Honda Fit

carfanatic007

Going to the Dealer at 1300 tomorrow to get a quote on my trade in. If the price is right, I should have a new fit. (Black sport, MT) If not, guess I will wait. I really like the FIT, but will not, under any circumstances take a beating on my trade in.

lecrack

Ha...I'm looking for the same thing (Black sport, MT). I hope you're not in the midwest - or we're going to be competing for the 1 or 2 that are still available.

Sylvia

MPG is being reported here: Honda Fit MPG - Real World Numbers
http://townhall-talk.edmunds.com/WebX/.f0c139c

reddroverr

I give up. What happens?

carfanatic007

LOL! I just got back from the dealer, they offered me $14,500 for my 2003 Altima SE (over both blue book and Edmunds) so I placed my order. He will call when he locates my car, then its go sign the paperwork, and get the car! He said it should be no problem locating a Black Fit Sport with MT as most people are ordering the automatic. By the way, he had 5 fits on lot on Monday, today only one left (an Orange one).

sd_driver

I want an unbiased report. So I'm not going to say.

But it's nothing horrendus.

jonniedee

Well the experiment -
If Fit is like any other Honda Car (or my CRV) I've been in recently, should result in an intense "interior buffeting" sensation...not comfortable but easily adjusted by opening ANY other additional window just a crack...
Real funny sd...

bodble2

"...easily adjusted by opening ANY other additional window just a crack..."

Or just keep all the windows closed! :P Who would open a window on the highway anyway?!

chrisducati

I have been in several new cars that buffet. The seat belts flap and such. At least it isnt like the Dodge Neon where the window will not seal back in its track when it is raise back up. I have had two as rentals and both were like that.It seems that some parts of the country are getting more fits than others. both Honda dealers near me have none in stock but are very nice when I ask about them. I have been cross shopping with the Yaris hatch. The problem being with it that I will have to sink a few thousand extra in it to make it Fit( sorry for the pun) to drive. TRD springs, wheels ect...

backy

On a beutiful sunny spring day like we had today, who wouldn't open a window on the highway?

Or I suppose you could open the sunroof. Oh... never mind!

mtngal

LOL! I forgot to answer the experiment question, even though I haven't picked up my Fit yet (appointment for 3:30 tomorrow). Some vehicles, especially SUVs, create some type of harmonic air flow that is really noisy - is that what you are calling "buffeting?" I remember once being with my husband on a test drive. I didn't particularly like the vehicle much and certainly had no intention of buying from that particular salesman (he made the mistake of calling me "the little lady" and directing his comments to my hubby who doesn't know much about cars). I knew about the window trick and since I was sitting in the back, I opened the window. Gave me a great excuse to tell him how horrible his car was, and he didn't have an answer (I don't think he even realized he had been sandbagged).

Its going to be SO hard to work through most of the day tomorrow.

hondadocker

Fit reminds me of CRX in the 80's and every honda lover loved it. but next model small and fun car del sol was a total flop.

Do you guys think fit will go down that road after current model? I am in Singapore where gas price is twice as much as in the states and stripped down fit costs over US$40K. So any small honda is sacred for us honda lovers. Americans are really lucky! You can pick and choose any honda. We envy you.

raychuang00

With the price of gasoline getting ridiculous, I doubt the Fit will remain a fad. Mostly because given the Fit's highly flexible interior arrangements, I expect the car to become very popular for carrying cargo without the size and expense of operating a real SUV.

When Honda redesigns the Fit within the next two years, I expect the vehicle to have about the same size as the current car, but with a lot more safety features built-in such as side airbags, anti-lock braking and a body structure designed to get EuroNCAP five-star crash safety rating and IIHS Gold crash safety rating.

carfanatic007

The Fit already has side airbags, anti-lock braking as standard equipment! Also side curtain airbags.

mtngal

I think the Fit will continue to be popular, even if/when gas prices drop because it's a well-designed, appealing car. I don't think the Yaris hatch will have as much appeal - just my opinion, but I didn't think it was as well designed, and looked so much smaller. If the Fit performs like it should (no unexpected maintenance nightmares) and the re-design isn't radical, then I think it will do very well long term. Will it be popular for as long as the Civic, Corolla, or Jeep Wrangler - who knows? I'm only looking at whether I'll enjoy this car for 5 or 6 years and 200,000 - 300,000 miles.

sueter

There is a short antenna sticking up in the middle of the roof. Luckily for my boat carrying abilities, it screws off easily. What is it used for? It doesn't seem to affect the radio reception when I remove it.

inharmsway

Local strong stations are probably still ok without the antenna, but others might not be.

sd_driver

Listen. The "buffeting" suprised me. Was not expecting it. I wasn't trying to joke here. I posted this because I wanted to see if a) I wasn't imagining it; and b) if there were similar situations with other models.

