Telegraph Motoring: Honest John explains why the Honda Jazz is so good.

Credit: Honest John, Telegraph Motoring 23.10.2010 

Our 'agony uncle' explains how Honda's versatile little hatchback took his fancy, while two Jazz-owning Telegraph readers describe why it's the car for them.

Versatile, small, frugal and built in Swindon. What's not to love about the Honda Jazz? The little car has its flaws but, according to the hundreds of Telegraph readers who own one, the faults are mostly minor and forgivable.

In fact, so many of you have written to Motoring to praise your Honda hatchback over the years, we felt it was time to celebrate this unassuming hero of the roads with a look at its popularity through the eyes of its owners, including a couple who each have one, and the person who recommends buying a Jazz more than anyone: our own automotive agony uncle, Honest John.

Perhaps most impressively, the Jazz is a brilliant piece of car interior design. It sits the driver and passenger on the fuel tank, and leaves floor space where the tank would normally be. Lift up the rear seat squabs and instead of petrol there is space in the centre of the car for pot plants, bicycles, wheelchairs and small children to get changed standing up. Ford, Fiat, Citroën, Toyota and everyone else all wish they'd thought of that.

When the car was launched in 2002, Honda fitted a 1,339cc chain-cam direct-injected petrol engine that proved to be as economical as a diesel, and offered the option of a seven-ratio continuously variable transmission (CVT) that can be treated as a simple "press and go" automatic.

Unsurprisingly, the car caught on in Britain in a somewhat older market than in other parts of the world such as Thailand, where it is seen as a trendy young person's car and there is even a magazine devoted to outrageously customised Jazzes with 19in wheels, powerful sound systems and even gull-wing doors.

But now, despite having come top of reliability surveys, the original Jazz is starting to age and, sad to say, it shows. Manual gearbox bearings break and, if the very special fluid in the CVT transmission is not changed regularly, that fails too. The ride quality and steering were never brilliant – the original Jazz was never a car you wanted to extend for the fun of it. Maintenance can get expensive as the cars get older; rear door seals leak, wheel bearings fail. Air-conditioning and electric windows can also give trouble.

Don't buy a Jazz that is six or seven years old and expect it to remain fault-free. Seven years is the Japanese scrap-by date. In Britain, the best engine we got was the 82bhp 1.3 (called a 1.4 for marketing reasons). That was until last year, when an all-new Jazz arrived. This Mk2 is much better looking, more powerful, a bit bigger and shares the "magic" rear seats of the original. It steers more precisely and rides and handles better, too.

Instead of the easy-driving CVT, however, in a failed attempt to keep emissions under 121g/km (and in the £35 tax bracket), Honda fitted an automated manual transmission that has found far less favour because of the way its electronics damp the throttle between changes, leading to lurching if the driver tries to compensate. And if you want a spare wheel, you have to pay extra for it.

From October 2009, this new Jazz has been built at Swindon alongside Honda Civics (where, intriguingly, it is also assembled as a 120bhp 1.5 with a five-speed torque converter automatic for the South African market – a model for which many British Jazz fans would give their left feet). 

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