Lude Generation

My sister and brother in law have decided it's time to retire their trusty Almera N15. It's served them well and completely reliably for routine everyday motoring for the (something like) 6 or 7 years they've had it, but the body's giving out now and it's time to move on.

They're now going to look at (obviously!) a couple of Honda's

So... What do people know about 2004 Civic Sport 2.0's and 2005 Honda Jazz's 1339cc's ( would that be a 1.3 or would they call it a 1.4?)
Anything in particular to look for on these?

(They're both around 89k with fsh apparently)

Preferably something more useful than this type of comment...

http://www.autoexpress.co.uk/honda/jazz/reliability wrote:The car has a serious flaw - the instruments are black with red lettering/needles. I am red-green colour blind ( as are many ) & can't see the speedo. I complained top both the garage & Honda & have had no response. It would seem to be easy to add a white or yellow blob to the needle, but nothing has been offered. There is a likelihood of exceeding the speed limits because one can't read the instrument.

You didn't look at the dashboard before you bought the car? The car has a serious flaw because you're red/green colour blind?

Inbred

I like the Jazz. Everyone likes the Jazz.

sounds like its time for a micra transplant

I like the jAzz

I like the Jazz as well, but don't know much about those Civics

the Jazz's are a bargain, i'm picking one up for the missus in the next month or 2.

seems that the 16v 1.4sport model is the one to go for...quite abit more pep and the other models and still returns silly MPG. £1800 should buy her a nice one with high miles.

high miles don't bother me, it just means i can tinker and tune

plus the SE/sport models are kitted up pretty damn well

Very underrated car, is the Jazz. Had a couple as courtesy cars.
Nice to drive, loads of room inside considering the size of the car. They're not incredibly fast (I've only driven the 1.2) but thats not really the point of them.

If you get a Jazz whatever you do, do not buy one with the ishift gearbox. That is the single shittest gearbox that has ever been fitted to a Honda, they're very difficult to drive smoothly unless you body lemonade about constantly trying to anticipate shift points. Apparently it has a 'learning' ECU for the gearbox also, which roughly translates into they drive even worse when somebody other than the regular driver uses it. They don't hold their value as a result because nobody likes them - sold a lot of new Jazz's because people wanted to get rid of the gearbox on their old one

On the other hand, both the manual and CVT boxes are lovely. I've done thousands of miles in a Jazz and I really liked it as a car. They're not exciting but they do the job of being a practical car very admirably. They've got a jobby ton of cup holders too imo the Jazz is better than the Civic, they don't feel smaller inside and they're very economical.

Is the sport really a 2.0?? I thought they were a 1.6 3dr, only the type-s and type-r were 2 litre lumps? I could be (read: probably) wrong though

Also, thinking about it I'd lean towards the Jazz as being more likely to have had an easier life than a car marketed as a 'sport'. You never know though