Thanks for the feedback. The buffeting's not that big of a deal. I talked with another Honda owner about it last night. He said that any similarly shaped four-door hatch would have something siimilar going on.

BTW: That same Honda owner was dying to drive my Fit, so we swapped cars. I drove his Element. I'd never driven one. The engine is very strong, torquey. But it drives...like a truck compared to the Fit. I'm afraid the Fit is going to spoil me. Drove a different friend's 2001 Sentra yesterday. Oy. It felt like a low, cramped tub compared to the Fit.

backy

I've seen some sort of buffeting in every car I've ever driven under those conditions. What I do is play with the window heights until there is minimal buffeting. One thing that works well for me is to open the front passenger window and the rear driver's side window, when I am alone in the car. That gives great ventillation without buffeting and without a direct blast of air on me.

Might be nice if the rearmost windows popped open for extra ventillation though. Fewer and fewer wagons have that feature nowadays. It used to be common.

mwqa

This is where latched rear windows come in handy. I get such a nice air flow through with open latched windows on my 1992 323. It's one of the things dropped on 'modern' cars (in favour of A/C, no doubt).

Get a Canadian Fit DX, add latched windows and forget about A/C. Now that's a entry level car!

cecirdr

I just saw an user review on another forum where they drove the AT and the MT and compared them. They said at 70mph the AT engine rpms were about 2600 while the MT was running 3500. Is that accurate? I'll be doing a good bit of highway driving and want to get a car that'll be lower revving to minimize noise. I was leaning toward the manual transmission until I saw that post.

What are folks here experiencing as they drive on the hwy...MT versus AT?

sueter

I'm under 5ft tall and I have no problem driving the Fit. I have a Basic MT. I thought the height adjustment would be an issue, but I'm up plenty high.

No problem reaching pedals and still being far enough away from those scary airbags.

My only complaint is that the headrest cantilevers forward at a bad height. A common problem for short people.

sueter

My former car was a Subaru Outback Sport (the one based on the Impreza). The Fit is much quieter than that car.

fitfullee

I had been waiting for the introduction of the Fit after seeing it in magazines and on the internet. So...last Saturday, I visited a Honda dealership expecting to see one in person. word was that they had 3 and all were sold that day. Same story at the next dealership in Auburn, CA, but one of the sales people took my name and promised to call if one should come in unexpectedly. Not expecting to hear from him soon, as he told me the next 2 incoming shipments were sold already, he called the following Tuesday, 4/25. One was in, the people who were on the list for it had bought one elsewhere, and it was available.
It is a Sport, manual transmission in Storm Silver, which, I'm happy to say, is sitting in my driveway now. I've been told that there is a considerable wait to get one unless you get lucky. It's the first car in a while that I paid MSRP for but I did. $15720 plus California tax and license fees. I washed up our 2005 Accord V6, covered it and put it in the garage. I'm sure it won't see too much action soon.

mtngal

You got the Fit I wanted! I'm getting the same car but with an auto - I didn't want to wait for a dealer to call me and I didn't want to call all over SoCal looking for one, so I let the Autoland person in my credit union do all the work. The only Sport he could locate was an auto, so that's what I'm getting in about an hour.

As far as size goes, I'm 5 foot and didn't feel my lack of height was going to be a big deal. If I want to be a bit higher, I can always get a pillow (what I do in our current daily driver). Ask me again in a week what I think.

rangerdopp

My wife is 6'2" and she is very particular with any vehicle that feels cramped for her. I have a 2001 Honda Civic and she feels it is cramped in the passenger side. The driver side is even harder for her since the wheel sits in her lap and her knees wrapped around the wheel. Has anyone who is 6'2" or know of someone who is 6'2" driven and/or ridden in the Fit? If so, would you mind posting your experiences?

Thanks.

gearhead1

I'm 6 foot and my girl is 5"3 and we think the fixed hieght of the Fit seat is perfect. I wouldn't change it if I could. I'm not sure why people are even concerned about it.

