[xsb7244]

I am considering a Honda Fit in the future.

[mfsoa]

I have an '09 and I love it. My son uses it mostly now but I still enjoy driving it when I can, tho its got no power. Its just so fun to drive. The new ones have more oomph and don't have the yawning gaps between the auto tranny ratios like mine does. Wish it had rear discs.

They hold an amazing amount of stuff due to the flexible seating. I picked up a vanity, sink and toilet etc from Home Depot and as the helper-kid and I are walking up to the car he was saying "No way, man no way" but it all fit no probs.

My dad just bought one for my half-sister (35 years my junior, hooray for virility!). He has top of the line Acura MDX, Hyundai Genesis and a Lexus LS460 at his disposal but drives the Fit everywhere now!

-Mike

[bacobits1]

We have a '13 a '11 before that and your right amazing what I stuffed in it.

[S Clark]

They are huge on the inside for a little car.  I gave my 2008 to my daughter a couple of years back.  Performs flawlessly.
It's a Honda.

[konut]

I bought a '09 and traded it in on a '13. The '15s were made in Mexico and there were a few problems The '16s are made both in Mexico and Japan. Everything you want to know can be found here.

http://www.fitfreak.net/forums/

[Wind Chaser]

Considered it but ended up with a Kia Soul.

[ctviggen]

Considered it but ended up with a Kia Soul.

What made you choose the Kia over the Honda?

[Wind Chaser]

Despite the higher center of gravity the Soul feels simply feels better - less like a sub compact.

[RDavidson]

Get it with a manual trans if you want to increase the fun factor. Not saying you need to rice racer the crap out of, but footing a clutch and rowing through gears increases the feeling of connectedness and control of the car. It also makes it harder to do distracting things like texting.

[Rick Craig]

Great on mileage and can store large amounts of speakers

2011 here.

[mresseguie]

Fits are tremendously popular in Taiwan. Young 20-somethings tweak the heck out of them and turn them into rice racers. Imagine getting passed on the freeway by a Fit zipping along at near-hundred-mile-per-hour speeds.

[FullRangeMan]

I am considering a Honda Fit in the future.

This video of my compatriot who lives in Japan mentions three serious issues of the Honda Fit:
- The red color fades with the sun and Fits this color are cheaper in Japan than other colors.
- At 3:05 he mention the 7gear automatic gear box trembles/shimmy when the car kicks off in first gear
- At 3:30 he shows the solder broke at the roof structure near the back cover of trunk door and rain water runs to the trunk or the spare tire box or pooled on the floor in front of the back seat.
The solution is to do a new solder, but in this car the owner just sealed the torn welding with silicone adhesive.
-This car has near 60.000Km run.
Hope this help
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUCkRZeHcb8

[JLM]

Unless you're in a big market shop the dealership/local mechanics first.  My Toyota dealership is big and wonderful while the Honda dealership is quite ordinary (I've bought two Hondas and five Toyotas from them between 1980 and 2012).  Both of these dealerships sell only their brand, which I've found to be a real plus especially compared to domestic/import dealerships where import customers are treated like second class citizens and have a single mechanic that works on their brand.

I drove my friend's 1st generation Fit with manual transmission years ago and thought it felt like a toy and was really slow (anything beyond driving like a grandmother was a struggle).  Note I've owned '78 Rabbit (4M), '83 Sentra (4M), and '80 Accord (3A).  And his fuel economy wasn't as good as my '09 Corolla (4A) and only matched my '12 Camry (6A).  Like they've stated on Top Gear, rather than push a small engine hard your better off with a bigger engine.  In my experience 1.5L engines struggle under automatic transmission and air conditioning.  IME 7M is two gears too many (just too much shifting).  Moving up to a 1.8L makes all the difference, but to each their own.

The size and interior space/features of the Fit speak for themselves and are unique.  I see the Fit best suited if you live in a urban setting and routinely haul.  If you do, bring whatever it is that you haul and make sure it does fit.  My wife takes rabbits to shows several times a year and amazingly our '09 Outback hauls 10 (each in their own cages) with all her other stuff and a friend, sometimes including overnight bags without using the roof rack (she can really pack).  So when it comes time to replace cars we'll bring cages with us to see how many fit into whatever car we look at can hold.

[ctviggen]

Despite the higher center of gravity the Soul feels simply feels better - less like a sub compact.

Assuming that VW buys back my diesel, which is possible, I was looking at cars, and one of them I was going to consider was the Soul.  I'll probably go for something sportier (like a BMW mini, extended version), but we'll see.

