2017 Honda Jazz vs Toyota Yaris

What's the difference?

The MY18 Jazz was a pleasant surprise. There was little wrong with the previous edition and, truth be told, I'd have probably thought a manual one of those was good fun, too. The surprising spec inclusions are most welcome - those LED headlights kick the dark's butt - but really, it's a car that can carry four grown-ups and/or weird cargo in genuine comfort. Nothing else in the class can manage that.

The light car market continues to be decimated by the intrusion of small crossovers, making it harder for car companies to move metal without adding loads of extras – and bumping up prices. 

With items like steel wheels and the lack of basic functions like auto wipers, one-touch indicators, six speed autos and the like, though, has the contemporary looking Yaris missed the mark against newer, better-equipped rivals? 

Toyota's reputation for longevity and resale, especially in the smaller cars, is unrivalled in the category, though, and that will play in its favour.

Overall, the Yaris is a solid little city car with an enviable reputation, but maybe just priced a little out of its league.

The Jazz has, happily, evolved its design over the years. At first it was like a mini Rice Bubble-era Toyota Tarago and today it's still very much a mini Rice Bubble-era Tarago, but now it's slightly bigger. 

Honda's quirky design bods were in a strange mood around the time of this generation's conception and while the front end is fairly tame and contemporary - if a bit bulgy - the side view is characterised by a deep gash in the side of the car that runs to the taillights and then hooks down, leaving a space where you could snap a hockey stick into the side for storage. It calms down again at the back, with tall stacked tail-lights and a broad tailgate.

Inside, things are fairly tame, with dark grey plastics that are lifted by brushed aluminium-look trim around the dashboard-mounted air vents. It's not bang up to date like the HR-V, Civic and new CR-V, but it's perfectly inoffensive. In fact, it feels like a more expensive car, although that is getting harder to say these days - the Mazda2 has is a pretty plush interior for similar money while both are miles ahead of the Hyundai Accent.

The Yaris has come a long way from its early days of being, well, a plain old ordinary little hatch. New design tweaks for this update include an overtly sculpted bonnet and bumper treatment and intricate headlight details that help to set it apart from the small-car pack, while the more restrained but tidy rear end brings to mind the brand’s larger Corolla. 

The top-spec ZR adds LED headlights and tail-lights to the redesign, while it and the SX also get fog lights.

Inside it's a similar story, with a heavily sculpted, multi-layered dashboard treatment and flat-faced dash and console. Even the door card design and the seats are quite contemporary. 

The only design tweaks for this update are restricted to the use of piano black plastics in place of some silver trim… and that’s it.

The use of 15-inch steel wheels with hubcaps on the base Ascent and even on the mid-grade SX model spoils the look a bit, while on the inside it's too easy to find an ocean of hard-touch plastics that reveal the Yaris’s modest price point.

The space inside the Jazz is extraordinary for such a small car. Back-seat passengers in its immediate competition - Mazda2 and Hyundai Accent - could only dream of the kind of legroom enjoyed in the Honda. Behind my driving position there's still tonnes of room, and I'm just shy of 180cm.

As ever, the interior is full of clever details, packed into a small space. The centre console holds two cupholders, a tray 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.

The Jazz is the home of the Magic Seats. The rears are split 60/40 and flop forward to create a near-flat load space. Pull them back up and you can fold the seat squabs up, clearing the way for items you'd rather not rattle around in the boot or that need that extra headroom (say, a tall plant or a flat pack that won't lie... flat. Or a dog). They're very clever and nobody else has them.

Boot space is impressive for a small car at 354 litres. Folding the seats yields a jump to 1314 litres. Enormous. By comparison the 2 is a titchy 250 litres and the rather bigger (and older and less capable, etc) Accent just shades it at 370 litres seats-up.

The small Yaris five-door, five-seat hatch is comfortable even for the tallest of drivers, with great visibility, easy-to-read controls, and a steering wheel that's adjustable for both height and reach. 

Toyota's ubiquitous small touchscreen multimedia system controls functions like audio, Bluetooth, phone streaming and radio across the three models, with satellite navigation added to the ZR.

There are climate control dials instead of buttons for the Ascent and SX, while the ZR gets a digital readout. All three miss out on small, nice-to-have features like one-touch indicators and a digital speedometer. 