719b

you assume that if one 6'2" person is comfortable driving a fit, all 6'2" people will be comfortable driving the fit.
a lot has to do with where you carry your height. you can be 6'2" and have a 32" inseam or a 36" inseam.
keep in mind that one size DOESN'T fit all.
only one way to know if you and a car are made for each other... test drive it.

backy

That is wonderful that the Fit's driver's seat works well for you. Keep in mind there are a lot of different body shapes and sizes out there. That's why (most) cars now have height adjustments (some even dual height adjusters), and many even have telescopic steering wheels. Either one of those would make the Fit comfortable for me I think. The puzzling part of this is why the Fits in other countries have a height adjuster. I have a theory why some features like that, and others like a locking gas cap, decent-looking wheel covers (on base), and side moldings are absent from the U.S. Fit. What if the all-new Fit won't be here for 2008? Honda has to have something to add to the Fit for 2008 to make it seem "new and improved." So why not cut some basic features, then add them the following year? Just a theory, but I saw this behavior on the last-gen Civic so who knows...

bodble2

Your theory has some merits. I also think Honda rushed the Fit onto the NA market, probably to meet market trend, competition, etc. I don't don't think they initially intended the Fit for the NA market. But things changed and they decided they better get in fast. So they quickly adapted the Fit for the NA market for a mid life-cycle intro, and a few items had to be left for later upgrades. For example, I think they moved the gas cap and filler in order to accommodate side-impact beams, and for whatever reason, could not install a locking mechanism from existing parts. Same goes for seat height adjuster. They probably didn't have the parts for a left-hand drive adaptation. And I think there are other examples. Vtec instead of i-Vtec, etc. The Fit to die for will likely be the next generation, when Honda has had a chance to go in with a running start. If you look at Honda's history, there have been other examples where they don't hit a home run until a second or third generation -- the Prelude, and the Odyssey come to mind. And even the Civic didn't really become a benchmark until the 1988 - 1991 generation.

hungarian83

A lot of countries have the Fit/Jazz where they also drive on the right side of the road. The driver's seat height adjuster is available on those cars, so there is no reason why it couldn't for the US/Canadian market.

The fuel filler door is still a mystery to me though. All of the other Fit/Jazzes around the world have side-impact door beams on the side. The area just below the NA-market fuel filler door (where the door is on the Japanese or European version) is just empty space.

The reason for VTEC over i-VTEC is that Honda wasn't about to design a new engine for the car this late in its generation cycle. The L-series was introduced in 2001 for the new global small car platform vehicles like the Fit/Jazz, Fit Aria/City, Airwave, etc and its a good fit for the platform. You can be sure that future generations will incorporate i-VTEC, but the 1st generation NA-market Fit still uses the first generation L-series engines.

bodble2

Your comments are well-taken, and no doubt you are correct. But I still stand by my opinion that the Fit was somewhat rushed to market, due to circumstances initially unforeseen by Honda. Therefore, they didn't cross all the i's and dot all the t's. Still a very competitive entry in the segment, but they missed a few shots.

moparbad

Fit Long Term Update

Moving in, I find the cabin suffers from cheap-seat syndrome, which
Driving position isn't to Jon's liking, but then again, very few vehicles are. (Photo: Justin Couture, Canadian Auto Press)
forces an entirely too upright seating position because of fixed lumbar support and limited adjustability (seatbacks tilt, and base slide fore and aft), a symptom of most price-point designed cars.

Cheap Seat Syndrome? Not good. I owned a Tacoma that was great in all areas except the seats as it suffered from cheap seat syndrome.

I've only test driven the Fit and did not notice cheap seat syndrome.
Question to Fit owners, what is your opinion of the seats?

moparbad

Business Week Fit Article

Are you a metro-funky?

moparbad

Detroit Free Press Fit Review

Very favorable.

mtngal

I haven't even ridden in ours long enough to form a good opinion (my hubby drove it home - I only got to admire the back for 70 miles). He's 6 foot and could lose a few, and he said that his first impression was that the seats were a bit hard. My first impression (I'm small) and based on only a few minutes riding in it is that while they are harder than the Wranglers we own, they aren't bad. The backs have support where I need it (I have a bad back) and much better than the Tacoma was. However, it took me over a week to realize just how uncomfortable that 2000 Tacoma really was, so I'll have more to say on this tomorrow and in about a week.

Edited to add: I just drove it around my small neighborhood, then down the main road a bit, not much longer than a test drive, but a bit more varied with terrain. It is much quieter than a soft top Unlimited (that doesn't take much). It has very little body lean, better than the Wrangler (which isn't bad) and much better than what I remember of the 2WD Tacoma (sold about 2 years ago). It felt much quicker off the dime than the auto Unlimited, and probably better than the 5 speed Wrangler Sport. The turning radius is better than the Unlimited, but might not be as good as the SWB Wrangler Sport (there aren't many vehicles that can beat it). It just seemed so effortless compared to anything I've owned recently.

