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3 years with a Jazz CVT - badbusdriver

Finally decided to get my thoughts together regarding our recently departed Jazz. A car i was very wary about going for due to the overwhelmingly negative opinion on the CVT transmission from virtually every part of the motoring press (not to mention quite a few forum members at the time). It was in fact the reason i joined this forum, to try and get some input from folk who had owned or used a CVT equipped car long term (rather than folk who's opinion was shaped purely by what they'd read in the motoring press, or by something they'd driven briefly a long time ago).

Just to get them out of the way, i'm going to start with the negatives, not that there is much.

Engine and transmission: There are pro's and con's here, i'll get to the pro's later, but the cons really depend on what type of journeys you do, where, and how often. Specifically, how much time you spend at the national speed limit. There is no getting away from the fact that the Jazz is not endowed with much in the way of torque and what little there is comes in way up at 5000rpm. The combination of this along with the 7 (artificial) ratio's of the stepped CVT means that spending time at 70+ mph is no fun at all unless you are on a level surface. The slightest incline will see the revs soaring as the CVT scrambles to get the engine into a spot where the torque can do its work and pull you up the hill. This is very much exaggerated if cruise control is being used (as i do, as much as i can) and can see the revs going right up as high as 5000 on steeper inclines!. Not very restful or soothing on a longer run, as i'd found out a few times since youngest offspring is now in Glasgow (we are in Northern Aberdeenshire).

Seating: The seats themselves, i found very comfortable, but i struggled to maintain comfort on the aforementioned longer journeys due to the actual position. I have mentioned my gripe here on other threads, and it is certainly not something which only affects the Jazz. I like to sit quite high in the cabin, but at the same time, i like the seat base to be sloped down from the front to the back. But on the Jazz, as is the case with most, when you crank up the seat height, the rear moves more than the front, so you end up feeling like you are being tipped forward out of the seat. Fortunately, most of my journeys were short, so it wasn't really an issue for me. If i was heading for Glasgow, i'd just put up with sitting lower than i wanted to in the car, in exchange for the better comfort after a few hours behind the wheel.

And that is pretty much it for the negatives, certainly IMO. Though i should probably mention the ride, which some seem to find very firm. Yes, maybe a little firm, but i didn't find it a problem at all (neither did my wife). Oh, one other thing, it doesn't come with a spare wheel, but there is space for a space-saver.

Positives,

Engine and transmission: So, CVT's, they are rubbish right, all revs and no action?, err, no!. This really was a relevation, especially with the expectations after reading the rubbish spouted by motoring magazines. Clearly a 102bhp automatic supermini is not going to be that fast under any circumstances, but in the context of what it is, i found the package hugely impressive. We came to the Jazz from a turbo diesel Hyundai i30 with a t/c auto. Compared to that, the Jazz's ability to use all of what it had effectively was in a completely different league. With the i30, using kickdown to overtake could easily result in ending up in a gear where no more power was available, as if the gearbox was configured for a higher revving petrol rather than a diesel. In the Jazz, kickdown immediately puts you exactly where you needed to be in order to complete the overtake in the minimum time and distance. Yes, that did mean lots of revs (briefly) but the transmission, unlike the i30, seemed perfectly matched to the engine characterisics. First time i tried overtaking an articulated truck i was a little nervous, thinking i might be left high and dry with much revs and little else, but no, the Jazz fired itself past with real vigour!. Just out of curiousity, and because of a disagreement with an ex forum member, i did some rudimentary timing of acceleration through the 'gears'. Came up with around 10 seconds from 30-70mph (which the forum member in question told me wasn't possible) and about 6 seconds from 50-70mph. Later on, i tried 0-60 and was pleasantly surprised that despite Honda quoting 12.3 seconds, it was actually more like 10.5. Not claiming this makes it a hot hatch, but as a 100bhp CVT supermini, pretty impressive i thought.

Handling: Hugely impressive, very eager to change direction and, so long as you are accepting of the need to rev, capable of maintaining very high speeds on twisty country roads.

Practicality: What most people know about the Jazz is the huge amount of space on offer from such a small footprint. 350 litre boot and more rear seat legroom than you will get in most cars from the Golf/Focus size bracket. Also, the brilliant 'magic' rear seats meaning you can either lift the rear seat bases up (cinema style) to leave a large space between front and rear seat backs, or drop the rear seatbacks down (completely flat) to leave a truly huge volume of space. Practical in other ways too, such as girth. One of the things which led me to the Jazz in the first place was the amount of interior space combined with a narrow overall width. The i30 we had before certainly wasn't a big car, but on our narrow street with cars parked on both sides of the road, it might as well have been American!. And with cars in all classes getting fatter and fatter (current Renault Clio is more than 10cm wider than the Jazz (and is also wider than a Golf)), its good to se that Honda have stuck with the overall dimensions of 'our' Jazz (and the previous gen) for the new one (the Yaris was another contender when we got the Jazz, but the iminent all new one is both lower and wider, boo!).

