Cars and Us

By kdi • Sep 7th, 2009 •

Last week we have some time and an opportunity to test drive both car at Honda Showroom at Wisma Mofaz with Ms Teresa Cheng. Why we test drive both car? Because both car model offered by Honda have same engine fitted into the engine bay which is the i-vtec 16valve SOHC 4 cilinder and we want to feel the differences between both car due to its shape design which is Honda City is a sedan car and the Honda Jazz is a mini MPV.

Driving an i-vtec engine car is quite fun due to its fast response and good pick up. Anyway, its a 1.5 litre engine that is more than enough to bring the New City with 1140kg of weight and New Jazz with 1100kg of weight. You won’t feel much different pressing the fuel paddle for both car as the engine produce same output of 120PS at 6600RPM and 145Nm at 4800RPM.

What makes the i-Vtec engine so special is it provide very smooth acceleration, very quiet engine sound and very responsive performance. What i like the most is the engine RPM at 100km/h which is only 2000 RPM! For a 1.5 litre engine, this is the best engine i have ever experienced. It can cruise 100km/h only with 2000 RPM while other car including Toyota Vios is more than 3000RPM.

Both Honda Jazz and Honda City offers paddle shifter on the back of the steering. Just switch to “S” gear at the gear knob and you ar free to operate the paddle shifter to change the gear manually and quickly. Pulling the left paddle will drop your gear and accelerate faster for you to overtake and pulling the right paddle will step up your gear. But if you use the paddle shifter during “D” mode, the paddle shifter will disengange automatically after a few seconds operated. But be carefull when using the paddle shifter! You must really knows how it works. If not the engine will over run to red line RPM. You must always look at the RPM gauge.

Both All New City and Jazz really offers the same spec with same engine, same water resistance seat fabric, radio player system and fuel consumption. The differences is the exterior design, space and some of the interior finishing on the meter panel. getting into Honda Jazz, you will feel very spacious. With the extended windscreen glass, bigger space on the dashboard, wide view on the front, triangle glass gives better view on the front side, the Jazz offers more space in terms of interior cabin. While the meter panel on the dashboard is better than the new City. The design is sportier.

The All New City Provides a better luggage space which is 506 litre. Driving the new city is more stable than the jazz due to it is a sedan car. But the jazz will offer a lighter feeling while driving. Good news is the new City will be available in very nice taffeta white colour starting January 2010.

There are not many differences between both model. But if you prefer a sedan car, then take the City with lower price yet delivering same features as the Honda Jazz. If you prefer a mini MPV design which is more sporty, you can go for the Honda Jazz. For your information, the Honda Jazz is a CBU model that is fully imported from Japan. That is why the price is more expensive but the specification is slightly same with the CKD Honda City.

Here We share some of the specification of both All New Honda Jazz and Honda City:

New Honda City Specifications

Engine
Engine Type 4 Cylinder 16 Valve SOHC i-VTEC
Fuel Supply System PGM-FI (Programmed Fuel Injection)
Bore & Stroke (mm) 73.0 x 89.4
Displacement (cc) 1,497
Compression Ratio 10.4 : 1
Maximum Horsepower [PS (kW)@rpm] 120 (88)@6,600
Maximum Torque [Nm (kg-m)@rpm] 145 (14.8)@4,800

New Honda Jazz Specifications