You do get however a plain rear bar, minus the safety light.

Dumb, neigh stupid, but thats a reflection on our backward ADR which opts out of the mandatory International rule, so thank you ADR 13 Part 8.5.1.

This car is therefore off GF’s shopping list (she uses the NSW F3 and does country driving encompassing heavy rain, fog etc).

Above said in principle, don’t take offence dear reader, and I like most of you would permit police to drag F&R fog light offenders from their vehicles for summary roadside execution:-)

Fix that rotten ADR.

The Rio LX 1.4 should be compared with getz and barina. The Rio EX 1.6 (still cheaper than jazz and yaris) should be compared in this article. I have always loved a underdog, and cannot wait to see the day that hyundai / kia overtake the big guys, cause they already sell more cars globally than honda.

Rio EX gets abs brakes, power windows all round, cvvt in the engine making it a much greater performer. Of course the yaris and jazz are going to be favourites.

Though Honda’s vehicles are always more expensive than their competitors. I personally dislike Honda (coming from a mechanical background – the highest rate of grease monkey deaths come from Honda dealers, both cars and bike/recreation/small vehicle divisions).

Sadly, I understand why these other cars didn’t make it. It is a royal pain trying to have a massive comparo/shootout of anything when doing a review like this. But the Mazda 2 would have to be the best hatch out there according to my experience.

Out of these three, the Jazz would be the best. Best room, best utilisation of seating, best performance and handling. Honda are generally reliable too (I wonder if they have ever fixed their issues with regulator/rectifiers dying, which happens on all their vehicles that have dead batteries because they stopped charging thanks to the reg/rec failing to push out the charge that the alternator is creating. Their cars do it, their bikes do it, their ATV’s do it. Their ride-on lawn mowers even do it.

SteveC

I got rid of it becuase I got a new job and “had to” take the car that came with the job (an ’06 E-Gas auto falcon). While the falcon was a nice drive and the gearbox was awesome, it was the hardest car to get into and the fuel consumption was very ordinary – the Jazz on the other hand had sensational room and was very easy to get in and out of.

My Jazz averaged around 6 l/100km (with less than 5k on the odo) and the best I got out of it was 5.7l/100km (from Latrobe Valley to Bright via the City with the a/c on and the Missus driving at 120km/h up the Hume).

If it wasn’t for the work car (now an Auto Camry) I’d buy a new Jazz as I’m smitten – the one looks great!

You missed a LOT of cheaper vehicles in this comparison, like your loan Fiesta?The base Fiesta would have killed everything, but yeah less room than the jizz.

Nearly every jap/korean brand [and son euros] have a vehicle that should have been included….

In any case a vehicle i am interested in is the new honda city, the PRICE will be the key issue, in other markets its cheaper than sister model jizz, not sure what honda are going to do here?

Another vehicle that could also shake up this test, being bigger but priced in the ballpark is the new 2L Forte/Cerato, once again the PRICE will be the key, they are claiming it will the cheapest in its segment.

And then we have new Getz i20 etc etc, plenty newies coming out in 2009.

Cheers

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