In summary, the Jazz is a great small car and a masterclass in packaging, but it does seem a bit confused as to who it has been designed for. It is very much seen as the sensible choice, favoured especially by older drivers. Yet its engine, especially mated to the CVT, seems aimed at the boy racer type (using the 'paddles' to shift manually for maximum attack!). A type of person who, ironically, would never in a million years drive a Jazz!. The older folk who do drive it, certainly those who still have some life in their veins, think it is slow because they are of a mindset that revving a car beyond 3500 rpm is going to result in it destroying itself. So they never using more than about 70% of what's there for the taking, little realising that not only does the Jazz thrive on revs, but as far Honda's go, it isn't actually that high revving at all (the mid 60's S800 was good for 10000rpm)!.

Fuel economy for the three years, overall, has been around 47mpg. Bear in mind this is predominantly around town. Out of town would result in about 55mpg, maybe a bit more if i wasn't in a hurry. BTW, this is going by the trip computer, i don't care enough about the exact figures to waste time working it out manually brim to brim long term!.

In all honesty, as much as i liked (most of the time!) the frenetic nature of the powertrain, a 1.0 turbo would have suited the nature of the car better for most folk (with either manual or auto). Not that its ever going to happen now the new Jazz is hybrid only, but that powertrain too, is almost certainly going to be an improvement for most Jazz drivers in most situations (with the possible exception of hooning along country roads).

Apologies for the length of this, got carried away!.

3 years with a Jazz CVT - mcintosh

No need to apologise, it’s always interesting reading people’s experience of cars. They’re often a lot more informative than reviews by motoring journalists.

My previous (and first) car was a manual Jazz. My experience of it was largely the same as yours with the CVT - incredibly roomy for such a narrow car but you had to rev it to get the best out of it. Just after I passed my driving test and with no motorway experience, I took a wrong exit on a roundabout and ended up on a slip-road to the A90. Given the motoring reviews of the Jazz, I had visions of my short driving career ending under the wheels of an HGV - in fact it was perfectly capable of cruising at motorway speeds, if rather noisy at 3500 rpm. Within weeks, I was merrily overtaking anyone who was off the pace in the inside lane.

When we had to replace it, I did consider a Jazz CVT, partly because of your previous comments about it on here (I remember the argument about acceleration and the video). Turned up at the dealer to find he’d sold it that morning, so we ended up with an Auris hybrid. A more comfortable car and less frenetic at speed but not as clever in terms of space utilisation. Just last week we bought a sideboard and realised we’d have to get it delivered. Would probably have fit in the Jazz! It did a few trips home from IKEA packed to the rafters.

3 years with a Jazz CVT - argybargy

Excellent analysis of your Jazz experience, BBD.

In January next year it'll be 3 years since we bought our manual Jazz. Its been an extremely easy car to own: so far nothing major has gone wrong, and the only items I've had to spend money on have been wipers and tyres, along with a set of rear discs and pads which were close to end of life when we bought the car.

I'd fully concur with the comments about the well designed seat configuration and general interior space, which is great for a small car. There are just the two of us in the Jazz 99 per cent of the time, and only once have I had to ferry four passengers around, a situation which resulted in a bit of a crush on the back seat. So its a roomy four seater unless your fourth passenger is a garden gnome.

I've had bikes in there, dumpy bags of garden rubbish and waste wood, and any number of boxed items from a certain Swedish furniture retailer. Economy is superb, acceleration perfectly adequate ( even in the manual) as long as you fully use the revs, and road tax on the cheap side. The driving experience doesn't match any of the Fords we've owned, but the big plus with a Honda Jazz is that unless you've bought a badly maintained example, you know you're going to get there.

The rub is that I'll be selling it in the New Year because a) I'm sick of being tailgated by people who assume that I'm Victor Meldrew and b) we've decided to get something bigger. I've looked at the Vauxhall Meriva, but we had an unhappy experience with an 04 car that had the old Easytronic gearbox, and that's rather coloured my opinion of the model, ancient history though that experience and option might be.

Not sure what else in the class could come close to the Jazz for economy, reliability and practicality, and offer more power and interior space, but I'll be coming back here and asking for suggestions in 2021.

Edited by argybargy on 28/08/2020 at 15:53

3 years with a Jazz CVT - Avant

Many thanks BBD. What have you replaced the Jazz with? (If you've told us already, sorry if I've missed it, but I'm sure the background to your choice will be interesting.)

