Common complaints from Honda Fit owners

I've been reading various blogs today, mostly from Honda Fit owners, but also a couple of reviews
from professional auto critics. Here's a list of the most common complaints about the Honda Fit

long wait time for individual orders, up to 2 months
dealers are jacking up the price after the car they ordered arrives at the dealer
suspect that dealers are letting people test drive the cars they ordered because mileage meter has
over 100 miles
floor carpet is paper thin, will wear and tear very quickly
needs a cargo mat
have to buy floor mats separately
black interior will look dirty very quickly
stock wheels are cheap and ugly
official gas mileage is over-rated by 10 mpg, real highway gas mileage is more like 27mpg
going up hills really sucks, no power
stereo quality in the Fit Sport is disappointing, suspect cheap speakers
could use a 6th gear for highway driving, 5th gear rpms are too high at 60mph and up
radio display is hard to see in the daytime
gas door does not lock
highway driving is wobbly
rear window wiper is useless
previous Honda owners complain about the lack of a dead pedal
speedometer gauge goes to 140, totally stupid, should have used the space for more realistic numbers
need better headlights

I think I'll wait for later models and let you guys go through the Fit's growing pains for me.
THANKS!

 

I just looked at one today. Is it a big deal to buy floor mats?

There was just a post on this newsgroup where the guy mentioned
cruising along at 75mph and getting 36mpg or so. I don't think that I
read that wrong.

It does seem a bit underpowered, but that is the cost of good gas
mileage, no?

6th gear? Is that five forward gears and it isn't enough? Vast
confusion here.

I wonder how it will drive with a 9 foot surfboard on top?

 

No.
There is a complikated way to have a cake and eat it too:
http://www.caranddriver.com/carnews/11213/mini-test-review-2006-volkswagen-golf-gt.html

Fit probably needs as many gears as a tractor trailer.

 

Ah, but I'm going to need a new car soon I fear.

 

Buy used. The money you save on buying used will buy a BUNCH of gas.
It'll more than make up for buying new, even if buying new gains you a
few mpg.

 

Not to mention that older cars often get better mileage than do their
modern counterparts.

I'm not cheap I tell ya! Ah's frugal!!

<G>

JT

 

Hi there,

I'm a UK based Jazz user. To be honest, I'm a fan of the car. It's never
given me a problem, it's got good economy and it does have a lot of nice
features. That said, Spaz's list is basically correct apart from;

- Don't know anything about that dealer carry on. Never had any problems
myself BUT I did a pre-purchase survey in the local DIY shop car park of
Honda users. There's just no way that the Honda dealers are as good as
Mercedes (only owned MB till the Jazz). I expect problems when there are
problems if you get my drift.

- I got my Jazz in 2 weeks with a very good trade in on my A160 which was a
total disaster of a car. You see the difference for me is that my Jazz has
never been to the garage; my A160 was always in it!

- Not had any problems with the floor covering. In fact this is the easiest
car to clean inside and out that I've ever owned. See note below however...
Don't bother with vac. cleaner, just use a stiff brush on the seats. Work
from the top down. Remove the carpets when you get to them, brush off on a
wall. No worries. Damp cloth over the plastic surfaces works fine.

- Don't buy the cargo mat. It's just not needed; it gets in the way when
you put the seats down.

- Personally, I like the wheels BUT I've found that you need to be careful
to clean them behind the spokes otherwise dirt quickly builds up there too.
It's easy to do with a soaked sponge, just remember to do it.

- I drive in a tough environment; school runs, traffic lights, level
crossings, never over 40mph. Mostly stop start. You get the picture. I
get 45mpg which I think is about 37 mpg US. Not sure about the US
conversion.

- I've not had a problem with power at low speeds; it wants to be away. Had
higher speeds (e.g. 70mph) it's got very little zip.

- Stereo fine for me apart from the fact that the rear view mirror wobbles
at high bass levels. It was suggested in one newsgroup that I could turn it
down .

- I drive an automatic and I don't get this gear change business at all.
As I understand it, the car has a continuously variable ratio box. The
manual changer (only used it once) is only there to give you something to
play with. Forget about it. Pull away as fast as you like and there are no
changes; it just gets faster and faster. Amazing. There is a problem with
the auto shifter thingy. It's got no gate between the various forward drive
options. Too easy to slip into one of them and find there's a problem next
time you set off needing power.

