Hey all,

I've been a lurker on this forum for a long time, since almost the release of the 07 fit. I test drove an 07 the first day it arrived in Baton Rouge before, and have been a fan since, and with a good deal of certainty knew I'd likely get one, one day. I knew too that the 07 was an old model in the world as far as Hondas are concerned and knew there would be a new model soon enough.... enter the 09 wait.

I drive an 03 Evo 8. Bought it brand new a 5 years ago about a month after they arrived here. I autocross a lot, and do track days here and there. The Evo is my "race car" and with that, comes a certain level of reliability, or lack there of . And while its done great serving double duty, with suspension, cams, motor mounts, loud exhaust, its not the most livable daily driver by most peoples standards. It requires premium, it gets at best 21 highway... thats with hypermiling (yes, I have tried to hypermile the Evo lol). At track days, I've gotten 5 mpg.. haha .

I want a reliable daily driver... affordable, great on gas... and since the 07 fit, there is, imo, no other car in this class that can even remotly compete with the quality, completeness and creativity (interior space/magic seats). The interior quality and ammenties are in alot of ways *better* than my Evo which retailed for twice as much... so you could say in alot of ways, I'm "upgrading" .

So now you know a little about where I'm coming from... I set out to test drive both an SSM MT sport at one dealer here in BR and a black AT sport at the other dealer. As follows, heres my impressions:

Looks... Imo, the car looks great. I like hatches, always have. I will agree with most, the overhang in the front is a bit much, however.. in person you can see that it does not come across the same as it does in pictures. The roundness of the front fascia is very pronounced and only the center 2 or so feet stick out the full distance. The car is sporty looking, lines, panels, wheels.. even the intergrated aero bits look good. I like it better than the outgoing model by a good bit /ducks. While 15 inch wheels are probably better for autocross, I prefer the sport due to the other little enhancements. Did I say autocross? Yeah this will be my daily, but I have to atleast take it a few times and see how it does with a nice HS pax .

Interior... is nice, and quite impressive for a car in this class. A little detail thats been left out of all the reviews I've read is that the actual seating/door material has a blue threaded pattern in it. It doesnt stand out, but it ties together the guages, and I think will look pretty color coordinated with the blue painted fits. Seating position is important to me, and the fit does well in this regard. Massive leg room in the front, but with the front seats at full back position, rear leg room suffers, but still adequate. While I would like the seats to be more supportive (I'm spoiled, the Evo has the best seats I've ever seen personally in a production car) they do well enough.

Shifter is maybe a touch to low imo, but the feel is light and throws are fairly short. The si steering wheel feels great, and the addition of telescoping, I think it will make the car comfortable for almost any body type (I'm 5-11). The roof liner is of nice quality, and the hard plastics in the car are also nice. I personally do like the radio/HVAC setup (non-navi), even if its a bit unorthodox... you can not argue that its not easy to see and adjust while driving. Another detail I didn't like, is I found the redline hard to see on the tach, its just not pronounced enough... this is only a minor quibble. Visibility out of the car is excellent in all respects, to me it feels like almost being in a fishbowl.

Rear magic seat operation I think is way above the outgoing model. I remember when I looked at the 07 it took a bit to get all the different modes setup. Removing head rests, moving and adjusting the front seats, and etc. And while refresh mode is gone, the other modes are literally 1 second away each. I can not stress this enough how easy it is to change from full utility with diving the rear seats down, to putting it in tall mode. Its easy, intuitive, and extremely fast. Even with the front seats all the way back, you can fold the rear seats down. A+++ for me.

There is a spare and scissor jack.. for those that are still wondering. As far as the engine bay goes, the motor is bit recessed under the front winshield, giving the hint that this thing might be a pain to work on. But as far as general maintenance things are concerened, it looks they are all within very very easy reach. Even replacing an alternator in it should be a breeze. Air filter, oil, etc. will all be easy if your the type like me that opts to maintain their car themselves. The only one I quite couldn't figure out is where the spark plugs are at (I need to look at the owners manual online...) but it looks like they are right under the intake manifold on top of the valve cover, or atleast I sure hope so, If they are behind the motor thats going to be very tricky. Hope they are using iridium in there .

Performance.. ah my favorite. While the fit won't blow your socks off, it does well. 117 hp is surprisingly perky. 1st and 2nd both seem to do well acceleration wise in both the AT and MT. 3rd and 4th are a bit longer, and while it accelerates at a fair rate, you can tell the motor gets a bit louder as it gets in the 5k range and beyond. I got the MT up to 80 on the interstate, and I feel that while it could maintain this, its not where its happy. Initial impressions for the MT say a good 65/70 would be probably pretty good cruising speeds. My AT test drive I didn't get to go on the interstate. Clutch is very light, engages somewhat high, super smooth. MT gear box seems like butter to me, almost too light for my tastes (remember I drive a mitsubish Evo tractor in this regard ). The MT is extremely easy to drive.

The AT I think only has mildly less acceleration, I thought it would be noticably slower, but its not really. But what blew me away, is how well the paddle shifters work in sport mode. I'm not a fan of sportronic/tiptronic/paddle shifted ATs usually... I find the changing of gears lags annoyingly... but the fit shifts are pretty fast, both up and down. And in sport mode, it will hold the gear, all the way to the redline and above. The only part I found that it would auto shift for you is slowing down to a stop, it would go back down to first for you, which I think is a good thing. Unfortunatly, my AT test drive was short, and I didn't get to test more of its functionality, but given what I saw, I was pretty impressed.