The steering wheel features controls for audio and phone, while basic cruise control is standard, as well. The exterior mirrors are electric, and the driver's window sports an auto-up function, while the other three are normal. The ZR’s wheel is covered in a thick leather, while the SX makes do with a thinner leather-like cover, and the Ascent is left au naturel.

While the central speedometer is large and easy enough to read, the switches for the Toyota 'Safety Sense' gear – standard on the ZR and a $650 option on Ascent and SX, comprising AEB, lane departure warning and auto headlights - are randomly scattered across the length of the dash. 

Speaking of the auto headlights, they just don't work very well at all, unfortunately. In high beam mode, they are unable to pick up oncoming headlights in time to dim quickly enough, and they won't even switch on if there is the merest hint of reflected light alongside even a darkened road.

For rear seat passengers, it’s a pretty basic story, with reasonable headroom but not a lot of knee and toe room if taller people are in the front. The middle sash belt retracts into the roof, too, making it a bit difficult to use.

There are two ISOFIX points on the back seats, but no cupholders or bottle holders in any form for rear seat passengers - they can share a single cupholder between the front seats, though.

There’s a pair of side-by-side cupholders in the front, along with a couple of small slots in between the front seats, thanks to the lack of a centre console bin.

There are a couple of pockets moulded into the plastic of the centre console between the seats, but they are not very deep and don't hold items particularly securely. The front doors do have bottle holders, along with small pockets. 

The rear hatch measures 286 litres across all three variants, and there’s also a false floor that that allows you to hide smaller belongings out of sight. It also makes for a level loading area when the 60/40 split fold seats are dropped.

There is a space-saver spare underneath the floor.

Size-wise, rivals like the Kia Picanto, which offers 255 litres, and the Mitsubishi Mirage, which can carry 235 litres, outgun the Yaris for space.

It costs $15,290 RRP for the 1.3-litre four-cylinder Ascent manual and $17,330 for the 1.5-litre SX self-shifter, with the optional four-speed automatic transmission needing $1530 more. The auto-only 1.5-litre ZR costs $22,470, an increase of $650 that’s reflected in the addition of the safety gear.

Options are limited to metallic paint at $450, and colours include blue, orange, white, grey, black, red and silver. 

On average, the Yaris is priced relatively well in a class that contains cars like the Mazda2 and the Honda Jazz, but new entrants like the updated Suzuki Swift do highlight the fact the Yaris’s mechanical package, in particular, is ageing.

The Ascent comes with a 1.3-litre four cylinder petrol engine, auto headlights but not auto wipers, standard cruise control, steering wheel with controls for stereo and phone, electric windows, manual air, a single USB port and a 12 volt socket.

The SX gets a bigger 1.5-litre engine, fog lights, tinted glass and upgraded cloth trim over the 1.3-litre entry-level Ascent model.

The ZR, meanwhile, gets the 'Safety Sense' system, LED headlights and tail-lights, 16-inch alloys, two-tone cloth trim and automatic single-zone climate control.

Under the diving bonnet is Honda's 1.5-litre single-cam four cylinder producing 88kW and 145Nm. Weighing just 1095kg, those numbers aren't bad at all. The five-speed manual feeds the power to the front wheels.

The Yaris uses a naturally aspirated 1.3-litre four-cylinder petrol engine for the base Ascent, which makes 63kW/120Nm, or a 1.5-litre all-alloy four-cylinder petrol engine that’s good for 80kW/141Nm in the SX and ZR.

The little (2NZ-FE) unit is basically a short-stroke version of the larger engine, and also features all-alloy construction.

Fitted with Toyota’s variable valve timing system and a steel timing chain, meanwhile, the (1NZ-FE) 1.5-litre isn’t the last word in refinement, but it delivers a surprisingly spritely mid-range despite a modest torque figure.

Both engines are backed by either a four-speed auto, or five-speed manual (in Ascent and SX, at least - ZR is auto only). Both transmissions are lacking at least one gear to make highway cruising more bearable, while the listless, unweighted feel of the clutch pedal in the manual is quite dispiriting.

Honda claims a combined cycle figure of 5.3L/100km.

I got an indicated 8.0L/100km, which shouldn't bother you - I really gave it some stick because I seriously enjoyed driving the manual. Careful driving will yield better results. Incidentally, 8.0L/100km is very close to the claimed urban figure, which is where this car spent most of its time.

Toyota claims a fuel consumption figure of 6.4 litres per 100km on the combined fuel economy cycle across the 1.3-litre and 1.5 litre auto-equipped engines, 5.8L/100km for the 1.3-litre manual, and 5.9L/100km for the 1.5-litre manual.

