You make many good points, Rodney, and certainly seem to have the patience and resources to rebound from quite a menagerie of glitches. Congrats for that! Yes, I suppose much of my current (often "Grumpy..") outlook is swayed by degradation of product quality since the time when foreign cars were diligently mining their American market share. The point of my post was simply to be counted as one for whom this apparent quality "crap shoot" went well. I do enjoy the tech toys, and at 18,000 mi I may have much to discover, but so far, so good...knock on wood.

 

I agree that cars don't seem like they're built well anymore. I went to the LA auto show a few weeks back and boy.. Most interiors were comparable to Ikea furniture, stylish but bad quality. The only companies that had a nice, sturdy and stylish interior to me was Mazda and Audi/VW.

I think it's fine that car companies are making "disposable" cars since most people really don't keep cars for long nowadays. But it's a shame that they keep jacking up prices on cars when quality doesn't feel any better than the last generations. I sat in a Lexus LS460 at the show and thought it would be incredible, but actually I went to see the Toyota Avalon right after and thought it had a nicer interior that was more well put together... Where does the extra 40+ grand go to besides a V8?

 

What this country needs is a good 5 cent cigar.

 

1 you bought the cheapest car you could and your bitching about the quality... two this is why i would never buy a new fit thats made in mexico... 1st gen fit made in japan...250k on the clock still running strong. my favorite car I've ever owned... i will likely keep this car till i can register it as a classic and hand it down to my kids. you should probably go buy a ford next time so that at 60k miles you can replace a transmission and then you'll really have something to bitch about.

 

i hope you are not referring to me, because i did that already with my fit. although instead oof 60k, it was within the first 24 hours and 200 miles of ownership. car went to 3 different honda dealers before they replaced the clutch, pressure plate, flywheel and transmission...

 

Glad you've had so much good use out of your Fit. As they say, they don't build 'em like they used to

However, until the Honda, I owned mostly Fords and never had a problem with the transmission. My Aspire, Escort and Focus were solid, and I still own a 1992 Ford Explorer that is still running strong (knock on wood)

The Fit has given me more quality, trim, and mechanical headaches than any of those cars

 

What was the issue with your tranny? Because I've had tranny symptoms early on in my 09 MT and I recently took the plunge to have it looked at and subsequently replaced the entire clutch assembly, but I still have a couple of symptoms. Can you tell me what was wrong with yours? Thx.

 

I bet it is the latch mechanism itself making the knocking noise.

Our old MIni cooper had a knocking sound from the rear hatch which ended up being the latch itself. Replaced it and it went away for......maybe 4 months and came back.

Cheap parts.

 

Funny you said this.

When I bought the car, the salesman only put two screws on the top of the plate which caused the plate/hatch to clang horribly. I knew exactly what the problem was on day one but never got around to adding the two bottom screws until this year (6 years later). What a difference. Now it has a QUALITY sound! LOL