A nice little red town car and useful for occasional trips further out. This car is shared by myself and the wife. My wife enjoys the interior space it offers and its handy door pockets. She finds it easy to drive, and it feels much bigger once you are in it than the outside looks. A bit like Dr Who's TARDIS.
However, the fit of the rear doors' trailing edges is crap. Be careful when you buy one. They don't look as if they have been pressed correctly at the factory.
The rear doors do not fit flush. The dealer can't correct this as it is a factory fault and there is no way to adjust the door hinges. In this day and age, a fault like this should not get past the management or design teams. A shame, as it spoils a neat town car. Bad engineering from Honda Thailand. How they get past quality control with this fault beats me.
Apart from this engineering fault, I think the Jazz is a nice car for what it aims to do. It drives nicely, fits in tight spaces, and has a handy rear-vision camera, though it is hard to view the picture in certain lighting situations. It's spacious for its size bracket. The rear seat configuration allows a fair bit of cargo to be carried.
The audio fascia finish gathers dust and needs rethinking in terms of that. Dealers are far apart, so think about that when you buy. Very good visibility from a driver's point of view.
A light around the key barrel would be good, and so would more engine and cabin insulation. The rear boot door would be more practical with some sort of auto lift mechanism.
The engine and CVT transmission seem to be well matched, but it's rather noisy on acceleration. As I have only done 5000km, it is hard to comment on mechanical reliability. As I pointed out at the beginning of this report, the doors are the things to check up on. The cost of servicing seems to be much the same as any other car of this level.
And how the hell CarAdvice reckons a mere driver can get 500 words written about a car beats me – unless you are a journalist getting paid by the word.