The Honda Fit / Jazz is one of Honda's most successful models of recent time.The combination of a well rounded design, good looks and driveablity garnered many fans.However, with a basically economy-biased set-up, outright performance is understandably limited. This gave rise to situations where Fits/Jazzes looked faster than what they were capable of. Consequently enthusiasts started calling out to Honda for a higher performance Fit / Jazz. In Japan, this was led by influential and 'powerful' reviewers like Keiichi 'Drift King' Tsuchiya and Formula Nippon racer Naoki Hattori calling Honda for a Fit Type-R. Honda's response was to introduce a 1.5l Fit with the new L15A VTEC engine and the MMT-S / CVT-7 gearbox
i have never really tested the max speed of the Jazz VTEC, the highest speed I have ever taken both the Honda Malaysia unit and my own unit was just below 190kph. But my friends from other publications told me they have pushed the Honda Malaysia test car right up to over 195kph during their tests. Personally, I feel 200kph to perhaps a max of 205 kph is possible on the Jazz VTEC but a lot of empty roads will be needed to achieve this.
As can be seen, the Jazz 1.5 VTEC returned quite unexpectedly good results, to me at least. It consistently did the 0-60mph run at a time of between 8.7 to 9.0 seconds for an average of just above 8.8 seconds !! This was really astonishing especially at the time I was doing the runs. By comparison, the 'reference' cars in the mid-sized and full-sized 'sports-sedan' segment, the Civic 2.0 i-VTEC and the local Accord 2.4 i-VTEC returned averaged times of 8.5 and 8.6 seconds respectively, not a lot faster than what the Jazz did !
The difference between the i-DSI and VTEC is of course not just in the engine alone. Like the case of the City, the suspension components on the VTEC are also of different specs.
One experience I have had is that a number of people have 'complained' about the Jazz VTEC's 'hard ride'. They are far and few in between but generally they question why the Jazz VTEC cannot have a comfortable ride. My response to them are always that the hard ride on the Jazz VTEC is intentional. It is to complement the extra 25% power, i.e. to exploit the more powerful engine. People who will pay for the extra 25% hp - the engine only gives more power above 3000rpm - will be the one who buys VTEC. Let's be honest here, most casual owners of a Jazz i-DSI will never go above 3,000rpm on the tacho, such is the peppiness of the engine/CVT combo. So given its better low-rpm power, the i-DSI is slightly faster - and more economical - in normal day to day driving. The kind of people who appreciates the VTEC engine's special characteristic, where better performance really comes in only after 3,500rpm or 4,000rpm will be the enthusiasts who puts a premium on performance, the sort who appreciates the kind of occasions where he/she can gleefully hit the 7-speed mode button and put pedal to metal, savoring the little L15A VTEC scream to the red-line. This kind of owners too would be the one who is most likely to indulge in throwing the Jazz up a windy mountain road for e.g. instead of taking a nice relaxed drive.
*tested car is a automatic, manual car supposingly have better [erformance on acceleration and top speed.. yay...!!
i am driving a honda jazz too, so proud of it.. heheh..
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