Honda City Diesel - Water enters the engine & causes severe damage

All fellow Readers:

Please be aware that Honda's iDtec engine is not a mature engine. It does provides an excellent mileage but at the cost of 'peace of mind', 'driving pleasure', 'reliability'.

There is a high probability of water entering the engine way, even in foot deep water. The so called 'entered water' stalls the engine, can causes variety of damages - ranging from complete clutch failure to overall seizure.

It's 31 Aug/16 and it rained reasonably in Delhi/NCR. My office is just 4kms away from home and during this stretch with around 1.5 feet of water (max, that too at 1-2 places) - the water entered my engine bay and damaged the complete clutch section. The approx cost estimate is 35k (my car is 17k driven). When I reached the honda service center (Crown Honda, sector 63 Noida) - the gaurds and service advisors shared that more than a dozen of such cars have reached the garage today, all damaged due to water-entered their engine chambers.

Since it was late - 7:30pm, they took my car in custody but didnt' put the entry in garage's official system. I am mentioning here coz, it was my last day of 2 year warranty (I still have 2 years extended warranty left) but the advisor and GM ( I also talked to him) shared that clutch etc. is not covered under warranty and these engines do have such issues - i.e. they confirmed it unofficially.

I exchanged phone numbers with few other fellow honda ownes (poor souls) and we are planning to collectively talk to Honda Management around this. I just cannot pay 35 K for driving my under warranty car in 1.5 deep water.. This is disgusting and unbearable.

So guys, till they come with an improved engine, please avoid buying Honda iDtec series, it such actually - on all aspects except great mileage. They call for sevicing in every 6 months as opposed to 1 year by other car manufacturers and they are very stingy in ackowledging warranty issues.

Few issues in bullet point manner:

Engine NVH level is way poor. Going above 2K rpm, it starts sounding like TATA407 engine and causes nausea and headache over long drives. I just can't bear it. 

Ride Quality & Handling The poor NVH thing ruins the overall driving pleasure. The chasis is so light that even slightest of windy condition makes the car shake. The damping is so poor that even lightest of gravel on the road passes on the vibration and noise in the cabin.

Final Words If you are JUST looking forward to a nice mileage, go for it. Else it doesn't have anything to be fond of. You can't drive it in cold areas (hills etc. as hot air from engine bay fogs out the windscreen via coltop gaps) and not even in rainy season as well, the water enters the engine easily and causes hydrolock or clutch failure cases (costs around 30k to 1L, depending on the nature of damage.)

Areas of improvement

Many:

Start listening to customers. Work on the incompletely/poorly designed iDtec engine. Make it water proof for god sake.

Advise your buyers to not drive the diesel cars in rainy season (guys, am serious).

Work on the NVH level, and make the car able to absorb road noise.

Dont' cut cost around essential areas, such as coltop clippings (it keeps on making variety of noises), Jack holding plate (in trunk), horn (it sinks often), clutch pedals making screatching noise etc.

Design, Interiors, fuel economyLow ride, poor product quality, poorest NVH level- drives like a TATA 407