What exactly is the purpose of the first gear?

That gear is so ridiculously short that you barely move at all. How could this be safe you have to merge with traffic thats moving at a much higher speed? Many say that it helps with performance. But how could this possible help straight line speeds when you already have to shift to 2nd gear after 1/10 second and waste your precious time shifting.

And sometimes your speed is too low to downshift in 2nd gear but its too high to shift to 1st gear without matching the revolutions. But its so ridiculously hard to rev match the first gear that I always do it wrong. But if I just downshift to 2nd gear the car rumbles like no tomorrow. Not smooth at all.

I see absolutely no point in having such a short first gear.

 

Life is tough. It's only a FIT, but I have a sneeky feeling that the RPM's the lttle beast is capable of might be part of what you're looking for. I'm just trying to figure this part out - but manage to keep 1st in there on the way up. Really no reason to come back down to it unless you're really swamped. K_C

 

I've never had a 5MT car with a useful 1st gear worth downshifting into (with the exception of being in MAJOR contstruction where you just crawl.... then the Prelude was decent with it's 2.0L engine but it was for crawling, not downshifting to for performance reasons - or even engine braking)

1st gear is an acceleration gear [plain and simple] and is there to prevent regular lugging of the engine. Do a 0-60 with and without 1st gear. The time spent for the 1-2 shift is much shorter than the lugging the engine takes to get up to the 2-3 shift point. Also, try starting on a steep hill at a stoplight in 2nd gear.

The only time I don't use 1st gear is when starting in the snow, the rest of the time, the car just rockets off the line in 1st gear. ... 2nd; not so much.

~SB

 

Next time you are in rush hour traffic, try using 2nd.

 

I never downshift to 1 for the reasons I just gave. I downshift into 2nd gear but the car does shake sometimes when the speed is too low. That doesn't seem to be too good for the car.

And well what if you need to do a u-turn, you come at a complete stop and the other lane has high speed traffic. You still need to start from gear 1 and then go to gear 2.

 

U turn and complete stop do not go hand in hand. Slap 'er into 1st and reline it while applying a stiff left had tug.
K_C_

 

It does when theres a lot of traffic on the other lane and you just have keep waiting and waiting until its safe enough to do the u-turn.

 

I know - it's all that waiting. Adds up to a waist of time by the time you're my age cut to the chase and get'er done.
_K_C

 

If you can't find em, grind em. :P

But I have no complaints about the M/T 1st gear. I've downshifted into it plenty of times, and gone into 1st from 2nd, even 3rd gear, for U-turns as well. From a dead stop I don't start from 2nd gear unless the person behind me has been acting like a fool, and I'm welcoming a honk.

It sounds to me like the OP is short-shifting (shifting early), or just being a little conservative on the RPMs. Not like that's a bad thing. But you can take it up, Honda's are well known for being 'rev happy'.

 

I have the same feelings about first gear in the AT. But I feel like the car's so slow, if that first gear weren't there and so aggressive I'd never get going anywhere.

 

Now that's what I've been waiting to hear.

This is my first Honda and I'm getting to know things I've only suspected. I'm feeling the love of those hi-revs - not full into it 'cause I'm still feeling out the handling enf of things as well.

Looking for the 'Sport" part I guess.
K_C_

 

Got back from the grocery store, (and a few other places) with a full load, wife & Kid in the car. Just picked up an inflatable pool with all the extras so we can cool off this summer. needless to say, the car was loaded and not light. had to stop on a hill before making a left turn. Without 1st, I would have had to REV the snot out of the engine and let the clutch slip forever to get going. (oh... and the AC wasn't on.)

Imagine fully loaded, AC on, stopped on a hill (like many FIT campers this summer will be). 1st gear is a wonderful thing.

This car's not loaded with torque... so it's gotta be a high hp, or low gearing to get going. (and we all know the fit is not a sports car - REVIVE THAT OLD POST )

~SB

 

I think the OP wants more torque basically. Honda needs a first gear worse than just about any other car. The notion of no first gear in any car is ridiculous, but I think the original question is more about not being able to use it in a downshift and can't power out with 2nd. Nature of the beast I'm afraid. A direct injection turbo engine would remedy your problem.

 

Hmmm, let's see... redline on the tach is 6800 RPM; fuel cutoff happens at about 7000. 6800 in 1st gear equals about 30MPH (50Km/h) -- I'm not being more exact about that 'cause when I'm winding out the engine I'm not going to take the time to closely inspect the speedo.

Anyway, I don't call 30MPH "barely moving". In fact, flooring the throttle and redlining the engine in the first two gears might give the OP a bit more respect for the power the car has. It ain't the fastest car out on the road, but it ain't slow either.

Hondas, especially VTEC Hondas, need to be revved to produce all the power & speed they're capable of. IMHO, one of the pleasures of the car is how the engine never seems to quit -- it just seems to get stronger & stronger as the tach needle climbs!

So, while the Fit will tootle around quite happily on the low speed torque, if you really need power you need to be prepared to use all the revs the engine can provide.

 

Using the clutch, as in the 1st gear, helps.

x2

 

I usually shift around 3000 rpm in first gear. And you need to shift at redline to even get 50 km/h (30mph). Btw I went beyond 6000 (not sure how much) and I only got around 40 km/h (25mph).

I feel pretty uncomfortable to go all the way up to the redline anyway. I don't like the noise of the engine after 4000 rpms. And it scares the bejesus out of my friends too. They all drive automatics and they simply think I am destroying my car or driving extremely reckless.

Oh another thing with first gear is that as soon as you are at a decent speed and you let go of the gas, the car is going to engine brake. But it does it so fast and rough. Even worse then when you slam the brakes. So what if you were accelerating and you hit a pothole or a bump and your leg moves up and down on the throttle. It happend to me once when I was accelerating and a suddenly saw a bump. My foot was moving up and down on the throttle and I had no control over it. The car lurches backwards and I forwards. Then my leg came down on the gas pedal again and then off again and I really think I did some major damage to my car.

 

I am probably really the only one with this problem but I do shift to 2nd as soon as possible (usually around 3000 rpm) because from 2nd gear I can get to virtually any speed that I want and is realistic with decent acceleration, safety and comfort. I don't need to shift in the middle of dangerous situation like if I was in first gear.

And the higher the rpms are when I shift the more difficult it is to do it right because it brakes so heavily as soon as I let go of the gas. I need to let go of the gas and give the clutch a superfast and smooth push so I know its fully disengaged. all at the exact same moment! If the timing is off I hear some rattle (don't know how to explain this noise but it goes like tick tick tick). If I don't do it superfast and in one clean motion then I get that weird noise ticking noise.

 

hahahah sooooo true. my car before this had 4x the horse power of a fit and the first gear was probly shorter.

 

I think you should give up your MT for an AT or better yet a bus pass. Sorry to be so blunt and a dick about it, but you said you are afraid you are hurting your car, well it sounds like you are hurting your car with your shifting techniques.

The motor is not going to be hurt if wrung out, in fact you will help the motor by ridding it of carbon deposits that build up when it is always short-shifted which is what you seem to be doing. Want to extend the life of the motor, stop being a girly girl and step on the go pedal a bit more.

 

DRIVE IT LIKE YOU STOLE IT!!!_KC_

FIT will be fit_