Honda Jazz Most Satisfying
July 13, 2007 by George Skentzos
Britain’s Which? Car magazine has named the Honda Jazz as the most reliable new car after surveying 100,000 new car owners.
The survey gave the Jazz a reliability rating of 96 per cent, with owners confirming the car rarely lets them down, cementing the hatchback’s reputation as the number one reliable car.
Richard Headland, editor, Which? Car, said:
“Congratulations to Honda, which has topped the reliability table in most mainstream categories. Honda is setting the benchmark in car reliability and it’s up to other manufacturers to raise their standards to match. Several Far Eastern car makers are hot on its heels, but European manufacturers still have some catching up to do.”
Other Honda’s to top the list in their respective categories were the Honda Accord Euro (large) with 94 per cent, Honda FR-V (people mover) with 91 per cent, and the previous generation Honda CR-V (off-road) with 94 per cent and Honda Civic (medium) with 94 per cent.
These highly commendable performances across the range has significantly contributed to Honda’s position on top of the ladder, placing first for most reliable manufacturer with an overall rating of 86 per cent.
Print it: 
I think the Honda Jazz is most reliable because its probably mostly purchased by old retiring people. People who might break their back accelerating fast, and skin will flap around at speeds higher than 50k’s/h. As a result the car will never break
Congrats to Honda and the Jazz… but manufacture the same amount as Toyota do with the Corolla and see if they can match Toyotas reliability! Not an easy task. And is the Corolla even sold to the poms…
I call shenanigans!!
my jazz hansnt been overly relliable!!
30 thou kays, air cond compressor fell apart $2500 for another.
door lock on drivers side will no longer take a key. Had to have remote locking fitted.
gearbox has extrememly noisy cluster bearing now @ 50 thou kays.
and mines a JAP made Jazz, not Thai like the new ones.
sorry honda, its been a good car, great in some aspects… but you ignored my emails about my complaints, so my next small car ( any any rello’s or friends ) will be a swift!
I use to work on Honda motorcycles. They are reliable in some parts, but totally pathetic in other areas of the bike.
My first car was a Honda…. and you know what? The same bloody parts failed in the car too! Which left me stranded on NYE 05-06 (50°C) which no shade anywhere and just roadbase and cement around me. I nearly died.
I vowed to never buy one again. Though I test drove the Jazz. I thought it was okay. But very underpowered, considering what the competitors have with the same sized engine (The jazz might be similar on paper, but it was a slug in real life).
The sad part is, you can never be too sure about all these market research documents. I sort of work in that industry (I won’t mention which organisation) but I’m in IT there. Though from what I see, because we’re all involved in how everything operates I see that questions are worded in such ways that they already expect the answer. So in effect they are indirectly manipulating the results. This is the impression I get. There’s always two ways to ask about something… What do you hate about the dashboard design? Or… what do you like the least about the dashboard design? Both are almost the same question, one will get the wrong answer… the wrong answer being the one that the client that has paid for the research doesn’t want to hear.
Steve
I got one recently. Just sent for first service.
Initially very sluggish but now that it’s broken in, performance is starting to pick up.
S-Mode has a nice torque’y feel and normal D-mode has very, very good FC with an “8th” overdrive lockup gear for highway cruising.
Personal record was 4.2L/100km from Tullamarine airport –> Lygon Street –> Toorak Street. (CVT auto without revving past 2000rpm(!) @80km/h on highway)
No problems with reliability yet, panel fit seems ok. Although there is a soft, occasional, creaking sound in the front dash at some speeds.
My 1.3 manual as a best of 5.1L per 100km at 100kmh
but has never got anywhere near that again, usually around 7L around town and 6 on the highway. ( not much different either way.)
Yea, 6-7L/100km seems about right.
Never tested at 100km/h though. will do at next opportunity (i seldom use the fwy)
Had my Jap-built manual 1.5L Jazz for 4 years now, and it has never had anything go wrong. The turning circle is brilliant, very useful around town, and my economy is usually around 6.5L/100km around town.
Coming back from Melbourne to Sydney last year, I managed to get 5.2L/100km for the trip with a fully laden car… incredible!
I’ve bought bookcases & wardrobes from ikea, and watched people laugh, thinking that there’s no way those things are going to fit… but sure enough, the Jazz can manage it.
IMNSHO, it is easily the best suburban car on the market.
Well I love my Jazz but it has given me some troubles in the last 5 years – luckily whilst still under waranty – but now we will see as I’ve done my 100K…I might be complaining in a year if it contnues to behave like it has to date:
So far the air con has died twice and rear wheel bearing has also been replaced twice, plus a few small niggles which seem to re-occur.
The Honda people have been very helpful though.
