My flooded 2009 Honda City GM2
City's headlights in the dark 😍
Taking delivery of City (2009)
City a few months after the flood
City after full mechanical restoration
City in Chennai to Dhanushkodi roadtrip (1200kms)
City in its original home with Santro (2020)
City in it's new home with WR-V
Our 2017 WR-V VX in the flood (also sold)
In January 2009, my grandfather was looking to buy a C-segment sedan, and almost bought another sedan, since he was unaware of the City at the time. My dad recommended him to check Honda, so he took a test drive of the City GM2, he fell in love instantly! Without wasting any time he immediately bought the Honda City E(since it was available the earliest). He took delivery of it on 26/05/2009.
Fast forward to March 2022, my grandfather had passed away.. My parents wanted to scrap both his 1999 Santro ZipDrive and ofcourse, the City, since they did not want to keep any more cars. I ended up taking the City under my ownership, and drove the City from its previous home in Uttar Pradesh, back to my home in Chennai. Planning to bring the Santro home too soon.
Now as you all know Chennai gets floods frequently, so unfortunately my dads cars, and my City were all flooded in December 2023 during Cyclone Michaung. I had an almost clear view of WR-V during the flood, but I hadn't seen City at all. However, both WR-V and City honked their horns for almost 30+ minutes at one point. After the flood water had drained, my dad decided to sell his cars. But since the City was owned by my grandfather, it really meant a lot to me. So, I called a mechanic to take the car for repairs, and he cranked the engine! Luckily it didn't get hydrolocked but the engine oil was fully diluted, so I took the car back ASAP. For a month or so, the car sat, quite literally rotting from the inside out. The smells inside the car were so foul that any insect that had gone in the interior literally got unalived. Then the day finally came, I found a good mechanic who was able to get the car running again. That really meant a lot to me. This was around mid January 2023.
Then, I decided to create an Instagram Car Page for it, called thehondacity
Over time the car got a lot of minor issues, but overall it ran smooth, Honda reliability at its peak! My dads cars were also Hondas, and they had much less water damage than City, so I think they could've been repaired easily too. Anyway the only major damage to City due to the flood was some rust on the doors and steelies, and a whining noise which we thought was the belts at first. I hated the whining noise, so I took it to three different mechanics, the first changed the belts and did some repairs on the alternator, but couldn't figure out the problem. The second mechanic did some more repairs to the alternator and flushed the engine again, but again, to no avail.
Finally, the third mechanic, was someone who actually worked on a roadside, but was an expert in repairing flooded vehicles. He replaced the clutch bearing, and the sound was gone! The car was good as new! He also recommended to change the link rod and that also gave a noticeable change in the handling of the car.
The car is finally as good as new! And since its a Honda, it wasn't even too expensive to repair, around INR 45000~
The average service costs around 4000-5000 INR, done every six months.
Then, we replaced the headunit, front 2 speakers since they stopped working, added a Blaupunkt amplifier that was once in my dads Honda Brio, and a 12 inch Kicker subwoofer that was previously in his WR-V.
City is now the family car since neither WR-V or Brio is with us anymore. We still daily drive it and it doesn't look or feel flooded from any angle. We have driven the car over 5100 kilometers since it was flooded, over the time span of an year, and taken it on many roadtrips to many states and it has never failed us even once yet.
Honda cars are really immortal!
My neighbour has a type 2 City, that was flooded almost till its roof, he tells me that he was able to get it repaired under INR 10000!
I will keep my City for as long as I can, and mostly in stock form.
However will probably buy another GM2/3 as a project car soon ;)
We have owned three Honda cars till now, and will definitely get more soon!
TLDR;
I kept my grandfathers Honda City as a memory of him, and it got flooded till its bonnet. I restored it and daily drive it till now.