Activa has been the number one selling scooter in India for quite a lot of time now. In June 2023, Honda announced about Activa crossing 30 million sales mark in India since its inception. There are a lot of reasons why Activa is the best selling scooter in India, the brand recall is so strong that people often use the word Activa instead of scooter just like people call noodles maggie and not noodles. Activa is offered in 110cc and 125cc variants, 110cc variants come with drum brakes only while on some 125cc variants disc brakes are also offered. We would love to mention the power figures both the engines produce but people buying Activas don’t really care about the power figures.
We personally own an Activa and here are some advantages and disadvantages we have compiled for you to have a deeper understanding about the ownership experience of Activa.
Advantages –
- Reliable engine with non existing vibrations – One thing that would never bail on you in any situation is probably an Activa. You just push the self every morning and it starts up. We have seen a lot of scooters like Jupiter and Ntorq not starting and having a lot of other issues, with Activa you will have none. The engine is super smooth and it gets the job done. Engine is very reliable but if anything goes wrong it’s fairly easy and inexpensive to fix.
- Large storage spaces on offer – Footboard area is really large and can easily accommodate a gas cylinder or a 25 liter water bottle. You can easily keep your groceries also on the footboard area and secure the packets with the help of hooks available. The under storage seat of Activa is also quite generous and you can store a hemet under there when not in use.
- Large availability of spare parts and abundance of mechanics available – Activa’s spare parts are the cheapest out of all the scooters. For reference Activa’s headlight costs about only 400 rupees, set of all the switches cost about 200 rupees and the headlight visor costs around 300 rupees. Apart from the dirt cheap spare parts Activa is also very easy to fix with any mechanic available on the roadside having the expertise to work on it.
- Ease of automatic – Just sit on it, give it some accelerator and you’re good to go. There’s a reason why gearless scooters sell in such large numbers, they are easy to operate and more practical than the bikes.
- Mileage is decent considering it runs on a CVT system, it returns a pretty decent mileage of 45-50 in city and 50+ out on highway.
- Service costs – It requires two services in a year with each service costing around 600 rupees, so that makes a total of 1200 rupees spent in a year on the maintenance. Insurance premiums for the the Activa are also quite cheap.
Disadvantages
- Quality of non engine parts are questionable, it doesn’t offer best quality with parts breaking here and there. Fit and finish of the scooter is also not great.
- Smaller and thin tyres offered are not very confident aspiring but this is something offered on most of the scooters so we are honestly just nit picking as we dont have a lot of disadvantages to mention.
- Disc brakes not available on any of the variant with 110cc engine. Honda has reached to the 6th generation of Activa 110 with still no disc option available. While the competitors like TVS and Hero do offer disc brakes even in their 110cc scooters.
Conclusion – Activa is a no nonsense scooter if you’re planning to buy one just go and get one. If you want something similar to Activa but not the Activa go and get a Suzuki Access 125 as it’s also one of the best scooter offered in Indian market with a complete package of power, reliability and quality.