Honda Jazz VTI-s

HONDA JAZZ VTI-S

Last week I picked up a brand new Honda Jazz VTI-s. It is the top of the range model in the Jazz and features steering whell mounted cruise control, paddle shift semi-automatic. It also has the 1.5 litre i-vtec motor(lower spec GLI models have a 1.3 litre). It also has 16 inch alloy wheels as standard.

The Jazz is an easy car to live with, as although very roomy inside, its still a small car and so parking is great. The instruments are clear and easy to read, and not overly fussy. For example it doesn’t have a temp guage but displays an symbol when cold. I assume it has one for overheating but hope I never see that. It has a tacho, a speedo and large fuel gauge. It also has a trip computer that displays fuel usage, distance to empty etc and is controlled via a steering wheel mounted buttons.

The Jazz features a great storage set up where rear seats fold flat, greatly increasing boot(trunk) space. They fold really low making most of space. Whats really cool is they also fold up giving a very practical space in rear. This combined with doors that actually open 90 degrees means getting awkward objects in is a breeze. This helps in that often small cars can have issues with carrying things a bit out of the ordinary. The boot itself has a low floor so the space is generous in size and easy to load into/out of.

The lights are very bright and give great illumination ahead and the brake lights are equally bright, so hopefully helping to avoid rear enders. Reverse lights are also really bright, making backing out of my drive a lot easier at night.

The stereo isn’t really up to my standards but for a factory system with no sub does a pretty good job. The steering wheel mounted controls are great and it has a auto volume setting that increases volume as speed increase that actually works well. I like the aux in as it means I can hook up my MP3 player when I get bored with radio.

I bought the Jazz from the lovely Petra Murdoch at John Blair Honda in High St Prahran. She gave me a great price, didn’t try to pressure me into any options and was really great to deal with. If you are looking for a Honda I can highly recommend her, and tell her Bruce sent you in and I’m sure she will look after you. I sold her, her laptop and another guy from John Blair his laptop too, so figured I should see them when I wanted to get a Honda. I had a good idea of what the current street price was after some research, and Petra came in below that without me having to haggle. She even picked us up so we didn’t have to catch a cab to take delivery

Although you wouldn’t expect a lot of grunt from a 1.5 motor the honda has ample power and when used in manual is a reasonably(surprisingly) quick car off the mark. The auto is nice and smooth, and responds well when the boot is planted for overtaking. The handling is superb and instills confidence. It feels very sure footed. (it is only rated 4 star in ANCAP tests, that is because it doesn’t have ESC. It does have 6 airbags, and handles fantastically. As ESC is collision avoidance technology I don’t really see how it rates in a crash test). The car scored highly on ANCAP tests and so although not 5 star, I am happy that its still a safe car, for such a small car.

I would have liked to add the bodykit, driving lights etc, but its still a good looking car and the extra cost didn’t justify it for me. I may add them down the track. Although I’m tempted I won’t mess with the stereo(for now) either. I am planning on getting another car in about 6 months so will probably attack that instead.

Overall I couldn’t be happier with the Jazz. It was bought as an urban runabout and it does that really well. I rate it 9 out of 10

peace