Sporty Jazz !

COSTS:

Car: £934.40

Rear bumper bracket £17.42

Paint £45.60

Clips £4.35

Parking sensors: £7.99

MOT: £35

You don’t come across these often: a late first generation Honda Jazz with the added rarity of it being a ‘Sport’ model, revered moreover because of its true automatic transmission which is highly distinguished from the subsequent semi-automatic version. Furthermore, it had only 43,000 ish miles on the clock which I confirmed using one car history website. When I arrived for collection, it was unceremoniously being dragged with its front bumper scraping the ground. My mind started to calculate an ever increasing repair cost as splash guards and engine undertray were being folded and split to an oblivious fork-lift driver as I tragically held up one side of its dragging front bumper. An evaluation: cracked and split front bumper with a poorly painted rear bumper that had had an impact on one side showing an impression of one bumper bracket through the bumper skin. Happily, a reconnection of the battery helped it start first time and it sounded healthy justifying its low mileage. Some grommets secured the bumper with a fluid and tyre check then we were ready to roll safely without the help of a recovery truck saving me £60. Jokingly, a ” Wigan till I pie” sticker stuck on one corner of the rear windscreen showing that it had been locally owned – that would be removed to increase its valuation forthwith!

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It wasn’t difficult to remove the rear bumper as some plastic studs were missing and it looked like it had had a bodged job – aren’t all rear end repairs bodged? Copper orange colour showed where the blue paint had flaked away revealing no keying of the surface beneath which explained why. The rear driver’s box section had been knocked out without a hydraulic pull as there was a faint dent on the rear wing by a slight bulge where it had been filled.

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That rear bumper had parking sensors in but no wiring attached as it had been a replacement part but Honda wiring was extortionate so a surf around one popular website sourced parking sensors for £7.99! I was as surprised as anyone else and was expecting to receive an inferior product. Here’s the clever part: the sensors each plug into a control unit as well as a visual bar display that showed distances from the object and the current supplied to power the circuit came from the reversing light so a very simple process.

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Some welding of the split undertrays with a soldering iron salvaged plastics although the toxic fumes sent my head in a spin. All in all, the repair was easy but I should have taken a sample of the paint colour to show the shop as I was given a shade apart; the Jazz Sport has its own shade that is different to the standard Jazz.

The Jazz sold quickly and proved that the purchase and repair netted a good result because all of the work except a re-MOT had been done by yours truly.

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Words and photos are copyright of Sotiris Vassiliou

November 2017