The Honda Jazz is a versatile car with lots of loading space, a fun ride and good reliability. It has its flaws, but its strengths outweigh them - mostly. The Honda Jazz saw the light of day in 2002, and was updated to the current range of vehicles in 2004. It is the smallest member of the Honda tribe, with the Honda Civic as its bigger brother.The review carThe model we reviewed was a standard-spec Honda Jazz DSI S with a 1.2 litre 8-valve petrol engine.Driving experienceHonda have a long reputation of making cars that are consistently focused on being great drivers' cars, so it was with more than a little anticipation that we started our review of the Jazz.The first thing that struck us when sitting down behind the wheel is the clear, no-nonsense approach to interior design. The dials are positively over-sized (the petrol gauge, for example, is only a little bit smaller than the speedometer), and all buttons and switches are laid out logically, clearly marked, and easily reached.The first impression very much sets the pace for the rest of the review: On the Honda Jazz, everything is logical, clear and easy. Big kudos to the Honda design team - you would be hard pushed to find a car that is easier to drive in the small car segment: excellent for most drivers.It is great to see Honda breaking into new markets with new vehicles, and in the case of the Jazz, they have not done a half-bad job. If you are passionate about driving, however, it may be worth considering the Civic instead. #ad#The Jazz' seating position is very comfortable, both for tall and short drivers, and whilst you wouldn't want to start cross-country drives, the back seat does accommodate adults for shorter trips. Kids and youth up to about 5ft should be reasonably comfortable.The gear-shift action is un-missable (you have to be extremely tired or spectacularly clumsy to mis-gear in the Jazz), but feels clunky as a result. The clutch and engine are much smoother, and the contrast is slightly unsettling. You do get used to it, however, and after enough time on the road, you may even learn to like it.The ride is a bit on the hard side, which seems a bit pointless: It means that you in theory could drive the car quite hard - chucking it in and out of corners and suchlike. Not a good idea: because of the very light steering, you don't have the feedback through the steering wheel that would allow the amount of control necessary.Engine-wise, the Jazz is quite capable. We only drove the simplest model available, but performance was actually quite lovely. The refined DOHC (dual over-head cam, also known as twin-cam or double-cam) engine has two spark-plugs per engine, a technology Honda calls i-DSI - or intelligent Dual and Sequential Ignition.Whatever the technology involved, the Jazz accelerates well from stand-still, has plenty of pull to make overtaking safe, and cruises comfortably at motorway speeds. Well, the engine is comfortable, at least. The occupants may have some grievances: there is a fair amount of road-, wind- and engine noise audible in the inside of the car. This means that you have to speak up more than usual in the Jazz than in other vehicles in its class. It seems as if Honda are aware of the problem, however, as the stereo installation that comes standard with the Jazz is actually quite good. Noisy? Sure, but at least we can drown it out with some John Coltrane.The hard ride does have a positive side, of course: means that the Jazz has an excellent stability at speed. Because of this, if you can ignore the noise, it can easily be used as a motorway mile-eater.Gripes aside, the Jazz is a capable little car with a lot of good going for it. The reliability is reportedly excellent, and you can get some seriously exciting fuel consumptions out of it - the 1.2 litre engine gets a 51.4 mpg combined figure, and the 1.4 litre gets a very respectable 48.7 mpg. In fact, it appears that Honda are quite proud of their figures - a button on the dash switches the digital trip readout to a screen showing the fuel consumption.With dual airbags and anti-lock brakes (ABS) as standard, toting a respectable 4-star Euro-NCAP rating, the Jazz is a reasonably safe car, too.Design and usabilityUsability is the Jazz's strongest selling point by a mile - the interior solution is rather ingenious: The Jazz is actually an inch shorter than a Volkswagen Polo, but you wouldn't believe it from the inside. The interior space is closely linked to the height of the car - the slightly more upright seating position enhances the space available in the cabin significantly.The back seats fold flat to make room for a rather magnificent 845 litres of loading space, which gives it an impressive 285 litres more storage than the larger Honda Civic. Equally interesting, the seats also fold up (think the fold-up-fold-down seats you find in cinemas), which allows for a different, compartmentalised way of lugging many things around.Its clever storage solutions, good fuel consumption, zippy acceleration and compact size make the Honda Jazz an excellent car for the urban environment. The only thing missing seems to be some protective strips around the car, minimising the damage after those unavoidable run-ins with shopping trollies in the supermarket car-parks.The final niggle: For a car that is obviously aimed at city-dwellers, who invariably have to leave their cars in vulnerable places from time to time, it is strange to note the complete absence of remote control locking and alarm systems. Come on, Honda! We love our new cars! Help us keep them safe!Who is it for?So far - not least because of Honda's marketing campaigns - the Honda Jazz has been seen as a bit of a girls' car. The men seem to ignore this and buy it anyway, so driving one of these would hardly be much of a threat to your masculinity. Or femininity, for that matter. The car is great for urban individuals - it may not be quirky enough to have a personality, but it certainly has style and flair a-plenty.So, should you buy one?Honda seems to have cornered this particular segment of the market. Sure, the Smart ForFour is better looking, the Renault Modus is safer and the Fiat Panda is better value for money, but with its sheer reliability, build quality and moving-stuff-ability puts it as a great contender in the segment. So yes, if you like its looks and it feels right for you, the Jazz would be an excellent choice.Which model would we choose?The 1.2 litre is poserful enough for most uses, gets the best MPG and is only insurance group 3E (the Sport trim models are insurance group 4 - still excellent!), so go for the smallest engine and the basic trim for best value. If you have more money to spend, the roughly £2000 more expensive 1.4 litre engines offer more bang for the buck, but in that price class, many other interesting cars become interesting as well - especially the Ford Fusion.Technical specs and more information
