2018 Honda Jazz vs Kia Rio

What's the difference?

The Honda Jazz is an extremely capable small car, with an ace card of virtually unbeatable interior space. While it's hardly an excitement machine, or the best looking or equipped in its class (it is missing out on some useful safety gear), the Jazz deserves its status as a well-loved hatchback.

The best in the range is probably the VTi. There isn't anything compelling further up the variants unless you're keen on bigger wheels or leather trim. Its entry-level offering is a good-value, sturdy car that is packed with its best qualities, no matter which one you buy.

The Rio GT-Line is the penultimate Rio experience, and honestly the only one in the range I’d consider. 

The changes under the bonnet and to the standard safety offering are ones that the car has desperately needed since it launched in Australia and help push the Rio back to the forefront as one of the best-equipped, well-priced and most entertaining to drive small hatchbacks on the market.

If it was just a little faster and sharper it would reach beyond itself and into hot hatch territory, but there’s still room for a fully-fledged ‘GT’ grade… Are you listening, Kia?

The Jazz's exterior design is instantly recognisable. The shape has been roughly the same since the car's 2002 debut, with the mildest evolution over the years. The 2018 Jazz leads with the chin a bit, with a pronounced underbite and when fitted with a chrome grille, it looks a bit like the giant Jaws from James Bond after whacking his head.

Apart from that, the slimmed headlights and one-box body shape are almost entirely inoffensive, save for the chunky, stacked rear lights.

When you head inside it's a simple, basic interior. Well put together, it's easy to find your way around and, because there isn't much happening in here, it's unlikely you'll need the owner's manual, unless you want to identify and use every single deployment of the excellent Magic Seats in the back.

As you climb the range, you'll start to see body-kit additions like a rear spoiler and side skirts, but nothing particularly racy.

Fittingly, the Rio GT-Line looks like an angry little car with a lot to prove. In this ‘Mighty Yellow’ (love it) shade, it looks like it’s ready to hunt down cars in the segment that own the whole ‘fun’ thing. 

Specifically, it looks ready to take on the Suzuki Swift Sport with its flared side-skirts, black highlights adorning the front and rear bumpers. And the little gloss-black highlight spoiler round the back which looks like a nod to its distant cousin, the i30N. There’s even a gloss-black highlight diffuser and a peppy-looking dual-exhaust.

For what it's worth, I think it looks fantastic. It’s aggressive, but not overtly so and strays away from using tacky carbon-look trim on the outside. But it’s more than just sporty bits. The GT-Line maintains every bit of the excellent spacious design of the Rio range on the inside.

Present are low, comfortable seats, although there isn’t a shred of sportiness about them. The cabin features lots of nice leather touches, and setting the GT-Line apart is the carbon-look dash, which surprised me by being more than just a plastic insert and having a half-way decent texture on it.

The flat-bottomed GT-Line-specific leather steering-wheel is just the right size and has nice ridges for sitting your hands on as well as ergonomic controls for the multimedia and drive information functions.

There are some cheap bits which tarnish the look and feel though. Unlike its direct competitor, the Mazda2 GT, the Rio GT-Line misses out on leather trimmed seats and door trim. In fact, there’s no door trim at all and a basic pad for resting your elbow on, which is hardly comfortable… 

The GT-Line also has basic-looking air-conditioning controls which are the same ones you get in the base-model car, although this isn’t unusual for a car in this class.

Completing the package is a classic four-dial instrument cluster and a colour LCD screen in the centre which presents relatively basic, but welcome, trip information.

The interior is full of cleverness packed into a small space. The centre console has two cup holders, a space for your phone and a compartmentalised open tray reachable by both front and rear-seat passengers. A third cupholder folds out of the dash on the driver's side. The back seat doesn't have any cupholders, unfortunately, and nor is there a centre armrest.

Rear legroom is impressive for such a small car - it's no wonder the HR-V compact SUV was spun off the Jazz platform. Added to that are the excellent 'Magic Seats', which fold in a variety of ways to increase the boot space dimensions from 354 litres to 1314 litres.

Luggage capacity is not bad for such a small car and with the flexible interior, the boot size goes up by four times in volume. This is one area in which it really does outdo the  Mazda2. The removable cargo cover means you can get a decent chest of drawers in, however there's a bit of a drop once you get things over the loading lip.

You can also fold the seat bases up and out of the way to provide space for shrubbery, or a dog, or an awkward flat pack. 

The basic VTi misses out on a bit of storage, namely the centre console storage box and driver's side seatback pocket, but the rest of the range has them both.

The GT-Line loses none of the practicality from the rest of the Rio range. The cabin feels spacious, thanks to a low seating position and high roof, and there’s decent legroom for all occupants thanks to the boxy design and wheels far to the edges of the Rio’s chassis.

As mentioned earlier, the steering wheel and multimedia system offer excellent ergonomics, but there’s nothing to rest your knee on in the tight foot-well. While this was a little awkward, it was no where near as irritating as it was in the manual version of the ‘S’ I tested last year.

