What one know the ratios for Sport mode on 3rd gen? I can get up to S7.

 

The Honda web page says the CVT with Paddle Shifters:

Forward 2.562 - 0.408
Reverse 2.706 - 1.382


It is interesting that reverse is not a fixed gear ratio. 6-spd manual reverse is 3.307

 

Thats because reverse is a real drop out gear, and they limit the Shiv travel to keep you from killing anybody.. LOL imagine if you could accelerate to 70 in reverse!

My Quad has the same thing, has a rev limiter when in reverse because folks flipped them doing reverse wheelies years ago.. Didn't end well.

 

imagine how the engine component has to spin a 1000 time more every minute just to give you the same speed on CVT, that's a lot on!, glad to have CVT on my Fit.

 

The tell will be when enough CVT's in service are 7+ years old.. and have 150K+ miles on them, there are a fair bunch headed that way, but what is the service-ability ??
Hopefully someone will pick up some of the parts supply...

Lots of wait and see to be done..

 

Just putting this gear ratio discussion in perspective with a graph. Really, hardly any difference between GE and GK for manual transmission.

 

The cheapest and quickest way of doing that is a pair of sponge hear plugs.

 

Change the fluid. Youtube video shows it is easy to do but PITA. It it is not broken, don't fix it.

 

During my first week of owning this car, all I could think about was "Why is there even a 6th gear?!?!"
Lately, I've been driving the car and shifting 1,2,3,4,6
Now I understand! The 5th gear is just there for the highway when you need to pass a slower car.
I just wish 6th gear was a little bit lower of an RPM

 

Yes, Honda made a mistake in the MT gearing ratios as has been brought up a number of times in this forum. Unfortunately, even if they are aware of the issue I would assume there is no money (or desire) available to change this - the suits are not going to touch the engine/transmission mid term unless there is a serious safety/reliability issue which this isn't. The GK is pretty much locked in as until the next major redesign when everything is on the table. That's several years away.

 

The question is what was the Honda's thinking with they went from 5 to 6 speeds? Everyone has a 6 speed manual so we have to have one too? Initially I wanted the 6 speed too, but heck, it does no good, so I went with the CVT instead, loving it.

 

I don't mind the 6 spd spread being essentially as the 5 spd spread of ratios.....I mean, c'mon....I ride a bike with "27" gear combos (3 x 9, but many are redundant or virtually so) ...I don't shift through all the gears on the bike, I don't shift through all the gears on the Fit, necessarily, just pick the gear that's appropriate for the moment. Although, as always, would've been nice for 6th to spin a little lower on the hwy, but.....I ain't complaining, really, mpg is fine (although could've been better....I have no problem having to downshift to climb a hill or pass traffic, but...it is what it is, and it's pretty OK)

 

I passed on buying a new Honda Fit with CVT because I knew with my hard driving style I would take out a CVT in short order. (with traffic I am done with manuals, when young I use to drive a roll caged, fuel celled VW race street/race car as a daily driver, so i am an old purest who has a bad clutch knee) As long as you drive like grandma and change to oil every 30,000 to 40,000 miles you have what appears to be average reliability. You drive it hard I feel it won't last long. And when they go, it is $6,000+ to get a new one. Where you the old ATF pumper is closer to $3.500 to rebuild.

When I do get one as I will have too once old ATF pumpers are gone from the scene, I will have to filter it and cool it and dump the sub-standard Honda OEM CVT fluid and put in Redline or maybe Amsoil CVT fluid. No OEM fluid is better or can hold a candle to boutique specialty oil companies that oils are a group 4 like Amsoil or even better a group 5 like Redline's.

The best thing you can do if you own a new CVT car is change the fluid at 5,000 miles to get all the break-in metal out. Remember , most CVTs are metal belt and metal pulleys, = bad combo for inevitable high particulate counts when these CVT's do not have high end filtration in them.

.

 

Bizarre that 4, 5, 6 are so close together!

What's the point?!

Marketing? Just to say "hey...we got 6 speed...our competitor only has 5"?

If so...bad decision...marketing trump engineering. Can't believe this is happening at Honda, of all people.

Tranny durability is theortically inversely proportional to number of speed...ie. 6 speed is not as durable as 5. There is finite amount of space available for the gears...if you add an extra gear...all the gears have to be made smaller...smaller equal weaker.

Disappointment.

 

Hond'a thought Fit is a city car and never intended it to be driven at 70 mph for very much. If I have to commute on the interstate daily, I'd not choose the Fit. I'd choose something much bigger, comfortable, quieter. Wrong tool for the job.

 

Funny that 43k miles in 2 years of ownership and I think it does just fine on the interstate. I did add an HKS exhaust to cancel out the wind noise and now wider tires give a more compliant ride. I'd say the tires are quieter than the stock Firestones so that's helped as well. Last tank got me 45MPG as well

 

I drove my Fit to Oregon from California, it was so happy to do the long distances doing 65-80 mph.

 

My wife drove our (new to us) 2009 GE 5sp MT (manual trans) back from work over the mountains yesterday and commented that she needed a gear between 4th and 5th for the hill. I chuckled and said the latest generation GK has that 'inserted' gear. She said for that hill, our GK CVT did much better.

So, it seems that for the GK MT owners, that extra gear (5th) can come in handy even if you have to skip it during normal flat ground around town driving.

Just FYI for those trying to decide on the GK MT vs CVT debate. Either is a good choice in my opinion.

 

So when cruising at 80+ it's 4K rpm which I feel might be stressing the car. I haven't taken any long trips with the fit but I feel like it might be abusing the car if I do that. What do you guys think?

I have a 2015 6MT fit.

 

The CVT is perfect until it fails.
70mph 2300 RPM 2015 FIT w/CVT

03 Civic 5 speed manual 70mph 3000 RPM