Compact sedan comparisons – Honda Amaze VS Hyundai Xcent VS Tata Zest

The Indian sub-compact sedan market is hugely popular and very competitive. Thus, the segment is attracting many new models, though none of it has yet crossed the success of the segment leader Maruti Swift Dzire. Honda Cars India found its new fortunes with the Amaze’s outstanding success.

Now, that the new contenders, Hyundai Xcent and the Tata Zest have entered the competition this year, let us see how the Honda Amaze fares with these two. We are leaving the all-time bestseller Maruti Dzire alone in this write-up.

Styling

Both the Honda Amaze and the Hyundai Xcent are the sedan versions of hatchbacks, while the Tata Zest is the only one in the segment which is not based on a hatchback.

The latest entrant Tata Zest is simply the best looking among the three with an aggressive front and neat side profile, though the rear of the car is pretty dull looking. The Amaze being a Honda looks great as well with a more balanced overall design, but looks less sporty than its rivals. The Xcent looks nice at the front, but goes wrong at the rear design.

Interiors

In this field, the Xcent is the clear winner. Tata does a great job in flinging aside its patent bare basic interiors and offering a great comfortable cabin on the Zest. In comparison, the plain cabin of the Amaze is not so impressive.

The Xcent offers good looking cabin with overall quality and fit and finish which seems to be best-in-class. The Zest gets an elegantly designed dashboard and a nice, fresh overall interior with great chrome detailing.

The Amaze’s cabin looks very plain matching its plain exterior, and though it offers the most spacious cabin, its Brio-borrowed interior fails to impress.

Performance

Tata Zest

The Zest with a Fiat-sourced 1.3 liter Multijet diesel mill delivers 89bhp of max power and 200Nm of peak torque. Among the three compared cars here, the Zest offers the best ride quality, with great handling and comfortable drive experience. The AMT gearbox though is not that neat and could have been tuned better. The Zest’s engine refinement comes next to the Xcent’s, while the Amaze’s comes last.

The Xcent is powered by the compact 1197cc CRDi diesel engine generating 71bhp of power and 180Nm of torque. Xcent offers fun drive on both city roads and highways with a great silent cabin. The Xcent also offers the best braking system and superb refined ride.

The Amaze 1.5 liter i-DTEC diesel motor offers the highest power figures with 99bhp of power and 200Nm of torque and feels peppier than the Zest’s engine. It pulls great with no turbo-lag. However, it’s noisy cabin and not so refined ride quality affects the fun of the power. It is also difficult to go beyond 80 Km per hr as the cabin become very rough after that.

Thus, it is clear that though the Honda Amaze is amazingly good overall, it has got tougher new contenders.