General Fit TalkGeneral Discussion on the Honda Fit/Jazz.
Welcome to Fit Freak!
Welcome to Fit Freak,
You are currently viewing our forum as a guest, which gives you limited access to view most discussions and access our other features. By joining our community, at no cost, you will have access to post topics, communicate privately with other members (PM), respond to polls, upload content and access many other special features. Registration is free, fast and simple, so please join our community today!
Load Limits
The maximum load for your vehicle is 850 lbs (385 kg) for US models and 395 kg for Canadian models. This figure includes the total weight of all occupants, cargo, and accesories.
WARNING
Overloading or improper
loading can affect handling and
stability and cause a crash in
which you can be hurt or killed.
Follow all load limits and other
loading guidelines in this
manual.
How strictly does this weight limit need to be obseved? Has anyone operated their Fit with more than 850 lbs, and if so, how did it affect ride & handling?
With its roomy interior the Fit will easily accommodate four men my size (6 feet tall, 225 lbs full clothed). 4x225 = 900 lbs. Add a little cargo, and 1000 lbs is easily reached. Can 1000 lbs be safely transported in the Fit?
Sponsored Links
Registered users do not see this ad. Click here to register for free!
It's not something I'd make a habit of. It is a small car and I'm sure with that much weight the suspension will be taking their toll. It could affect braking and handling.
Sure, Honda knows there car science. It would be foolish in this day and age to not recognize that. You must be asking what if? Do you realy plan to transport over the recomended load regular.
All that extra weight is stored energy and when it get moving behaves in ways most all of us do not understand or have experience with. At a certain speed it stops adding rather it becomes exponential in values. The engineers have equations they just plug in to get the answers to these kind of problems. It is not like you are talking about building a bridge across the Atlantic Ocean. It they could come close to that the engineers would for sure miss something they could not duplicate in a test. The Tacoma narrows (galloping gurdy)bridge is an example of that. I like science.
I transported around 1600 pounds of ceramic the other month in the Fit. Thankfully Home Depot is an extremely short drive away from my house (under 1 km).
I went quite slow and took generous wide turns. Definitely not something I would do often or for a distance of any longer.
The ride and handling was of course crap at that weight
Actually the stored energy is 1/2 of the mass you are carrying, it is the speed which is exponential...1/2mass*velocity*velocity
__________________
Milano Red Sport Fit w/ MT
since 06/22/06
I took about a 3 hour highway drive with 4 people + a load of christmas presents in Dec on flat terrain on a good road. I'm sure the total weight was over 850, but probably less than 1000. The car was fine, but obviously a bit pokier than normal. I think it can safely handle over 850 lbs in moderate driving conditions.
I'm guessing its set at 850 because that's the most it can handle in a worst case condition, e.g. driving uphill in a Colorado mountain pass in a snowstorm on a road with lots of potholes......
Mentioned elsewhere, but 850 is right about what the rated weight of most of its competitors are. I wonder what some older compacts were rated at, say an early 90's Civc HB???
That's just the difference between US kilograms and Imperial kilograms.
(On the internet I don't even need to keep a straight face.)
I assume this is a joke, right?? The US has a lot of crazy units, but it isn't really dumb enough to redefine what a kilogram is, is it???
Deep breath - yes, it must be a joke.......
Back to topic - it's interesting that the weight limit for all Fits is the same even though the weights of the car differs by model/transmission, with base MT being the lightest, and Sport AT being the heaviest.
The weight difference a Base MT and a Sport AT according to the Honda site is 119 lbs, which is 14% of the total rated carrying capacity!
Since everything else is equal in the US/Canada(engine, suspension, etc), you'd think that in theory lighter models car could carry more than a heavier one (e.g. an MT fit could carry 80 lbs more than an AT....).
Assuming that the Fit is rated for 'worst case/heaviest car' situations, the 850 lbs applies to the AT sport, since it's the heaviest model. A Base MT should be able to carry 969 (850 + the 119 lbs difference between the MT base and AT sport), and so on. Loaded this way, the 2 cars would weigh exactly the same.
I suppose the tires *might* make a difference, but if we use a sport MT as our alternative, we'd still be able to add 80 lbs (diff between sport MT and sport AT)
Any auto engineers out there that can speak to safety margin and tolerance? The original post asked about "how strictly does this need to be observed"? In the various lines of engineering that I have done, safety margins of 150% and 200% are pretty common... does the same hold true for auto design margin? The general questions are typically "what % over-tolerance, for how long, under what conditions, and how often?"
I haul items around and that is one reason I bought the Fit in fact I call it my utility car... One problem with hauling heavy stuff around is securing it. What do you think?
That's just the difference between US kilograms and Imperial kilograms.
(On the internet I don't even need to keep a straight face.)
I figured it was Honda's way of tipping the odds against the Canadians... "Those extra 10 kilograms will upset their balance, surely leading to loss of control and horrific crashes! Muahahaha!" Then they went back to twisting the ends of their large mustaches and tying helpless women to railroad tracks.
Any manufacturer's recommended load is going to be extremely conservative, especially in a passenger car like the fit. It's a liability issue. I'd bet you could drive around with 1200+ in it all day long and it would still live a nice long life.
I agree Cazzzidy... I suspect that there is A LOT of safety margin in the engine/drivetrain/suspension/brake components. The biggest issue from a liability point of view is probably stopping distance and sharp cornering control on the part of the DRIVER and not the vehicle itself. After the driver, I suspect that the next most likely failure mechanism would be brake fade (since that can be significantly affected by driver performance).
Agreed that it's probably a very conservative estimate. One note related to my earlier post re: the same weight allowed on differerent Fits with different weights:
On motorcycles, the capacity is often given as a gross vehicle weight, i.e. the weight of the vehicle itself, plus whatever is in/on it. Maybe thats because each bit of bling on a pretty light bike is adds a greater percentage of weight to the total, but it makes the user do some math.
You might have several different trim models of the same basic bike, from bare bones to fully loaded, with the Gross Vehicle weight being the same on all models. You then have to figure out what you can carry by subracting the weight of your particular bike from the Gross Vehicle weight.
The fact that they didn't do this for the Fit makes me think that they are building in a big fudge factor into what the car can actually carry....
This does seem like a very conservative statement.
Just an observation, but, on the Honda website, in the internal gallery of pictures for the Fit, it shows a fully loaded vehicle in one picture. Five adults that visually appear as though they could come close to 850lbs on their own, plus a cooler in the back. One would assume that this is not an empty cooler.
I transported around 1600 pounds of ceramic the other month in the Fit. Thankfully Home Depot is an extremely short drive away from my house (under 1 km).
I'm sure some of you have seen this, but still good for a laugh.
Go Here -> World Champion <- for the story.
This does seem like a very conservative statement.
Just an observation, but, on the Honda website, in the internal gallery of pictures for the Fit, it shows a fully loaded vehicle in one picture. Five adults that visually appear as though they could come close to 850lbs on their own, plus a cooler in the back. One would assume that this is not an empty cooler.
The cooler is empty but the weight of its contents is still inside the fit -- all the beer is inside the 5 occupants.
The engineers have equations they just plug in to get the answers to these kind of problems.
It is not like you are talking about building a bridge across the Atlantic Ocean. 
Well OK !
Linear Mode
