Jazz review

I've had my car now for the past 4 years. It's a Honda Jazz and has so far done everything I've asked of it, however always worth having a check and thought it was worth looking at what else was out there; suffice to say I've come to the conclusion that the Jazz is a sufficiently good car that I'm not changing it any time soon.

So in typical me style, let's look at its good and bad points:
Good:

• Carrying capacity - can be converted into a van like back which is great for carrying anything up to and including a 3 seater sofa.
• People Capacity: Can fit 4 large adults in or 2 large + 3 small ones in the back. Even someone with long legs like me is fine and there is plenty of headroom.
  
• Size - Externally it's quite small which is good for parking.
• Good visibility - not as good as a land rover or similar, but fabulous for a small to medium car.
• Good fuel economy. Your only choice is a petrol engine. I used to get about 50-60mpg, now I get 40-50mpg. It depends on the speed I'm doing. But it has definitely gone down as it has aged.
• Good enough handling. It's not going to challenge a Lotus Elise any time soon, but it is predictable and with that engine you can certainly have some fun provided you're willing to rev the engine like crazy and deal with the understear.
• Excellent Engine. Again it's not going to win any prizes for power (my 600cc motorbike produces more horsepower); but that's fine, it becomes a challenge to get some performance out of it: and that is fun. Especially since the engine loves to rev unlike any other car engine I've ever driven and it's great fun.
• The front windscreen wash jets have a fabulous spray pettern that works brilliantly.
• Electric windows all around (more useful than I thought it would be)
  

Bad Points:

• Comparatively expensive to maintain - Honda parts and servicing aren't the cheapest on the planet.
• Rubbish rear wash squirter. It's like a 5 year old peeing on your back windscreen.
• Wiper blades are none standard - so you have to buy from Honda
• Car stereo is intentionally none standard size. This is sold as an anti theft device, however it is a bloody pain as it is now really showing its age (no mp3 or aux in being the big ones) and there is nothing I can do about it.
• The wing mirror fold in motors should be automatic
• The passenger electric window should have the auto function like the driver side does. Not having it is just petty bean counting.
• No rear window intermittant wipe
• Hondas are expensive to buy but this is supposed to be balanced by a high resale value. Unfortunatly a recent valuation on mine (a low milage, full service history in perfect condition) proved this wasn't the case.
• Poor street cred*
  

I believe the new model Jazz fixes most of these problems, but they're all very minor and livable with so no plans to buy that until this one breaks.
But if you want an all rounder that will carry a huge ammount to the tip one minute, and take 4 large adults out for a meal the next, and you want low tax and fuel consumption then i think you'd be hard pressed to find a better car.

* Hondas and especially the Jazz have poor street cred, they're seen as an old man's car. I don't mind this at all though, in fact I somewhat revel at it. reminded of the days when people used to take the piss out of me for driving a tiny Fiat Uno; and my retort was just that I was compensating for something. I try and claim the same applies now, but I don't think I'm fooling anyone.