Hi there,
I'm a UK based Jazz user. To be honest, I'm a fan of the car. It's never given me a problem, it's got good economy and it does have a lot of nice features. That said, Spaz's list is basically correct apart from;
- Don't know anything about that dealer carry on. Never had any problems myself BUT I did a pre-purchase survey in the local DIY shop car park of Honda users. There's just no way that the Honda dealers are as good as Mercedes (only owned MB till the Jazz). I expect problems when there are problems if you get my drift.
- I got my Jazz in 2 weeks with a very good trade in on my A160 which was a total disaster of a car. You see the difference for me is that my Jazz has never been to the garage; my A160 was always in it!
- Not had any problems with the floor covering. In fact this is the easiest car to clean inside and out that I've ever owned. See note below however... Don't bother with vac. cleaner, just use a stiff brush on the seats. Work from the top down. Remove the carpets when you get to them, brush off on a wall. No worries. Damp cloth over the plastic surfaces works fine.
- Don't buy the cargo mat. It's just not needed; it gets in the way when you put the seats down.
- Personally, I like the wheels BUT I've found that you need to be careful to clean them behind the spokes otherwise dirt quickly builds up there too. It's easy to do with a soaked sponge, just remember to do it.
- I drive in a tough environment; school runs, traffic lights, level crossings, never over 40mph. Mostly stop start. You get the picture. I get 45mpg which I think is about 37 mpg US. Not sure about the US conversion.
- I've not had a problem with power at low speeds; it wants to be away. Had higher speeds (e.g. 70mph) it's got very little zip.
- Stereo fine for me apart from the fact that the rear view mirror wobbles at high bass levels. It was suggested in one newsgroup that I could turn it down :).
- I drive an automatic and I don't get this gear change business at all. As I understand it, the car has a continuously variable ratio box. The manual changer (only used it once) is only there to give you something to play with. Forget about it. Pull away as fast as you like and there are no changes; it just gets faster and faster. Amazing. There is a problem with the auto shifter thingy. It's got no gate between the various forward drive options. Too easy to slip into one of them and find there's a problem next time you set off needing power.
- There's no problem with seeing the stereo.
The petrol filler cap on my Jazz does lock.
- The rear window wiper is FAIRLY (not totally) useless
- There is a really small problem with dirt on the outside of the car. I've got mud flaps BUT when you come to power-wash the car you need to take special care to remove the very large amount of heavy-dirt / mud on that bottom radius just below the doors. It's got that lumpy-bumpy under-car coating and boy does the c**p stick!
- The magic luggage carriers are a total waste of time. So are the rubber mats you can get for the knee-height self.