I’m not all happy with the AM radio on my 2007 Jazz VTi. The radio statics on all AM stations in many locations around Melbourne rendering it unusable at times. It is affected by interference from power lines and other sources. Honda are aware of the problem and say it is consistent with other Jazz vehicles, hence will not do anything about it. I would never have purchased the car had I realised that I would be without a radio so often.
I’m on my second Jazz ist one had a rear bearing failure and now the second car has had 2 rear bearing failures.albeit the latest was at 54K. It seems to be a fault that honda don’t admit to! Both cars had the nearside go first.Other than that the car(CVT)is great, but I think that the high milage I do of 15K p.a. could be too much for the car?
Have loved my Jazz until Iwas told that a bearing has gone at 54k miles. Looking at cost of approx £850 to fix. doesn’t seem alot of miles for amost reliable car!!!
You guys are so helpful
My Jazz is starting to sound more like a truck everyday. Sounds like rear wheel bearings are shot at 100,000k
Are Honda kidding. What wear would you get in rear wheel bearings with a front wheel drive car???
Ours is less than 500km old now and has only used little more than half a tank of fuel.
The radio is a bit narrow in bandwidth on the AM band which is all that we listen to. Australia and NZ have 9 kHz of crisp, high fidelity AM radio to hear, that the countries where the jazz will normally land only have 3 kHz.
It would be nice if it tuned above 1602 kHz as we listen to the station on 1701 kHz.
You cant exactly get a radio from repco and fit it to the dash!
Apart from that whinge, everything is great! Well done Honda!
I still have doubts with how well Honda suspensions hold up through time. I’ve owned a Civic and Corolla before and the latter’s chassis is just much sturdier. Honda engines are very good in power and reliability, and interior quality is alright, not quite Euro but not Korean either. The Jazz seems to have great showing – it has topped so many charts. Just about the whole world loves it, yes, including the US.
Ihave a four year old jazz and both rear wheel bearings failed at 24k,yes 24k.I was told it might be the way I drive or the sea air where I live.To be fair Honda paid for bearings,I had to pay for fitting.
Bought my Vti-S CVT in 2003. It has now travelled a bit under 140K kms to date, or about 27,000kms annually!
Travel mainly in the City with the occasionally long distance trip.
The only problem to date is that a new plastic engine mount was replaced as the original had worn and caused my car to vibrate excessively (it cost AU$150).
Other than this, great car, definitely best car in it’s category.
Space efficiency is awesome, fuel economy is great. And it’s a cute car in the Vti-S spec! Can’t wait for the 2009 brand new spanking model.
my jazz vtis auto juddered on acceleration had the transmission oil changed and it still juddered eventually after two oil changes and still juddering on take off I found the problem the cvt gearbox has a starter clutch which operates from 0 – 8kms and can cost from $2500 upwards to repair.so if you have one of these autos just beware I sold mine cheap just to get rid of it.
I have had my GLi manual Jazz for 5 years now and it still going strong. Best car in the world! I live in the territory, have given it some pretty rough treatment over the last couple of years and touch wood, no wheel bearing problems like some others have mentioned. My drivers side lock is starting to play up but I can accept that as it’s the only fault in 5 years. I have not met anyone with a more reliable car than me.
We’ve had our Jazz new since 2006, and done 50,000km.
Excellent city driving fuel consumption, most of the time
returning 5.5l/100km, down to 4.2l/100km is possible if
you’re not bothered being passed by bus and push-bike.
Nothing has broken, however needed new brakes recently.
Slight shuddering in transmission, required new fluid
after flushing. Done by dealer under warranty. The new
ones don’t have CVT anymore… Perhaps due to longevity
problems caused by traffic light sprint driving here
in Australia.
I’ve had my Jazz CVI since the end of 2004. I noticed a couple of months ago that the car became noisier over 60kmph. I mentioned this at its next service, and Honda agreed to replace the rear bearings for free. Not trying to set a record here, but I\’ve hardly driven the thing – rear bearing failure at 17,000km!(And, for the record, I don\’t live near the ocean, nor do I use it as a lorry).
Apart from that it has had the radio replaced (display blanked out) and a bit of front pillar trim came loose. But each time the Honda people have been professional and helpful in dealing with these problems.
There is no perfect car – you can only judge a car by its competitors, and so far I think that Jazz is still on top.
