It has enough space to seat four large adults in comfort or five at a push. What’s more, getting into the car is easy, thanks to wide opening doors and seats that are positioned relatively high so you just slide on to them instead of having to lower yourself down.
You also get good boot space and rear seats that can be folded completely flat to make room for a bike or chest of drawers. Alternatively, you can flip the rear seat bases up, cinema-style, to turn the rear of the car into a second luggage area.
There’s enough adjustment in the seat and steering wheel to find a good driving position, but longer journeys reveal a lack of thigh support, and there’s also a fair bit of wind noise and tyre roar at motorway speeds. On the plus side, manual versions of the latest Jazz feature six gears rather than five, which means the engine is quieter at high speeds.
The suspension feels rather crude at times, crashing through potholes and failing to maintain control of the car’s body movements on bumpy country roads.
A seven-inch touchscreen on SE models and above might make this third-generation Jazz look more modern than its predecessors, but the materials are still scratchy to the touch. The touchscreen itself isn’t the most intuitive to use, either, with seemingly endless menus to get through, and the volume control is no better off for being a touch-sensitive pad rather than a simple control knob.
The controls are light and responsive, and the 1.3-litre petrol engine has enough oomph to keep up with traffic. It is, in other words, completely painless. The optional CVT automatic gearbox is fine at low speeds, but makes the engine excessively noisy when accelerating.
The dials and heater controls are nice and clear, however, the latter featuring large, easy to understand buttons.