Just got back from a trip to the mountains in the wife's new fit, and I thought I'd post my thoughts on it and get your thoughts (wow that sentence had a 'thought' overload). It's on my site at http://www.baneverything.org/?p=29 but I won't force anybody to go there, so I'll repost it here. Keep in mind I'm probably judging the car unfairly because I'm used to driving these roads in my WRX with sticky tires.
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So we finally took the trip to the mountains that I’ve been wanting to do for a while today. It was a gorgeous day… so warm outside, especially for the mountains. I decided to take my wife’s new Fit to just give it a try and to save a bit on gas. (okay, so I drove it because I wanted to see how it did on curvy roads).
Power: This little baby isn’t going to win any drag races in stock form. It’s a peppy little car for stop & go driving, but when you get on the highway and try to put down the ponies to pass somebody…. forget it. We knew that from the start though. It’s rated at a rather wimpy 109hp, and that’s with the false power that VTEC is known to provide. Regardless, it’s more than enough for getting around, and the torque curve on it feels surprisingly flat. Well tuned for a small car.
Handling: The steering is very pointy… very precise. Every little bump of the wheel makes it want to dart in that direction. On the curvy mountain roads, it was a bit unpredictable though. Like most cars in their stock form, it wants to understeer. You go into the corner and it dives in with ferocity with its sharp steering response, then when the suspension starts to load up, the car just gives up. “Naa, I don’t like this…. I want to go back to my understeering FWD heritage” it says. Driving through hairpins and cutbacks was less fun than I had expected out of such a small, light, and nimble car. Driving through long sweeping turns was a lot better, and it held its line well.
Livability: Gotta admit, it was starting to get uncomfortable after a while. I’m used to sitting in my car rather close to the wheel, seat straight up, and everything just feels like its at the perfect length. I couldn’t get adjusted in the Fit. Even with the seat straight up, getting my legs at a comfortable range made me feel like I was having to reach with my arms and stretch to get the wheel. Perhaps it’s more adjustable, perhaps I just don’ t know how to do it, perhaps it just doesn’t Fit me. (ha ha, pun… god that was lame ) On the bright side, PLENTY of little nooks and crannies for everything. Two drinks, two cell phones, my wallet… all hidden away in handy little space. It’s like the area at the fuse box is designed to put your wallet in to prevent a serious case of wallet-ass. NICE! Road noise was tolerable, and the engine was barely audible if you’re not on the gas revving it past 3500rpms or so.
And now, the other things. I don’t really know how to categorize these, so… here goes.
A) big trucks….. don’t be behind them or beside them. Wind buffetting on a small lightweight car with the aerodynamics of a brick = sucks
B) dirt roads…. in a word…. don’t
C) evasive maneuvers…. not so much. I had to jab the brakes because some jerk (note: not the language I used as the event was happening) changed lanes without looking, cutting me off, and even with ABS and the wheel perfectly straight, the car’s back end started its “I want to be the front end” dance as it slid to the left before I let off the brakes and it snapped back in line. Kinda scary.
D) paddle shifters are neat, but they don’t do much. Even in “S” the car just does its own thing without regard for what gear you want it to be in. *shrug*
E) no way to ffwd/rwd a track from 10:00 to 5:00 or such on an MP3 CD. It only skips song by song. Also, upon turning off the radio/car, the track seems to be set back 5, 10… up to 18 minutes, we saw. Given the fact that you can’t fast forward inside a track…. yeah. It gets repetitive.
All in all, I do have to say that bang for the buck, the Fit rocks. It’s hard to find a car with as much room and with the type of pedigree Honda brings for the $15-16k pricetag. It’s a fun little car, so long as you can remember that it’s not a performance car, but a people/cargo mover with pep. Maybe some suspension work or a turbo can bring it to that level, but ours will never see that
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) On the bright side, PLENTY of little nooks and crannies for everything. Two drinks, two cell phones, my wallet… all hidden away in handy little space. It’s like the area at the fuse box is designed to put your wallet in to prevent a serious case of wallet-ass. NICE! Road noise was tolerable, and the engine was barely audible if you’re not on the gas revving it past 3500rpms or so.
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