HONDA BUYERS BEWARE. I bought my Jazz Vti-S brand new in Feb 2005. Light city driving to work and back from Killara to City. All was good until I got to around 45K and started to notice an unpleasant transmission shudder upon even the mildest acceleration from a standstill. I was told it was fluid and it was replaced twice. This made little difference, still shuddered. Got steadily worse. Complained again at 60K service (2 weeks ago) they told me it was a worn out front engine mount and replacing it would fix it…$250 later NO difference. I am now really pissed off and have since found out through the web that many CVT Jazz and City transmissions have developed a faulty ’startup clutch’….surely this should have been something that Honda just fessed up to and rectified under warranty. I am now (of course) out of warranty but I was not out of warranty when it was first raised with Honda. I will pursue this vigorously until I get a new ’startup clutch’ fitted for free. In addition the CD player stopped working at around 45K (maybe used it 20 times)…I was told this could not be fixed and the entire radio/cd/centre console would need to be replaced at my expense for a mere $1500. This is not good enough Honda Australia.
i’ve had my cvt jazz vti-s new since dec 2002. it has done 146000km to date. i had similar problems with robert, to date i have change the engine mount twice at the same location which is on the passenger side underneath the battery. first one was at around 60k (covered by warranty)and the second time was at 130km(out of warranty- so i got the parts from asia which cost me around $40 and $40 to install at my mechanics). I had the transmission issue since about 35k and i had raised the issues many times to honda trivett. each time they check, they recalibrate the start up clutch and change the oil, but after about 5k it comes back again. i change the atf oil every 20k since new. the shuddering always comes back after about 3-4k after the oil change.after a while i got fed up and dont bother to raise the issue to honda. Until about 2 years ago, my mechanic told me that honda got a special oil for the cvt and it is expensive. so i’ve changed to the new oil and the shuddering actually disappears. but to do it properly, they need to flush the entire transmission so you need about 7 liters. with the radio, i had to replace the entire console and my mechanic got a second hand one for $350. i think $1500 is way too expensive. with that price, you can get a double din console for $235 and get the double din cd player etc.
i bought my jazz vtis 2oo4,first problem came out 8 monts ago .Paint on both side mirrors starting to peel off . Trivett said its not their fault,don’t want to honor warranty on paint.they said it was the company who applied the paint protection so we complain to them, as expected they toss back the fault to Honda,they reckon it was a factory defect.Then about a week ago ,same as the few of you now we are also experiencing some shuddering on take off too and my car only have 58000 kilometers on odometer.Just wondering what do we have to do to get Honda get their act together and save their company’s dignity and pride.maybe if we all get together and some how publish all this problem we are having with our cars on national publication ,then it might wake up Honda personnels to their senses .
In regards to Robert above, I helped my daughter purchase a second hand Honda Jazz 2004 model with 80,000 km on the clock. It had the shudder at take off as well so I took it to a Perth Honda dealer. They said it was the starter clutch bearing in the CVT, and although it wasn’t under warranty and we were the second owners, they replaced the whole CVT with a reconditioned one free of charge. We were impressed with that dealer and thanked them. The other day the vehicle developed a vibration in the whole car at idle, so I guess now we are up for new engine mounts in a car less than 5 years old. I just sold a Toyota Tarago 19 years old and never replaced any of these components. I guess the 2004 Japanese Jazz was built to Japanese conditions and only to last 5 years, at a cheap price? I can only hope the 2009 model addressed these issues.
I have a Honda Jazz 2003 model it has 158000kms on the clock and I have been told that the gear bearings need replacing. When it had around 80000km I had the front wheel bearings replaced and around 100000km I had the rear wheel bearings replaced.
When I phoned Honda to mention this they said my car was over 5 years old and that they have had complaints about wheel bearings being replaced.
Maybe it is time to buy another car
I must say the build of the Jazz and functionality are still excellent, and the Honda engines are legendary. As for the above vibration I mentioned it comes and goes, so maybe not much to worry about. We get such good economy it is worth the quirks.
I’ve had the shuddering issue for some time aswell.
Trivett Honda in Parramatta have flushed and reset the CVT on each of my 10,000KM services. However after 3-4000km the problem reappears. It’s not like I trash the car too. I’ve very light on the accelerator and understand the concept of mechanical sympathy! However, this is very much so a design fault. No doubt.
I’m going to Trivett this week to get this looked at again. Since the oil was just replaced, I’m just going to ask them to get a reset done and then see how it behaves.
If the above quote of $2500 for a new starter clutch is true, it might be time to offload the car.
For the first 4.5 years I was pretty happy with my 1.4 iDSI Jazz. But now it started deteriorating fast. At 51,000 Km strated doing “woo-woo” noise >45km/h which sounds like front wheel bearing noise and sudden increase in fuel consumption.
I bought a Japaneese car only for the sake of reliability, because this is the only area where the Japaneese cars are supposed to be superior than European brands; on all other accounts they are worst. But apparently today’s Japaneese reliability is a myth. Yes, their engines are robust, but a car is far more than just an engine. Will not consider Honda or any Japaneese brand again. I think the times of legendary Japaneese reliability for the totality of a car are gone with no return. At least with European brands with higher failure rates the dealer mechanics have a higher expossure to problem resolution increasing the propability of knowing how to resolve the problem spot-on without so much guess work.
Got my CVT replaced.
Car runs like a dream now. YAY!