The one thing I wasn't crazy about is the headlights. That might be because I was driving at dusk, well past sunset but not completely dark and I thought the low beams dropped off a little sooner than I would like. However, the high beams are excellent, and the fog lights will be useful to find the edge of the road in poor visibility.

Tomorrow I'll spend my time on the way into work reading the owners manual. I wonder if there's a problem using chains on it (some cars, including the large tired Wranglers, don't have clearance)? Guess I'll find out tomorrow.

mwqa

It may just be a question of economics. Especially in a new, unproven market, Honda has to be careful. Honda has to make its cost back on the model, and quickly, as it may be out for only a year or two (replaced by the next generation). So include the minimum. However, that minimum is quite a lot (ABS, airbags, cruise, paddle shifters, etc.).

Once the car has proven it’s profitability, then I think we’ll see a more refined package, if this generation lasts that long. Remember also that this car wasn’t originally designed for this market, so it’s natural that they would have some ‘loose ends’. I’m glad it’s here.

(I’m beginning to sound like hungarian83)

mwqa

Anyone know what the 'standard' revs are?

My 1992 Mazda 323 is about the same at ~3500 at 70mph.

gearhead1

The Fit revs at about 28-2900rpms at 80mph with the AT Sport.

bodble2

"forces an entirely too upright seating position because of fixed lumbar support and limited adjustability"

That's my observation. If you're not a tall person (and you have to be tall in the torso), then you cannot tilt the seatback too much because you cannot crank the seat up to compensate. Is it tolerable? Yes. I've owned lots of car in the past with similar basic seat adjustments. But then I've also owned cars with crank windows, 8-track decks, bias-ply tires.....

hungarian83

I agree and Honda essentially did rush it to the US and Canadian markets. First they believed no one wanted a car like this in North America, and then when Scion took off it made them change their mind. Considering Honda is so good at being the first in all sorts of engineering feats, it would be nice if they tried a little harder in marketing.
Simple things that are available on Fits and Jazzes around the world could have been easily been incorporated in the car...and not to be picky, but the accessories list that they seemed so proud of at the NAIAS turned out not to be that spectacular.
I'm very happy with my car though. I do wish I didn't have to import accessories though. :P

freedive

my standard transmission is what looks like 72mph @ 3500rpm.

mwqa

Is that good??

Just saw a Silver Storm, parked near where I work ... with a baby seat in the back. Honda is doing something right!

shneor

My BM does 3900 rpm@80 and 3500 somewhere between 70-75.

micweb

Looks like Backy, an ardent supporter of Kias and Hyundai's, is partially vindicated on the seat thing - the article you cited goes on to say

Kia, somehow, manages some terrific seats in the Rio5 with the sport package,

micweb

The Detroit Free Press reviewer was actually the Senior Editor from Car and Driver, so that review recycles a lot of stuff from the Car and Driver test. I was hoping for something fresh - some additional validation of the great handling and some comment on noise levels.

hondafamily

I picked up the Fit I ordered back in early April today. Vivid Pearl Blue Sport 5AT. Got it for MSRP. The salesperson told me the dealership had decided to accessorize all future Fits, $1500 of accessories minimum. She said I was lucky to have ordered mine so soon. We love it.

cecirdr

Thanks everyone. By the replies to my question, it appears that the automatic does have lower rpms at highway speeds than the manual. I don't know why it would be that. The manual has better gas mileage so I thought it would be reversed and the standard transmission would be lower revving. Oh well. I had wanted the manual, but I'll be driving a lot of freeway miles, so I may opt to get the automatic instead so it'll be quieter.

hungarian83

I have driven my 5MT Fit to work twice now (25 miles each way) between 70-75 mph. The engine is fairly quiet and the noise is completely bearable. It does not have any loud sounds. If the only thing holding you back from the manual is the fear of a loud, droning engine at highway speeds, don't worry.
I would take the car for a test drive on the freeway before you decide. I find the shifter and clutch to be light and fun to drive.

hondafamily

That's the same thing that happened to me. I ordered a blue sport 5at back in early april. I picked it up today and they told me all fits are now being accessorized prior to sale. How is your break-in period going? I am unsure if I can take a road trip while it is under 600 miles.