It is what it is, a budget friendly, fun to drive affordable car. No way it'll be Lexus/Caddy/whatever quiet nor smooth, and the so called "rough ride" is what makes it fun to drive.....I don't find our '15's ride objectionable in any way, it's a small, fun to drive car. I don't want no boring boulevard smooth ride, but....it is what it i s...if it ain't for you, then perhaps you need to choose a different car. This car is leaps and bounds above older small cars in terms of both ride quality and handling....just sayin'

 

Fuelish, unfortunately, I have to disagree with some of your comments. I bought mine for $27,000 which is way above any KIA or Hyundai of the same class. I have driven KIA Rio, Hyundai Accent etc which are supported to be the FIT competitor, and they are all smoother and quieter. For rough ride mean hitting the suspension on each little potholes and it's not fun at all. Maybe I'm wrong, but this is my personal view of the Fit.

 

So why didn't you buy one of those? I didn't bother looking at the KIA or Hyundai because on the paper the Fit beat it out on the categories that were important to me, mainly fuel economy and cargo space.

I think the issue the OP is having is mainly because of the gearing of the 6MT. 6 gear is much higher than it needs to be. At the same highway cruising speed, the CVT runs at a much lower RPM so the engine noise isn't as loud. There's road noise from the tires, but it's quieter compared to the engine noise. Before I got the HKS Silent HI-Power exhaust, the car was pretty quiet on the highway. Now there's a quiet hum and with the CVT it's not oppressive. It passed the fiance test, and still passes the wife test now

 

I know that's right....luckily, I don't do awhole lot of freeway driving, mayby a few times a year (freeway vs highway...highway driving around here rarely is open enough to get up into the real drone zone of the 6 speed ....interstate freeway driving, yeah, 4000rpm@80 is pretty silly on Honda's part, and gas mileage, which I'm already satisfied with, would be even better, for cryin' out loud!!!

 

The sound becomes a second nature? Maybe... once you are half deaf...
Many people spend hours every week in their car, I think that enjoying music without blasting it to hear it, and being seated comfortably, are just the minimum to ask in order to enjoy that time and get wherever you have to fresh rather than sore and tired.

I don't own a Fit anyways, although I'll use mom's Fit for the coming year since she's leaving the country for a while

The Fit handles better than older Hondas (let say a 90's civic hatchback) mostly because they have firmer suspension, and of course there are some improvments over the years in terms of body stiffness. But by design, the Fit's suspension is less sophisticated and won't handle better than an older double whishbone Civic, which sure had a smoother ride than a Fit, especially when their shocks were new. I had a 99 hatch Civic and my mom a 2009 Fit, and even her found my car to be smoother and more relax to drive. Smoother on bumps, less engine noise, equal road noise I'd say. The Civic had some more body roll though, that's for sure.

Rough ride doesn't means fun to drive and good handling imo. A good handling car should absorb bumps in order to keep a good contact with the road. The Yaris is just as zippy as the Fit around the corners and body roll is about the same, and it manages to be a significantly smoother ride.

The biggest advantage of the Fit are it's interior room and brand's reputation, but other than that, they only made each generation 5-10% better, while the competition made their models 15-30% better when renewing the models. So now, the Fit isn't the king that it used to be, aside from interior room. It's too bad, because I love how the third gen Fit looks compared to the bland 2nd gen, but having driven both one after the other, the upgrade is just not worth it. With a different gearing on the MT and better seats/adjustments, maybe I would think differently, but right now, they just keep reproducing the Fit's biggest flaws, year after year.

 

Agree with Broody.

 

I come from driving a 5-speed 1981 Corolla wagon directly to a 2016 Fit. I normally prefer manual but went with CVT once I read the 6th gear on the manual Fit was basically subdividing the old range into smaller pieces, not adding any super gear. I guess that and the fact we do mostly city driving and you're constantly using the clutch (not cheap).

As for noise, I find in some ways the Fit is noisier than my 35 year old Corolla (which isn't exactly a high end luxury car). The engine may be quieter at speed but in the Fit I feel/hear every little road imperfection, even at low speed.

 

The fan for the HVAC makes a holy racket in top speed and next lower speed, but you need that speed to get the heat or ac working reasonably fast, as both the AC temperature coming out of the ducts doesn't seem as cool as many other cars and and the heat temperature coming out of the ducts doesn't seem as warm. So I always feel I need to leave the fan on high for the whole time unless i'm making a trip that is more than 20 minutes long.