Front passengers benefit from a deep storage trough in front of the shift lever and under the air conditioning controls there's a little shelf suitable for phones and wallets. The USB, 'aux-in' port and two 12-volt outlets are also located here.

There are two deep cupholders in the transmission tunnel and a small top-box providing some extra storage.

Like all current Hyundais and Kias, the door inserts for both front and rear passengers have huge cupholders which will hold almost any bottle you throw at them, as well as deep hollow troughs for tidbits.

Aside from those storage bins and a single 12-volt outlet, rear passengers don’t get much, there aren’t even any air vents back there but I found the leg and headroom excellent (I’m 182cm tall) for a car this size.

The boot remains the same as the rest of the Rio range, at a decent 325 litres VDA. That’s good for the segment, although it is bested by the flexible Honda Jazz (354L), Suzuki Baleno (355L) and distant cousin, the Hyundai Accent (370L) which is the segment leader.

Under the boot is a space-saver spare. It’s no full-size, but better than a repair kit.

Surely, the GT-Line is a pricey car then, right? Well… surprisingly, no.

The GT-Line comes in at $23,090, or just $4070 more than an entry-level automatic Rio S, but in terms of features there’s not too much difference. 

Apart from the already mentioned interior and exterior trim, the GT-Line also scores LED DRLs, fog lights and rear lights, a stop-start system and the same 17-inch alloys available on the ‘Sport’ grade that sits beneath it.

Available across the range is the same easy-to-use and well-laid out 7.0-inch touchscreen multimedia system supporting Apple CarPlay and Android Auto as well as Bluetooth connectivity and a rather good reversing camera.

It would be nice at this price point to have built-in nav, DAB+ radio, push-start, and leather seats like the Mazda2 GT, but it still outclasses most of the mainstream competition like the Honda Jazz and Suzuki Swift.

You’re probably wondering where the rest of your $4k goes, given the rest of the Rio range gets most of the same features – but stay with us – because the GT-Line more than makes up for it in the safety and engine departments.

All Jazzes are powered by Honda's 1.5-litre single-cam four-cylinder. The engine specs don't make for inspiring reading, with just 88kW and 145Nm. That's not a lot of horsepower, but when you consider the weight of the car, the figures don't look so weedy.

Power goes to the front wheels, so the Jazz is definitely not an off-road proposition.

Only the base model VTi has a choice of manual vs automatic, with a five-speed manual transmission and a CVT auto to choose from.

As to the question of timing belt or chain, the Jazz has the latter, so you don't have to worry about a belt change. The oil type is 5W-30

There is no diesel option, so there'll be no diesel vs petrol argument. Nor is there an EV or plug-in hybrid - with a battery, it's unlikely you'd have much boot space left. There isn't an LPG, 4x4, or AWD version either.

If you can be bothered fitting a towbar, the manual's towing capacity is 1000kg braked while the CVT's load capacity drops to 850kg. Both transmissions will haul 450kg unbraked.

The big news is here. The GT-Line is the only Rio to score a 1.0-litre three-cylinder turbo engine which produces 88kW/172Nm. 

The rest of the range has the holdover (and critically-panned) 1.4-litre 74kW/133Nm engine which has hampered the Rio’s score in the past.

Even though you only score an extra 14kW, the three-cylinder is a much more modern and punchy little unit packed full of character. It allows you to actually explore the better properties of the Rio’s chassis with the solid dollop of extra torque (39Nm) making all the difference. 

At this price, you can also say farewell to the archaic (and also critically-panned) four-speed automatic, as the GT-Line gets a seven-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission, a first for Kia in Australia.

While not as slick as a VW offering, the Kia dual-clutch is still a pretty quick-shifter and can be placed in manual mode by tilting the shift-lever to the right. Frustratingly though, there are no paddle-shifters which would really help extract a little more fun out of the combination.

There’s also a start-stop system on the GT-Line which is better than the irritating Volkswagen ones, but still not quite as intuitive as Mazda’s ‘i-stop’ system.

Fuel figures are slightly different, depending on the gearbox you've chosen. Honda claims you'll get 6.5L/100km on the combined cycle in a manual while the CVT uses a bit less, coming in at 5.9L/100km. So fuel consumption km/L works out at about 15km/L for the five speed and 17.km/L in the CVT.

Real-world consumption is a little different, however. Our most recent test with the manual yielded 8.0L/100km while the CVT chugged down 8.2L/100km. Having said that, you'll see better fuel economy figures in the manual if, as I admitted in my VTi review, you don't drive it enthusiastically. The CVT was a bit disappointing because I was a lot more sedate in that one and it didn't deliver better mileage than the manual.

Fuel-tank capacity is 40 litres.

Kia claims the Rio will use 5.8L/100km on the combined cycle, and although the little engine is a modern turbocharged unit, it will happily drink base-grade 91RON petrol and E10.

On my week of fun-packed driving, I extracted 8.9L/100km.

