Things I don't like - any solutions?

[andruec]

Hi,

I've already posted a complaint about the boot but here are some other things I don't like:
* Accelerator - that notch at the bottom of the travel. And I keep catching my shoe against the side of the foot well. And it seems a lot harder to control than previously. Sometimes it seems to refuse to pick the revs up.
* The CVT - this might be related to the accelerator but it seems more 'banded' now. On previous models when going up a long not too steep hill I could just gradually push the pedal down and the revs would slowly rise and I'd maintain speed. But now the revs don't rise as much and eventually it will noticeably change down. The smoothness of the CVT is why I stuck with the Jazz.
* Wing mirrors - can no longer rotate far enough to show you the rear tyres so avoiding curbing the vehicle is harder.
* Infotainment (telling the time): If you ignore the warning when turn on the screen eventually goes black. Except that if you look top right you can just about see the time (slightly more visible at night). Or if you turn the cruise control fully off it appears on the dash display. I leave CC switched on and don't see the point of clicking 'Ok' every time I drive. So now I have an £18k car that doesn't have a visible clock.
* Infotainment (wallpaper): Does anyone know what causes this to appear? Not that I want a cute picture but it looks like the defaults show the time.
* Infotainment (uh oh): I bought my Jazz in February and now the IT has started playing up. It sometimes takes a long time to boot (this morning I'd been driving for a minute before it booted and started playing music). It also now sometimes displays a message like 'The system is taking a long time to respond. Wait or close?'.

It seems to me that Honda have cocked up with this model. My previous two Jazz I immediately felt at home in and I bought this one without even considering any other cars. But this one feels uncomfortable and the above issues (especially the boot mentioned elsewhere) are putting me off the vehicle.

[John Ratsey]

I've had no issues with the accelerator not being smooth (and braking is smoother on the Mk 3 than on the Mk 2 hybrid I drove previously).

Regarding the CVT having logical speed bands, this was also evident on my Mk 2 hybrid. I've noticed that sometimes the car will climb a hill in a higher gear than I would consider appropriate. Maybe there is a need for some tweaking of the software or maybe the computer is confident that the car can pull up the hill OK and the lower revs of the higher gear is slightly more fuel-efficient. Anyway, there is an easy fix to this particular problem: Give a quick pull on the left paddle to tell the car to change down.

One tweak that I have done and am happy with, is to set the car to give a small beep each time I accelerate through 30mph. I frequently find that once the car has built up a bit of speed when pulling away from lights / roundabouts it's easy to get well over the speed limit.

[ColinB]

* Infotainment (uh oh): I bought my Jazz in February and now the IT has started playing up. It sometimes takes a long time to boot (this morning I'd been driving for a minute before it booted and started playing music). It also now sometimes displays a message like 'The system is taking a long time to respond. Wait or close?'.

Have a look at this thread:
http://clubjazz.org/forum/index.php?topic=7624.0
This is a fault and you need to go back to your dealer. In my case (touch wood) mine seems to have been fixed by a complete replacement of the head unit, but others are suggesting (or at least haven't reported otherwise) that a software fix cures it. Either way, it's not a DIY job.

[guest1372]

The banding effect on the CVT is tailored for European cars, personally I'd prefer it to be continuously smooth like other territories, that would seem to be the way to get optimum performance/economy/emissions.
--
TG

[VicW]

The false stepped CVT introduced on the Mk 3 Jazz is against the whole principal design of a CVT, that is to say smooth and stepless and continuous.
Maybe Honda have done it to placate vehicle testing journalists who have never liked or tried to understand what a CVT does or how it works.
The Mk 1 CVT had a stepped seven speed option which was completely pointless and absorbed money that could have been spent elsewhere.

Vic.

[andruec]

Yeah, the CVT smoothness was why I bought the Jazz. To be fair most of the time it is smooth so nothing like driving around in stepped mode. But it irks me that it suddenly changes up on long hills. It's totally stupid in a CVT.

I'm also wondering if my accelerator pedal is faulty? Has no-one else noticed the 'notch' right near the bottom of its travel? It's like there's a guard on the last few degrees that you have to press through. I rarely encounter it as I'm not a boy racer but it's there if I press the pedal right to the floor. There's some BMW drivers discussing the same kind of thing here:

http://www.bimmerfest.com/forums/showthread.php?t=498501

With my MK2 I could always just push the accelerator to get the engine to 3,000rpm for rapid but not inefficient acceleration. With the Mk3 it's hit and miss. There's one roundabout here where it seems to refuse to go above 2,000 as if there's some kind of anti-wheel spin kicking in. If I do hit 3,000 first time it often continues to rise then when I ease off it drops back below 3,000rpm. I'm hoping that I'll eventually get the hang of it like I did the engine braking on the Mk1 CVT.

[VicW]

With my MK2 I could always just push the accelerator to get the engine to 3,000rpm for rapid but not inefficient acceleration.

I have owned three CVT Jazz's and have always found them very willing to rev almost to the redline simply by FULLY opening the throttle. Use the 'S' mode and the response is even better.

Vic.

[ColinS]

I'm also wondering if my accelerator pedal is faulty? Has no-one else noticed the 'notch' right near the bottom of its travel? It's like there's a guard on the last few degrees that you have to press through.

I think this marks the "kickdown" position for the speed limiter.  Manual page 395 also discusses kickdown for CVT although mine is manual so I cannot comment.

[andruec]

I have owned three CVT Jazz's and have always found them very willing to rev almost to the redline simply by FULLY opening the throttle. Use the 'S' mode and the response is even better.

Oh aye but I don't want to do that normally. On my Mk1 I used to do a manual kick down (two blips of the down paddle to put the engine near the red line) then floor the accelerator. The engine gave quite a surge when asked for power at the top end. I rarely bother these days as a change in circumstance means the roads I usually travel just aren't worth the bother. You never get very far ahead so it's more sensible just to sit back and go with the flow.

But back to what I want- There's a sweet spot between 'barely accelerating' and 'trying to burn rubber' which I try to aim for. In a lot of vehicles that's the best way to save fuel as it minimises the time spent accelerating while avoiding excessive fuel consumption. I'm struggling to hit that spit consistently and to hold the car there. I did a bit more forum reading today and noted that the new engine switches modes around 3,000 rpm. Maybe that's the issue. Perhaps I'm catching the engine at a switch point and it can't work out which mode to operate in.