I can agree with the general findings on the Jazz handbrake. I have owned a pre-face-lift 2003 model and I currently own a 2005 face-lift model, both 1.4 SE CVT-7s and both from new.
The first model had drums at the rear and did not suffer at all from any doubt over the handbrake holding the car however with 15K miles my 2005 year car was starting to roll away. It took a number of visits to a dealer who seemed totally unable to solve the problem despite much apparent brake cleaning and handbrake adjustment on his part.
At the time I was a little angry with my regular dealer -the I got my first Jazz from (another story) - and was using a dealer further away from my usual one.
Eventually fate solved the brake problem... one night a mystery driver scuffed my car bumper whilst parking or getting out of the parking space which left me with a trip to the paintshop. Since I really rated the paintshop at my regular garage, I went back and whilst I was there I decided to mention about the handbrake.
My regular dealer looked into it and found out that one rear disk pad on each side of the car had siezed on to its caliper slide. This basically meant I was only using one side of each disk to brake with and also to apply the handbrake on.
Compared with the handbrake, the footbrake is more powerful working on the rear brakes plus you also have the front brakes to help with the braking, which is why I hadn't noticed any real drop in footbrake performance.
My regular dealer stripped the rear brakes, cleaned the slides, put the appropriate slip lubricant on each slide and reassembled, using the old pads in the original positions.
The brakes and the handbrake were excellent after that! However the foreman told me that I should do the strip/clean/reassemble everytime I noticed the handbrake starting to feel less effective to save wear on the fronts and more importantly the front disks - I didn't realise that the braking friction material is in places harder than the disk itself!
So that's what I do - I usually get about 15 - 20K miles before the rear pads need stripped/ cleaned/ lubricated and reasssembled. I also keep the jet-wash soap and hose away from the rear and front brakes calipers now and I am generally more careful when cleaning the wheels. I don't want to blast off the lubricant - easy with the high pressure jetwashes at some garages.
Sadly I has to replace my front disks at 65K because they were just too thin... Can't help wondering if it's because I'm always braking a lot harder with the front than was designed for - so why are discs better than drums Honda? Did any one ask for them... is it just marketing hype? Or are ABS easier to apply to discs than drums? Or another, good reason? Lighter? Let the debate begin
Dunk.