- There's no problem with seeing the stereo.

The petrol filler cap on my Jazz does lock.

- The rear window wiper is FAIRLY (not totally) useless

- There is a really small problem with dirt on the outside of the car. I've
got mud flaps BUT when you come to power-wash the car you need to take
special care to remove the very large amount of heavy-dirt / mud on that
bottom radius just below the doors. It's got that lumpy-bumpy under-car
coating and boy does the c**p stick!

- The magic luggage carriers are a total waste of time. So are the rubber
mats you can get for the knee-height self.

 

Now there is something else actually. It sounds like nothing but boy it's a
pain...

When driving in bright sunlight, there is a "U" shaped reflection off the
top of the dash on to the windscreen which just hits my eye-line. Sounds
like nothing, but when you see it, it's hard to ignore...

 

Oh, a CVT and a small engine is an excellent fit. No pun intended.
If CVT is an option then a standard transmission would be a backwards
option
to have I think. Considering that it's missing one gear.

 

Seems unlikely, since Accords with auto tranny gets 33 easy, Civics do
better, and Fit is smaller than either. 37 sounds conservative. Pump
up the tires a little.

J.

 

I'm not sure how comparable a Fit is to a Jazz. At least the locking
gas cap is different because I noticed right off that the Fit does not
have one. I'm not sure that's very important though.

I was a bit confused about your comment about higher speeds. There
isn't much power available at 70mph? Not too surprising I guess but
I'm not going to be driving over 75mph in the forseeable future. But I
will want 70.

 

I have had my Honda Fit Sport AT for 2 weeks.

It has plenty of zip. I can cruise at 70 no problem. Been trying to keep it
below 65 for 'break in'.

First tank(mostly city) was a little over 30mpg, but not sure it was topped
off. Still working on second tank.

My bicycle(with front wheel removed) barily fits in mid area when back sits
are folded up.

Have already replaced gas cap with locking gas cap but had to give up
lanyard.

AT transmission is a 5 speed, NOT a CVT. There would be no point to the
paddles if it was a CVT.

Never experienced the reflection problem.

My co-workers call it a clown car. I find it very fun to drive around town.
My other car for weekends and girfreind is a Lexus.

It would be really nice of the driver's seat had vertical and angle
adjustment, but is doesn't.

Why they didn't build XM into the radio like must other Honda models, I will
never know. Not even XM ready. I have my XM roady plugged into the aux
jack. Works fine but not as good as built in.

 

not true. Some CVT cars come with pre-selected ratios that can make
the car behave like a regularly geared car.

 

Or even more effectively, by hybridizing. Supercharging and high compression
ratio (actually the same thing in effect) demand very high octane fuel or
direct injection, as VW did. When the dust clears, it is just a slightly
more efficient way of using an engine poorly at in-town speeds. Hybrid
technology separates engine power from acceleration performance... not very
effectively at this stage of development, but more so as the power electric
technology improves. See the Honda Dualnote concept car for more on that;
Honda's engineers call their use of IMA "electric supercharging" and claim
the off-the-line performance of the Dualnote with a 300HP 3.5L iVTEC V6 is
doubled by the electric assist.

Mike

 

Hi,

I'm not sure how it works, but I think the "manual" function just allows you
to make one of a number of pre-set selections of gear ratio. FOR SURE, as
you take off, there's no gear change, the car just keeps getting faster.
The rate of "getting faster" is determined by how hard you've pressed the
accelerator.

 

amazing isn't it? rather than take the time to explain to the customer
how cvt is different and better, the detroit marketing droids [who only
drove the car around the block in this thing anyway] came back with this
stupid "make it shift notchy like a 'real' automatic" idea, and behold,
we have stupidity programmed into what is a otherwise a very fine
vehicle. seriously, anyone that's ever driven a cvt for any length of
time really doesn't miss the "shift" of a traditional automatic. and
anyone that's driven a cvt for any length of time appreciates just how
damned fast those things get away from the lights because they're always
geared /exactly/ right. every time marketing over-rides engineering on
something asinine like this, it makes my brain hurt.