise just because it is a Toyota.

For the above budget you could look some other alternatives like: Suzuki Swift RS Turbo (hatch) Honda Civic 1000CC (hatch) (real life ownership review by our member) Suzuki Vitara (owner review by our member) Kia Stonic 1000CC

Out of the 3 options you have specified the Civic (10th generation) will be the best in terms of performance and driving dynamics. The interior of the Civic will also be more roomier and full of options and tech than the other 2 in your list. Exterior looks are subjective but I would give that to the Civic as well for its aggressive low and wide stance. The last is the tricky part though as usually anything with a Toyota badge would hold its value in Sri Lanka. But, the Axios (most probably your talking about the hybrid variant as the petrol Axio of that era is rare here) have not held their value well when it comes to resale because of their battery issues with time etc. The Grace is also plagued with the dual clutch worries here and the Civic.. well its too early to tell about its resale.. being a petrol car it'll have better resale than the other 2 overtime.. but who knows

@TDS okay bro. have a good look at it and let us know your thoughts on the car

@sathyajithj99 That's the one I was talking about.. @TDS seems its still available

Check your DM. Don't know if it is available there now as they had only one unit and many people were coming to inspect it. But, I think other places would also have it by now most probably.

The Insight do not contain a dual clutch and it has the traditional CVT transmission which you find in the FD3 and FIT GP1 so you don't have to worry about that. But, the battery will need replacement most probably and maybe the current owner has already replaced the hybrid battery. But, be sure to scan the Effective Usable Battery capacity from the agents or a capable place or otherwise you are asking for trouble. Are you planning to run high number of KMs per month? If not a hybrid is not the car for you. And another thing since you are coming from a EK3 don't expect the Insight to be as sporty as it was. There are more sportier alternatives for you to choose in your budget like the Axela and the most recommended car by our members the Lancer CS series, the Civic ES series and if you can stretch your budget by a few lakhs then you can look for a FD series Civic as well (I guess this would suite you more since you are upgrading from a EK3 Civic)

thanks for confirming @iRage! The car sale guy said it had independent rears when I inquired (that's why I got confused). But, from the things he said I realised I can't take his word on that as he didn't seem to know much about the car at all from the things he said.. So, I took a quick look underneath the rear of the car and saw the torsion beam. Funny part was when I asked him if they were bringing down the Rocky, he shook his head vigorously

Well the first set of Raises have landed it seems.. A friend of mine is expecting to buy one and I went with him today and inspected one (Z grade variant) at a car sale. Seemed decently put together not as plasticy as I expected. But, like @iRage reiterated it is nothing fancy and the interior isn't as spacious as the dimensions sounded. Average leg space and headroom was there in the back (this is when the front seats were not dragged to their back most position. But, the position it was set in didn't cause any problems for the front passengers either). I felt 3 fully grown adults might struggle to travel in the rear (hatchback like room was there). The luggage space was also in a decent hatchback territory. The thing that caught my eye the most was how tiny the accelerator pedal was (me being a Civic FD owner I'm used to a large accelerator pedal). As I saw the rear had torsion beam suspension and drum brakes (I might be wrong here because it was just a few minutes with the car)

Woow so we can expect a flood of Raises here in Sri Lanka as well in the near future :O I'm now really curious to know the sales figures of the model which Raise is based on (Rocky).. If it is not anything like this then it is purely Toyota branding that is being show cased Yes, CHR is more sort of a wrap around you interior where as the Raise seems to be more of a traditional interior with a lot of open spaces. Yes, now that you have put it into perspective I see it is more or less the same interior dimensions as the Vitz I didn't compare the Raise's interior dimensions with the Vitz as most of the potential buyers were trying to compare it with the CHRs, Vezels and the Vitaras. Now I see it is very wrong. This could be a decent town car with maneuverability, easy parking, room for your luggage and would be handy in times of heavy rains as we are experiencing these days with the added ground clearance