Earlier this year we bought a 2013 Fit to replace our wrecked 2009 Fit. The 2013 has only 33K miles. It was first sold in February, 2014. The first 9K miles were "corporate fleet," then it was sold as "Honda certified pre-owned" to a female school teacher who traded it in this year. We bought it from Tempe Honda in June.

Upon examining the car, I was concerned that the coolant level in the reservoir was extremely low. It was well below the minimum mark -- barely any left in it at all. The radiator itself was full. I thought that if the coolant had never been topped up in the 4ish years of the car's life, that amount of evaporation may not be unusual, particularly in this hot desert environment. However, if it had been more recently filled, such a loss could be a sign of a problem, potentially a big one.

My condition of the sale was for the cooling system to be pressure tested. They did, everything looked ok, so we bought the car. I filled the coolant to the max mark in the reservoir. A week or so later it was down a hair, so I refilled again to exactly the top of the "max" mark. This is all done cold in the morning, with the car parked in the same spot. It was topped up June 28. 3 weeks later the level was down about 1/4".

This morning, 4 months later, it was down about 1.5". This was prior to taking the car to Arrowhead Honda today for the recent passenger side airbag recall. I informed them of the coolant loss issue, which they checked out by pressure testing and checking codes. It held pressure, no external leaks found, and no indications of any problem.

The only other issue with this car is a mild whine, apparently from the transmission, most obvious usually at 40-50 MPH. It's high pitched, and similar to, but not tire whine, though there is also some tire whine. This is also heard at lower speeds, such as when driving in a parking lot, and seems to be independent of engine speed or tire speed. Seems to be from the transmission. I took a repair manager for a drive today, and of course, the traffic was heavy and overwhelmed the sound. He heard it, but thought it to be from tires. That doesn't explain the same sound when the tires are turning slowly. Our previous Fit didn't have this. The 5 year powertrain warranty on this car runs out in February. If anything is wrong, I'd like to get it handled or at least documented before then.

FWIW, the service manager said that Fit transmissions don't fail. With Fits, the problems they see are at 100K-120K the ignition coils go bad. At 150Kish the injectors start to fail. I asked him about valve adjustments, and he said do them every 60K, not the 100K or whatever Honda recommends for the initial adjustment, though valves aren't really a serious problem now except for certain model years (2010-2011? -- can't remember). Usually, valves extremely out of adjustment will eventually throw a code, with no harm done. That's what he said. I can't imagine how poorly a car runs due to mal-adjusted valves before actually throwing a code.

The coolant thing worries me the most. Does your Fit lose coolant over time? If so, how much?

 

Wow! I think you found the worlds first knowledgeable service manager. What he said is dead on correct.

I will add that, if you do the valve adjustments and change plugs at the same time, the coils will likely not fail either. Also, if you stick with top tier fuel from high volume stations, you likely will never see a fuel injector fail either.

The coolant loss is very strange for a Fit though. That is not at all common. However, the amount you are loosing is very small. As long as the oil looks good (not milky or bubbles), the coolant looks clean (not dark), and you don't see white smoke out the exhaust, I would just top off as needed and figure you have a small leak somewhere that may eventually make itself more detectable.

 

my coolant is the same and i haven't added anything for 60k miles