Sport 1.0 VVT-i 3dr Auto Hatchback

Avoid if you enjoy driving.

I picked this up as a spare car, but after one day the MMT gearbox already playing up making it useless. The dealer were excellent and replaced it , it went ok for 6 months and 5000 miles later, the car start to bunny hop, I am told it could be one of many things , gearbox (1000's), Clutch (800) or the management unit (1000+), this is really bad especially at low speed or in traffics, the car just hop like a rabbit on steriods.

Overall, I enjoyed the car, it is cute looking,it is compact so I can park almost anywhere, its good on fuel (avg 45mpg around town), its a 3 door and with the seats folded down, I use it as a mini van to hold equipment, when the car drives well, it is well, but as for the gearbox/clutch/management uint, the car is slow, especially going up hill, on flat roads, it drives great, but the repair cost on this car and the rate the clutch needs changing scares me, and even changing the front headlight is a job in itself, that you have to remove the front bumper to just change a bulb (some on youtube showed it can be done without the removal but you really need to know your stuff).

The ride is bumpy due to small wheel, rattles as expected for a small car, going over speed bumps or potholes is a no no at anything over 20mph.

Persoanlly I liked the car but I would not recommend the MMT auto gearbox, almost every mechanic as well as the RAC guy who jacked my car back to the garage said this is one of the most stupid design and does not work in the real world, I guess if I had gone for the manual model I wouldn't be writing this review, but the MMT auto box seem to be the death of this car, its not powerful, its not smooth, and it is problematic, so avoid if you can unless you use it just for the odd local shopping and school runs.

Oh, and the final point, the insurance for this car is rated at group 2 so it is almost at the bottom of the list, but yet it cost me almost double to insure compared to my BMW 320i, I have no idea how they came up with this but I tried 3 different insurers and they all came back the same so its a standard, why would a group 2 cost more to insured than a group 20+ ? Their response is 'because this model seem to have more accidents than other models' Seriously ? what does that has anything to do with the way I drive the car ? It is no more than 'We dictate the law, you just have to follow',

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