Brakes as many have noted in other reviews, are a bit... mushy. They will grab hard, but you have to go fairly far down with the peddle travel. The top half of the peddle has barely any braking force. ABS works good and the car will engage it fairly quickly when you do make the brakes work. Along the same lines... I wish VSA was an option by itself, but I can't bring myself to pay the blood money for a navi unit I don't want.

Handling... this was my favorite part about the car. Being a fairly tall car, with a soft cushy suspension, I didn't know what to expect. And while it does have a fair amount of body roll, it handles extremely well. Extremly quick lane changes do NOT upset the car at all. Taking a few corners at a bit higher speed than the salesman was ready for, shows that the car of course will understeer, but the onset of it is very detectable and can be kept in check quite easily. With such thin tires at 185 (I have 255s on the evo and race on 285s), I got to say it uses them quite well. You won't take a 90 degree corner or 60 mph or anything, but the car will surprise you and do it better than you would think. There is even a slight hint of lift throttle oversteer there, which if there is, will make the car shine on an autocross course. Its quite a fun little go cart type of ride... I think the car will be an absolute blast to autocross.

Well hopefully your not all asleep . But I just wanted to give my impressions of the car, from a non-fit-owner-but-soon-to-be-fit-owner. Some of the detail above are things that I had questions about, but hadn't quite been satisified to read in other reviews. Hopefully it helps some people out with their decisions. The car is truely an amazing little car!

Oh and one last thing... well, and I hope no one takes this the wrong way, but I had an epic fail as far as fuel economy goes . At the end of my MT drive, I averaged 18.7 lol. At the end of the AT i was at 15.3. Both cars had extremely low mileage when I got in (19 on the MT and 5 on the AT) so I'm thinking that there just wasn't enough of a sample of miles to get a good average... and while I didn't rag the cars out, I think the erratic things I was doing to test them didn't sit will with the little mileage computer .

Res

 

There's no way I'm buying an 09 but I still like to stay informed about the fit. I've rarely heard a review where they cared enough to, back to back, test the MT and the AT. That by itself got me listening. You were critical while not being a hater (starting to hate that term). Good review. I'm going to reread it!

 

Great review, thank you!

I'm glad you say there is 'massive' leg room in the front, I have long legs at 6'1" and was a bit worried.

 

Nice write up coming from an EVO guy. I'v autocrossed my GD since December of 07' and I can't wait to check out the GE! Thanks for the info.

 

Thanks guys!

Feddup, yeah I really like the new fit alot. I liked the old fit alot too for that matter. I do seem a bit critical after rereading it, but most of the complaints are so minor, and when you frame it up with the price of the car and everything you get, its such a steal. Its way better value than my Evo as an entire package. Don't get me wrong, I love my Evo, but the Fit is just a different car with a different goal in mind... and its hard not to like it imo.

Thanks KC, I hope it works out for you. I sort of have average lenght legs, i suppose, hopefully you can try it out for yourself soon and find out!

Saved, thats good to hear! I wouldn't mind hearing your impressions of the 07 with regard to autocross, as I'm thinking the 09 should be similar. In all of Louisiana in our 4 clubs, I've only seen one guy with an 08 sport Fit at an autocross, and he was a new guy and only came once . I didn't get to ride with him, but he did pretty decent for a new guy, and the car looked fairly stable on course from watching in 3rd person. How do you do going up against normal mini's and mazda 3s? As I'm sure you know after autocrossing that long, 90% or better is driver... but do you feel like your on somewhat equal footing in the power/handling categories? Do you feel your competitive with them? Do you run any kind of rcomp or just do the street tire thing? I'm guessing your in HS... I would think bumping up in higher classes like ST or SP might not be as competitive, but that would be good to know too!

 

you won't be seeing anything in the 30mpg's by the way you described the way you drove.

 

Thank you for such a detailed review sir.
Plus rep

 

If he puts as much effort in achieving MPG with the fit as he did into doing that review then he'll do fine. You're not going to get accurate MPG readings with that small of a driving sample.

 

Awesome review!!
+ Rep

 

Best Fit review thus far!

 

Very nice review. Oh well I'm glad I got the '08, I like the refresh mode and have tried it a couple of times and it was very convenient especially when you're waiting for somebody and want to take a nap hehe.

 

I love detailed reviews! You gave enough information to make me feel that I had already seen and driven the car! I reserve the right to still reject the '09s, but I am not stupid and can see that it does have some improved features that I would have liked to get on my '08.

So...what are you going to get?

 

good review man. I had a Evo 8 too but got rid of it now i have a 08 fit sport. I needed something better for DD that would last me a long time and save me money. U really can't beat these fits.

 

Excellent review! Even better than all the first drive reviews from websites so far.

 

Thanks all!

Black01, yeah I was disappointed to see refresh mode gone. I was hoping it would have stayed, seems like a pretty cool setup when out and about at a get together or tailgating!

Juliane, I think I'm going to get the orange MT sport. But I'm just like you (from what I can tell in your other posts) I wish they had yellow, dangit! I love the s2000 yellow and the JDM yellow fits look so good. Orange, provided its a bright "happy" orange is the next best thing. If its a sorta darker rusty color like the BOM, I'll go with red. I want something really really bright and loud, so big trucks on the highway see me and don't squish me .

08fithappy, lol, man I feel your pain... oh yes, trust me . I love my evo, but its a money sink and a half... most of which is self induced lol. But maintenance on that thing is rough in and of itself. I'll be happy to be joining the Honda fold in that regard!

Back to preparing for Gustav..... ahhh.