1.4 ES 5dr

A brilliantly reliable runabout

Those of a certain age will remember ‘The Little Engine That Could.’ The Jazz is a bit like that. It’s not quiet, luxurious or exciting, but it is a small car you can move any amount of stuff in, with total reliability.

I had ‘the Silver TARDIS’ from 2018 to 2024, my third Jazz, and it was five years old when I bought it with 30k on the clock. Apart from consumer items (new battery, tyres and brakes), it has never gone wrong, and started every time, even in freezing winters, and took us from coast to coast, city to city and home to home.

I have moved wardrobes, mountain bikes, mattresses, literally tons of building rubble, all sorts with the wee Honda, and it always cleaned up like new.

As an urban runabout, the Honda Jazz can’t beaten. It’s easy to park, has fantastic visibility, the manual gear change is the smoothest of any car I’ve owned in 40 years of driving, and it has a surprising turn of pace should the need arise.

The Jazz is incredibly practical, with a good amount of rear space even for taller passengers. The seats fold flat into the floor to reveal a van in seconds, or upright like theatre seats to allow you to move tall items.

On the motorway, the Jazz can be a little noisy – it’s pulling over 3,000 RPM most of the time, but it’s an inexhaustible tourer, and mine shrugged off journeys of 300+ miles with ease, and no aches or pains getting out at our destination.

Over my six years of ownership of the Jazz, it’s averaged a respectable 45-50 mpg. I topped out at 60 mpg on a tour of Wales last year, but in the winter months in mainly urban, stop-start driving, that can fall to the low 40s.

Build quality is good with the Mk2 Jazz. I’m told by others the Mk3 is a bit more fragile, but I can’t attest to that. The doors close with a good thunk, and mine took everything that life (and local thugs) could throw at it, and it always cleaned up very nicely.

If you need a reliable, practical runabout that is easy to live with and relatively cheap to run, look no further.

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