Understandable, given I was pushing the little engine to see what it was capable of, and frequently turning off the stop-start system. Still a miss if you drive the car how it really should be driven, though…

The Jazz has always been a comfortable, easygoing car with performance figures to match. Its 0-100km/h acceleration is best described as leisurely, so if it's speed your after, this car isn't for you.

That said, the manual VTi is terrific fun to drive. Switch to the CVT, however, and the Jazz's reputation is restored. A good ride for front-seat passengers comes from McPherson struts up front while the rear suspension is by torsion beams, meaning rear-seat occupants can get a few shocks over bumps.

Road noise is a little higher than you might expect, but that's probably a combination of tyres and a commitment to lightness.

Obviously, being such a small car, manouverability is a key advantage. The turning radius is 5.2m, which is good but not super tight and the light, electric power steering makes dodging about easy. It certainly doesn't feel like it's on rails, but that's hardly what a car with a such a small engine size is about.

Ground clearance is 137mm, which is reasonable but jumping gutters is not advised.

In the base manual, you have a five-speed with a light clutch and an easy shift. For a motor missing out on a second cam, let alone a turbo, progress is swift rather than exciting, the engine droning away with a relaxed air. The CVT has an eco mode, which further blunts performance, but a ring of light around speedo glows green if you're behaving yourself.

The Rio is awesome to drive compared to it's lesser 1.4-litre versions. The little turbo three-cylinder engine has small amounts of lag to contend with, but generally shoots up the rev range and into its power band with gruff enthusiasm.

After my initial drive, though, I found myself desperately searching for a ‘Sport’ mode. The GT-Line is loads of fun… but if it were just 15 per cent better the Suzuki Swift Sport (the only hot hatch left in this price segment) would have a serious competitor on its hands.

It would be as simple as adding paddle-shifters, upping throttle response and sharpening each shift. It’s that close to being something truly great.

This is thanks to the Rio already having fantastic locally-tuned suspension, responsive - if a little stiff at low-speed - steering, and wheels that sit way out to the edges of the chassis.

The GT-Line rides super-flat, dispatching corners with ease, and despite the large alloys with slim rubber allowing quite a lot of road noise into the cabin, impacts with potholes or imperfections are smoothed out reasonably well.

I’m sure the Continental ContiSportContact 2 tyres (costing just under $1000 for a set…) on our test car helped with the feel… I don’t doubt most examples will end up with much cheaper rubber after a year or two on the road.

Sure, the GT-Line could benefit from fully-independent rear suspension, bucket seats, maybe a bit more power and a sporty manual gearbox… but at that point you’d be talking a car costing north of $25k.

Make no mistake - the Rio GT-Line is nowhere near a track-ready hero like the Clio RS, Peugeot 208 GTi or soon-to-arrive Ford Fiesta ST, but it’s such a warmed-up improvement over previous Rio offerings it proves little Korean hatchbacks have the potential to be a lot of fun.

All current-generation Rios have a five-star ANCAP safety rating as of 2017, but the GT-Line scores extra points as it is the only one in the range that comes with city-speed AEB and Forward Collision Warning as standard. It also scores Lane Keep Assist (LKAS) which is speed-dependent with Lane Departure Warning (LDW) and Driver Attention Alert (DAA). A nice set of inclusions which put the GT-Line ahead of most of its competition. 

Missing features are Blind Spot Monitoring (BSM), Rear Cross Traffic Alert (RCTA) – both available on the Mazda2 – as well as active cruise control, but realistically it’s hard to expect the full suite of active safety features on a $23k car.

Honda's standard five year/unlimited kilometre warranty also comes with capped-price servicing for the first five years or 10 services, whichever comes first. Service intervals are every 10,000km or six months. 

Up to 30,000km you won't have any extras but once you hit 40,000km you'll have to do the brake fluid, which is a reaonable $144 extra. Your service cost structure is otherwise simple - $259 for odd numbers and $297 for even.

Many people ask where the Honda Jazz is built, and the answer to that is "not Japan", or in Honda's Thailand plant.

Second-hand values appear strong, with around 60 percent of value retained after three years. Resale value is something of a Honda strength, which is probably to do with a lack of high-profile reliability issues.

A dip into the usual internet forums yields little in the way of common faults, problems, complaints or issues for the Jazz. Some look for automatic transmission problems, others for manual gearbox problems, but the current Jazz seems quite clear of defects in Australian-delivered cars.

The solid ownership promise of a seven-year/unlimited km warranty has always been a strong point for Kia, and it’s no different in this segment for the Rio. It outclasses the five-year warranties on the Mazda2 and Honda Jazz, and makes the three-year offerings on the Toyota Yaris and Suzuki Swift look comical.

The GT-Line requires a service once a year or every 10,000km and the brand provides costing for each service for the first seven years, ranging from $285 - $778. 

It averages out at a really quite expensive $484.57 over the seven years, though. The Mazda2 costs an average of $301 over the same period. Worth considering.