Over a test period of approximately 200 kilometres on average, we recorded a dash-indicated figure of 7.7L/100km for the 1.3-litre auto, 7.3L/100km for the manual SX and 7.2L/100km for the ZR.

The Yaris will drink 91RON without a drama and uses a 42-litre tank, which equates to a range of about 700km between fills.

If you asked me which car, in all the world, would I least expect to be good fun to drive, I wouldn't immediately say the Jazz, but it would have been in the mix. But it turns out it shouldn't be, because in this rarely purchased manual guise, it's terrific fun. 

The view out front is great. In fact, the view everywhere is terrific - from the inside the Jazz almost feels like it's more glass than metal, but not in a way that makes you feel unsafe. Like its HR-V twin under the skin (yes, it's more Danny DeVito and Arnold Schwarzenegger twins, but they are actually related), the windscreen is gigantic but the Jazz also has those little three-quarter windows over the front wheels. Allied with its size, it's an absurdly easy car to manoeuvre.

The engine is pretty vocal, sure, and it's only going to ironically earn the nickname "The Beast", the Jazz is really rather handy. The controls are light, from clutch to gear throw, with steering that's just right to keep up with the limited grip from the front wheels. 

The ride is quite impressive, at least for front-seat passengers - rear passengers  won't be so happy with the torsion beams banging over speed humps. Body roll isn't a concern, but nor is it flat through the turns. It's the sort of car you lean into, like an old Mini.

It's a noisy thing, though. The engine is quite gravelly and there's a fair bit of road noise in the cabin. The weak stereo doesn't really cover the racket, either. On smooth surfaces there's a smidge of wind noise, so a long trip should be okay. It's way more fun than the CVT auto, though, so save yourself the $2000 and enjoy an excellent manual experience.

The Yaris is really basic motoring 101. A five-speed gearbox sounds like a throwback to the past, but the performance of the 80kW 1.5 litre 4-cylinder petrol engine in the SX is actually quite sprightly. 

The 1.3-litre auto is a bit more breathless, and is really hobbled when bolted to the four-speed auto – it struggles more to get up to speed.

Things are nicer in the 1.5-litre auto, but that lack of an overdrive gear cruels the car when taking off from rest, or leaning on it to get up to speed, or crest an incline; it just has to work too hard in the lower gears.

A lot of noise from the engine gets back into the cabin, though, and both the manual and the auto Yaris are compromised when it comes to highway cruising, thanks to that lack of a taller gear. 

While the ride is comfortable, it can be quite noisy thanks to tyre roar, and it’s not really conducive at all to inter-city touring. The ZR’s larger 16-inch, better quality tyres improve noise and ride comfort, though.

Around town the manual is pretty handy, especially when using third gear, with just enough torque available to pull you around quite comfortably. 

The clutch action is pretty average, with no real discernible bite point, which makes it a bit of a chore to use. 

The steering is good, though, and its ride and handling is more than acceptable for the class.

Even the basic Yaris has seven airbags and a reversing camera as standard, which are good additions to the range and help it to a maximum five-star ANCAP rating. 

The 'Smart Sense' kit, which adds forward collision prevention (but not AEB) and lane departure warning as well as auto high beam, is a $650 option on Ascent and SX, but standard on the ZR. 

As mentioned, buttons to control the optional safety system are scattered at random around the cabin, which makes them less easy to use. 

For example, the lane departure warning system uses beeps instead of vibrations or light indications, which is quite irritating, and with the switch within easy reach, it's too tempting to just turn it off. 

Likewise, the addition of the automatic high beam headlights really isn't worth the price of admission, given their poor performance in our testing. 

Regardless, the addition of AEB in the ZR is worth the price of admission.

Honda offers a generous five-year/unlimited-kilometre warranty on all its models. Service pricing is capped for the first five years or 10 services, whichever you reach first. Costs bounce between $259 and $297, with the website listing additional items you might need, such as brake fluid (every two years, $40 extra) or various filters. The manual costs the same to service as the CVT auto.

A three-year/100,000km warranty comes with the Yaris, which is shorter in time and distance than many of its competitors.

Its six-month/10,000km service intervals are also quite short, offset by a relatively low fixed price servicing scheme. The service interval, though, does reflect the typical usage cycle of a city car.

Over three years, the Yaris should cost around $840 to maintain through a dealer across all variants.