Back from my road trip.. Although not very far 2000 miles round trip here are my findings. First, the cruise control is worthless. Living here in the Florida panhandle there are no "high' hills. With the cruise set at 80 MPh the car gears down and goes into passing mode going up the hills. I decided not to engage cruise and the car ran much better not downshufting as much. At 80-85 mph the tach is reading just at 3000 rpm. Very good considering it is less that 50% of red line. The car handled like a dream smooth tracked well very little sway when passing semis. Although I was not passed by a semi I was very satisfied at how it held the road. Although 80 is 15 mph over the speed limit I do believe that this is a excellent road speed. Hit a couple of downpours and no problem. Had to slow to 25 mph but the car and wipers did good. I was not tried at the end of the trip and being 64 thats says a lot. The average mpg was around 33 . Although not spectacular quite good considering the speed. I have now just over 2600 miles it is a 2011 sport. A 2.0 liter engine or a 1,8 would be better but hey whoise complaining.

 

I just returned from Oregon (to Texas). Best mileage was between Chama, NM & Green River, UT --- 44.2 mpg on the way out. Had a bit of a tailwind. On the return trip through the same area got over 41 mpg. Overall average 35.7 with 10K miles on the odometer. Love this car.

 

I've always been amazed at Honda cruise control for it's accuracy and smoothness. For comparison, a MKIV Golf goes into WOT for any acceleration. The Fit's cruise operation seems identical to high end Acura's too.

It sounds like the transmission is configured to downshift eagerly, I can see how that would get annoying. But with only 1500 cc, it really doesn't have the torque for hill climbing in top gear.

 

You can run in "S" mode, shift to 5th gear and it won't downshift until you tell it to.