Body Side Moldings don't appear to stop door dings
 

With many of the cars/trucks out there today with their doors much higher off the ground and the much larger doors on them they will not hit the lower placement of the Body Side Moldings on the 2015 Fit resulting in door dings even with Body Side Moldings installed.

As a test to see if I wanted to purchase the Body Side Moldings for my new 2015 Fit EX I carefully opened the passenger doors of our 2009 Honda CR-V EX and noticed that both doors would hit the Fit and completely miss where the Body Side Moldings would be installed on the Fit.

Needless to say other much larger cars and trucks would hit the Fit doors even higher and further away from the Body Side Moldings.

So I am not going to purchase Body Side Moldings for my Fit as I do not see them being useful in preventing door dings.

On our 2009 Honda CR-V EX the Body Side Moldings were placed more in the center of the doors and are much more effective. They have prevented two dings on the driver side and eighteen dings on the passenger side.

On ours, the body side moldings stop dings from our Honda Odyssey and our Mazda CX-5 (using the same side by side test procedure you used with your car). I guess it is a car by car conclusion. Are you sure you were projecting the correct placement? Did you also take into account the thickness of the body side moldings? I know on my Honda Odyssey, the body side moldings are very thin, and wide. The Mazda has them built in with the bottom trim on each side of the car. The Fit's are rather thick and rounded (1/2" thick).

The 3rd gen moldings aren't straight across and is almost there for look and not functionality.

They follow the "sweep" design in the door. The bottom "fold" is the outermost portion of the door, which is why the moldings are placed along that fold. I had the 2008 Fit, whose door was flat, and they did not even sell a molding for that model. The moldings did not start until the second generation. Trust me, they are very functional.

Maybe for the 2nd generation they are but not so for the 3rd generation 2015 Fit.

We tested a customers Fit with BSM's. parked next to an accord or Ridgeline, they worked perfectly in protecting the door from being hit. The BSM stick out more then any other area on the door (sans the side view mirrors).


That said, I am not installing them on my car. But this isn't due to poor function, its because I don't like the way BSM's look at any car.

exl500 once posted that he thought they looked worse than the dings they are designed to prevent. I still laugh about that comment.

We have them to protect my daughters car in the College town of Knoxville, where parking is something akin to operating on the flight deck of an aircraft carrier, less the plane handlers to guide you.