Ok - So we got my daughter a Honda Fit for her third car as she's had a bad run, first Golf written off by a drunk driver while it was parked outside our house, 2nd was another Golf and this one had a Mechatronic failure in the Dual-Clutch gearbox which the repair was at least 90% of the purchase price of the car.

So here we are with a basic 1.3L Japanese 2nd hand import Fit and its already having some issue.

We've had the starter clutch in the CVT Gearbox issue which we've had the Transmission fluid changed and the additive that "fixes" it added and thats certainly made the symptom better but its still not perfect but it'll do. We were told this was expensive to fix in New Zealand even though online I read information saying it wasn't a major job??

Now her headlights and sidelights have been playing up - First I change the sidelight bulbs as one was dead and one was dying and they are going like a dream - This is where I discovered what a nightmare getting to the bulbs in this car is. Every car I've had before a bulb change is a 5 minute job at most. In this car its remove the bumper, undo the four bolts and take the headlight almost out to get at the back.

So now we have the headlight still playing up a little - I've certainly seen them flickering - She has also reported sometimes one will go off completely and if she turns them off and on it'll go again. I figured the bulbs must be failing so opened one up today to discover it had HID Bulbs and to me they look factory not a retro fit. Its possible its a very tidy retro but looks pretty original to me.
Does anyone know if some of the JDM Honda Fits 1st generation came with HID bulbs standard or as a factory option??

As they are HID bulbs do you think this fault is a battery issue perhaps?? I've done a very simple multimeter voltage check and its 12.3V when the car is off and 14.2V when running with the alternator going. I did notice that when I turned on the right indicator the right headlight seemed to flicker a little and again when the indicator was turned off - I vaguely remember seeing something about the headlight Stem/Switch being an issue.

In general we got this car as I'd heard good things about them and certainly from a cabin room, visibility and ease of drive its a nice little car especially for a relatively new driver but little things like the bad CVT (no longer fitted), poor thought to use bulb access and in general little issues its got like the Wing Mirror retractor broken, lights for gear selector not working (Talk of it not being a simple bulb) and other things that seem to be common it doesn't really look like in this segment at least Honda are putting very reliable cars together??

I can see from the existence of this forum that the car has a solid following and also hers is a 14 year old car now but I've owned quite a few vehicles of various makes and models over the years and they are rarely less than 10 years old when I get my hands on them and none have had the little niggles this is having which are all common niggles. Its got quite low milage, only 66,000KM when we got it (41,000 miles) but who knows - It could of had the clock wound back as that goes on a bit with Japanese second hand imports in NZ.