[JeffB]

I have a 2009 Honda Fit Sport with manual transmission.
In general I think it is a great car.
I will start with what I don't like though.
1) The car can get pulled around a little bit by grooves in the highway.
It is a bit of an odd feeling.  I have had very communicative cars where you feel this as a tug on the steering wheel.
However, with the fit, it is more like the whole car has a weird wiggle to it minus the feedback through the wheel.
The type of tires and the air pressure in the tires affects this feeling considerably.  The Fit has a very odd sized tire
at 185/55R16 and thus there are few tire brands to choose from.  The stock Dunlop SP Sport 7000 A/S were terrible for
accentuating this problem.  I am currently running Yokohama AVID Ascend (H Speed Rated), which are vastly better with respect to this problem.
Running with a couple extra pounds of tire pressure also seems to really help.
After 200,000 miles though, I have become so used to this that it no longer bothers me.
The FitFreak forums have suggested running a 205/50/16 is much better, but this tire just barely fits the wheels.  I think it is too wide really.
2) The car is too low to the ground.  If I have a passenger, I scrape the bottom of the front lip getting in and out of my own driveway every time.
The non-sport version is much better in this respect as the body paneling is different.
3) Fifth gear does not seem to be a tall enough ratio.  The engine buzzes too much if you are going over 65mph.  Of course, there is not a lot of torque available in 5th, so the ratio could not go too much taller.
4) The car gets about 33 mph on the highway.  I get disappointed when I see a Ford Focus can get 40mph.  I blame this on the wrong 5th gear ratio.
5) My car burns a about 1.5 quarts between oil changes (every 10,000 miles or so).  I think this is too much.  I hear some owners don't lose any oil.
I have not abused the car.  Note, the car's computer informs you based upon some algorithm when to change the oil.  I have sent my oil into Black Stone labs for analysis many times, and with Mobil 1 and 10,000 mile intervals, my reports have been outstanding.
6) The engine valves are noisy, but this is considered normal.  It worries me though when I think of trying to resell the car.  They are no nosier after 200,000 miles though than when brand new.

Ok, so now for the good.
1) After 200,000 miles the only mechanical issue has been the air conditioning blower motor and the blower motor fan resistor.
A third party blower motor is $40 and it is 3 screws to undo to replace it.  I had the resistor done under warranty, but I believe it is easy too.
2) For such a small car, it feels amazingly roomy inside.  I actually feel like I am in a large car as the roof, window and pillars are well away from my head.
3) The car has great handling.  It is weird trying to explain this in relation to my #1 complaint above, but it does handle great.
4) It is just plain fun to drive.  A combination of the light weight, handling, small turning radius, great visibility.
5) It has sufficient power.  It only has 117 HP, but given the light weight and the manual transmission, I have never felt wanting for power.
6) Smooth revving engine that you won't worry about taking to redline.  I had a Sentra SE-R that sounded like it would fall apart at 6,000 RPM.  So although the Sentra had 180HP, I never wanted to use it all.  It is a totally different feeling when you have a car that you can push.
7) Extremely versatile storage space.
7) Lots of cup holders, which work out really well for all sorts of storage.

And now what you all really want to know, what does the audio system sound like.
I love it.
I believe that Honda applied a frequency response corrective circuit in the amplifier.
The response seems so neutral and perfect.
The crossover between the tweeters and woofers is as seem-less as I have ever heard.
My old Sentra SE-R also had amazing neutrality and seem-less crossover.
The tweeters mounted on the dash due a great job dispersing the sound and there is no sense of timing problems with the woofers.
One can plug a USB stick full of mp3 files into the unit and can navigate through the songs.  I love this feature.

Audio negatives.
In an ideal system, it would go lower in the bass.  There is no sub-woofer, and four 6" speakers don't quite do it, but almost.
There is what I can only describe as amplifier/preamplifier hash noise.  This is a very low level of noise/distortion.
I think it is a very cheap head-unit with way better than could be expected speaker drivers.  People on FitFreak complain the drivers are cheap too, but I think they did a fantastic engineering job for the price.
Note that on the redesigned fit, the volume is controlled either on the steering wheel or via the touch screen.  I think this was a terrible design mistake.
Given the huge variance in volume in some recordings, if you like music loud, one needs to be able to instantly turn down the volume.

[xsb7244]

I like this review.  Also, a lot of good information on small cars.

http://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-subcompact-hatchback/

[finsup]

I may replace my 2001 Protege ES - it's been an outstanding car, btw. I too am considering the Honda Fit and Kia Soul.

About the Fit, I've read several places that the seats are quite uncomfortable on long hauls. They're quite satisfactory if one is tooling around town, but after an hour in them, not so much?