SWMBO had one of the first Jazzes, back in 2002 (so before the image took hold - we were only in our 50s then). It was a 1.3 manual (Honda called it 1.4) and your description of what it was like to drive, and of its exceptional use of space, echoed ours and brought back the memories.

It was easy to drive round town, but never fun. The Ford Ka which she had before the Jazz managed to be both nippier in town and more relaxed on the motorway, even though its engine was said to be of a very antiquated design.

The diesel Golf estate that I had at the same time was one of the earlier cars to have a 6-speed gearbox. The Jazz badly needed a sixth gear: I'm not sure if later models ever had one.

3 years with a Jazz CVT - Engineer Andy

I was going to say that a smallish car with 103hp should be quite nippy - my larger and heavier Mazda3 only has 2 more bhp than that, and it manages to get from 0-60 in 11.2 seconds, so your 'real life' figure of 10.5 sounds right (also taking into account that it is a bit higher-sided and thus not quite as aerodynamic).

TBH I would've got one (the gen-1 car) if I hadn't been able to secure a Mazda3 at the huge 25%+ discount I did back in early 2006 - I found the Jazz easy to drive, especially parking with the decent amount of windows to see out of and no highly raked rear window and large boot overhang, plus the decent sized boot and magic seats.

Admitedly back then I was only looking for a manual car, but I certainly won't be (unless finances force me to generally) next time.

I'll be interested to see how the 2020 Jazz fares, given it appears to be only available as a 1.5 N/A CVT hybrid. The popularity (sales-wise) of the gen-3 car seemed to be far lower than the first two. I bet that the high list price will put off many.

Edited by Engineer Andy on 28/08/2020 at 18:17

3 years with a Jazz CVT - madf

Thanks for the review BBD

Our 2012 Jazz CVT could be described by your review but our mpg is around 43 not 48 ish..

and seats are fine...

45k miles so far and no problems . Using Michelin CCs which appear much better wearing than the prior set of Michelin Energy Savers and far better wet grip. Wear suggests 50k for a set is possible.

Gearing much higher 3k revs at 70mph

3 years with a Jazz CVT - _

An excellent review!

Very informative!

3 years with a Jazz CVT - badbusdriver

It does seem to be the case that for the third gen Jazz, which we had, Honda decided to make it more fun to drive. Though according to the motoring press, of course, it is still nowhere near a Fiesta for enjoyment. Can't comment about how it compares to the Fiesta myself, so i will just repeat that i found our Jazz hugely enjoyable to punt along twisty country roads.

Way back in 2005 we had a Ford Fusion (1.4 petrol), and the Jazz's combination of practicality and driving enjoyment is very reminiscent of that. And as i think the Fusion was (and still is) a hugely underrated car, that is actually high praise from me!.

Avant, the short lived 1.5 Sport Jazz had a 6 speed manual, but as far as i am aware, all of the 1.3 (3rd gen) cars just had 5 gears. For the CVT, having the 7 artificial ratio's, or 'steps', meant that assuming you were on the flat or going downhill, the revs were low, under 2500rpm at 70mph.

Also, regarding the Jazz's replacement, i will try to find the time to put down some initial thoughts. For the moment i will just drop some hints though, it is around a foot shorter than the Jazz, slightly narrower, slightly taller and tips the scales at under 850kg!

3 years with a Jazz CVT - Metropolis.
Suzuki Celerio?
3 years with a Jazz CVT - PeterRed

I have a Jazz CVT (3rd Gen) and a VW Polo (2018 1.0 95).

I agree with all of your comments on the Jazz and the CVT in particular. It can get a bit frenetic if you need to maintain speed on a hill. However, it does perform when necessary and it will potter along most of the time around town below 2000rpm. It's very easy to drive. As it uses the Atkinson cycle below about 2500rpm, the lack of torque is magnified .

The turbo 1 litre in the Polo is preferable to me. It may have less power than the Jazz but it has plenty of low-down torque. It sounds good too.

Fuel consumption is similar for both at about 48mpg overall though I tend to drive the Polo harder because I enjoy the burble. Ride quality and visibility is better in the Polo. The practicality of the Jazz is better. More toys in the Jazz and I feel it has higher underlying build quality.

I like them both but for different reasons.

3 years with a Jazz CVT - mcintosh

Avant, the short lived 1.5 Sport Jazz had a 6 speed manual, but as far as i am aware, all of the 1.3 (3rd gen) cars just had 5 gears.

The 3rd generation 1.3 Jazz manual I test drove last year also had 6 gears (my old 2nd gen one was stuck with 5). Sounds like the CVT would be a more relaxed motorway cruiser.

3 years with a Jazz CVT - badbusdriver

Suzuki Celerio?

Surprisingly close Metropolis!