My door panel armrests on both front doors have cracked underneath the fabric from simply shifting my weight onto my elbows while resting on them. I had the door armrest panel replaced once and it has cracked again.

Has anyone else had this issue? How did you get it fixed, if at all? I feel like it's a major quality issue for the car's interior.

2009 Fit Sport

 

this is not a replacement, but someone had done a DIY armrest--think he used a mouse pad or a computer wrist rest. Looked pretty good, too! do a search and it may show up

 

Armrest Cracked ??? TSB

 

Looks like there are some other threads I found on this. It required a little more in-depth searching. Thanks all!

https://www.fitfreak.net/forums/2nd-...-happened.html
https://www.fitfreak.net/forums/2nd-...nty-issue.html

I am out of warranty so we will see what happens.

 

Mines cracked. Im under warranty tho, so ill just take her in. But yeah , must be an issue with this many cracking.

 

My GD that I just bought also had this problem. I made the dealership fix it before I took delivery of the car though. Hope it doesn't happen again!

 

Oh boy...I posted a thread about this issue a while ago. Good luck getting it replaced!

 

If you get a new one, reinforce the underside of the arm rest. I'm sorry to come across like an ass right now, but if you are just using it to rest your arm or shift your weight while you are driving, it shouldn't break unless you are a bit on the heavy side, especially if this has happened for a 3rd time if I am reading this correctly. If you take the door panel off, you can see it is quite thin. I have had my Fit for just over 2.5 years and have yet to have the arm rest crack. I can feel that it bends if I use it to prop myself out of my bucket seat, but it has yet to crack. Might just happen down the road though.

 

I'm about 155 lbs but my elbows are more pointy than average, perhaps. It's happened twice on the driver's side and once on the passenger's side (which was from a passenger, not myself). This is a major quality issue (IMO) considering I have never had this happen in any other vehicle I have owned. I may just fix it myself and reinforce it at some point to prevent a recurring issue.

 

Finally found the thread on the DIY door armrest improvement- might be worth a shot after you fix yours

https://www.fitfreak.net/forums/2nd-...rsion-3-a.html

 

My armrests have broken twice, we dont put much pressure on them, and the second time the extended warranty wouldn't cover them, but did agree to pay 75% so we paid 150 out of pocket for the new panels. After the new ones were installed i popped off the side of the armrest to take a loot and found a seam runs in the plastic where you arm sits. I reinforced it with some JB plastic Weld from Amazon, hopefully it works. Its like modeling clay that dries into a hard epoxy. Hopefully this will help others. My passenger side was so bad the fabric started to stretch. I like the car, but the interior material are a bit on the cheap side for the cost of the car.

 

I was the guy behind this thread: Honda says "no"/I say "yes" warranty issue I got it replaced but it cracked less than 1,000 miles after. One thing that has helped slow the decay is: JB Weld KwikPlastik put on the underside of the armrest after cracking. If/When I get a new one I'll use this same product + reinforcement.

 

I went to the dealer with the TSB, they said it was broken but I needed to contact Hondacare myself for approval (purchased the 5 year warranty). I called and the lady gave me a flat out "no" I had my wife call and she got and advisor and everything, took about a week but we got it worked out. I tried to epoxy some little metal mending plates in (my father in law is a mold maker) to reinforce it as it was the second time. I let them dry but found they were too rigid and popped off. The epoxy on Amazon was like $7 a tube so I ordered 2 and figured why not? I'm still fighting an oil leak though. They have replaced the crankshaft seal twice and now I am afraid to get under it and even look. It isn't enough to drip, just cling to the pan after a few thousand miles. The dealer said they put a leak detecting powder on it and ran it for half a day (it came out with more gas than when i dropped it off so they did something) and found no further leaks. Now I just don't want to know as I'm very anal, they told me it was residual from when they replaced the last seal and it was seating. My last car was a malibu and had metal flexing/creaking problems that the dealer pretty much dismissed so I really hope they fixed this. I'm very anal but also baby the car and only run mobile 1 so I hope all is well.

 

Mine broke. Warranty issue, done with no argument

 

This is a known design flaw. Can you imagine that. A Honda flaw. What is worse is that Honda is pulling a Kia trick, and dodging the issue. They need to get a real fix, not just a patch to hold till the warranty expires. We would expect better from Honda.

 

Were you still under the three year or 5 year warranty. I was into the five year. Low mileage, car looks mint and all service was done at the same dealer. Maybe my dealership had issues with warranty before?

 

Dang. I noticed the front door passenger side is cracked. I'm out of warranty about 2 months ago. Lame.

 

if you have a relationship with you dealer they may take care of you, never know. Its pretty easy to see the break if you just pop off the side of the armrest. There are three plastic retaining hooks on its bottom. They are not replaceable unfortunalty, I broke tow figuring out my driver door but still holds together fine. I put a little piece of black gorilla tape to keep it from moving at all. I had only popped one and was nosey and wanted to see how the epoxy I had used was holding up (it was fine) and popped another one. I broke my right wrist a few year ago and dont have very good dexterity anymore. Also it was about 30 degrees outside and plastics arent all that fond of the cold. Either way it lets you see the cracked area without popping the whole door off and its how I epoxied mine. Fyi when replacing the side piece, there is a little num the lines up near the front window switced, if you dont align it properly it doens't sit quite right. It just really annoys me because yes its an economy car, but I have the navi sport and its 5K more expensive that anything in the same class as something from ford or gm so you would hope for a little better build quality.

be careful if you decide not to try and replace or fix it as the fabric or sprayed on fuzz, not sure which as there is definitely no padding, will start to stretch.