From late June through today (7/23) the actual temperature has been over 95. nudging 100 a few times. Today is the exception (84). Heat index 105 and above. My EX is livable after 2 miles or less. No frostbite for sure, but livable.

I do park outside, little or no shade, no extra tint. Argue with frequent passenger about open windows for a couple of minutes (I'm right, she's wrong). No point arguing with a German woman.

 

...a German woman I mean. She HATES the car and has declared she will never drive it (after denying she CHOSE is), and states it is now mine. Drove 6 hours yesterday, and just as it was about her turn she declared the vehicle dangerous since the A/C was intolerable and the heat made her sleepy. Warned me not to doze off with her at the wheel.

 

in the mid-hundreds and I could feel it from the floorboard with the car riding sooo low. Since we were told by the tinters not to attach our shades to windows anymore, we put them on the dash (not may favourite practise, but it helped some). We run recirculate on fan-3 after the car cools at first...fan-2 is cooler but has zero effect on the backseat passenger. Does anyone know where the recirculate air intake is? It appears to me to be on the dash above the passenger air bag...wouldn't want to block it.

The crowning folly is that we filled up in Fort Stockton and again in Kerrville after three hours at 80 mph through 108F and had to get gas as it was down to 4 bars (all that "efficiency" got a whole 30 mpg). When we got out under the gas station canopy it felt amazingly less hot!

My vital medication, kept inside a soft-cooler with blue ice on it INSIDE ANOTHER COOLER (hard sided) was hot (buried under bags out of the sun in the trunk), completely ruining it.

I have to wonder if three sweating adults in the car isn't making things all that worse? As a child we drove at night across the desert to avoid the heat because our station wagon had no A/C, risking herds of deer...and now decades later I am considering the same.

 

Forgive me if you posted this, but it sounds like your AC is broken. Here in Tampa Bay it keeps it cool just adequately, but never is as bad as yours.

 

And of course I have my own gauges and checked the freon...it is not overcharged and just under maximum. My wife, whose car this originally was, tried to sell it back to the dealer (they sent us one of those letters)...and they went over every part of it including the A/C. They offered top dollar. This was just a couple weeks ago. When the car was under warranty my wife complained to them, they checked the whole system for leaks, put dye in it in case it ever actually did leak, and declared it "normal" (the state it remains in). I asked and received all the right answers there and here.

I carefully measure the vents under every condition with a laser thermometer. The car puts out a similar extent to what people seem to be describing here in terms of 3 inches inside.

I will say this: a couple years ago things got really hot in South Texas and there was an epidemic of home central A/C failures. Something similar happened in AZ, where it became necessary to re-size technology where the ambient outside temps vs. inside ratio needed to expand beyond common standards.

It MAY just be getting hotter. There is heat and there is heat/humidity. From what I perceive this car system's comfort range exists largely on the ability to remove humidity, which is why it seems to do very little in dry desert heat. The comfort it provides increases the closer you get to the ocean, which like you, is where I live.

I (like you) can tolerate it. So can my kid. My wife, medicine, and ice chests can't. I grew up without A/C. When I was born nobody down here had it and no one died as far as I know. My wife makes a good point: if we are going to get 30 MPG highway over 240 miles and ruin $75 of medicine why not take our other less efficient car and spend the extra $3 (max) on gas?

There is also an incredible difference between parking it in the shade and sun. Harvey ruined my garage. The car is delightful on hot nights, in the dark, when I almost never drive, as long as the dash has cooled.

I am always tempted to have it checked some more...but my experience with home A/C units is when you ask they find a reason to fix...except with the dealer...who says this is normal. I could probably write a book on it so I'd better stop.

 

It's definitely worth having it checked. No experience with GK Fits, but our GD was slightly low straight off the dealer lot.

We had it vacuumed down and recharged when new and it's still ice cold now 10 years later.

Wasn't performing well which is why we had it checked out by a non-Honda mechanic.

 

Sure sounds like it to me. As I've described my experiences here in Tennessee during the hottest summer over the 3 years I've owned the Fit. Low on coolant? Bad compressor? Filters?

 

it works pretty good if you're the only one in the car. load the car up with a bunch of heavy breathing adults, and you're probably better off just rolling the windows down. lol

 

since the coolant is tip-top, the filters are new, and it feels better
with the passenger vent shut and just the driver in the car...

 

If all else fails, good tint (3M or suntek) is a quick solution.

 

am guessing it kept us alive on the last trip...

 

Update:

The brand of ceramic film I paid $400 for was LLumar made by a company called Eastman.
I drove the car for an hour at 4PM yesterday when it had just been in the shade from 2-4PM.

*The dash measured 168F. After an hour with full A/C it measured 128F. It was 99F outside.

*At trip's end all the windows were still 105F+ including the most tinted ones.

*The A/C after about ten minutes was blowing 55F from the passenger vent, 65F+
from the center vents, and 75F+ from the driver's vent. This was on 3-fan (on 4-fan
the temps go up 10F.)

This was inadequate to make the car feel cooler than the outside air at the end of
the trip. The problem is obvious: the A/C gets hotter as it passes through the dash
area until it reaches unacceptable equilibrium. Can anyone suggest a good dash
cover for a Fit? One that doesn't smother what appears to be air returns (I don't
care about the speakers)?

Thanks for any experience here...

 

Chief, take the car in to a quality independent shop. It's apparent that the A/C system is not functioning as it should. At the warmest, you should see 60 degree vent temps even with 99 degree outside air.

As I stated above, our A/C was ever so sightly low on freon when new and, from what I understand, that is very typical for Honda. It worked, but wasn't good. Getting it exactly right was key as it's a very small system. Even a tiny bit off and it will not perform well. 10 years later and it still blows ice cold thanks to a proper charge.

We also have a couple new Honda's in the family (no GK Fits) and they all blow plenty cold. Including my parents that live in Palm Beach, FL.

 

All this discussion, complaining, and back and forth about Honda, esp. Fit, A/C. One condition has not been discussed. What color is the car? Mine is Milano Red. Now a dark, black or blue, will absorb heat more than a white or silver/gold car. Now my former Suzuki SX4 was red, similar in many ways tin the Fix in interior and window size, had a full climate control HVAC and it was superior. But not enough to break a deal.

Typical day for late July here today …. 94 per dash, 100 per small NRA combo tool, very short trip, but on the edge of comfortable.

 

They've gotta stop making these cars with dark dashboards.

 

Or, improve the A/C. I still think those that aren't working well aren't performing to their best, but I have owned black interior and black exterior cars since the '80's. Lived most my lift in South FL. A/C has been fantastic in all of them.

Granted, most have been Ford's, but I've also owned Honda's, Toyota's, Dodge, Chevy, Nissan, Oldsmobile, etc. All blew ice cold or were taken in and made to blow ice cold. Our Fit was one that was taken in during the first couple months of ownership.

Edited to add...I even owned 3 black on black leather cars in S FL and I'm very temperature sensitive. Climate control set at 67 in my current black leather car and it gets it down there quickly even in 95 degree weather.

 

 

...and so is the dash...

 

It's mid-afternoon here and i moved the car 20 feet to change the oil. My laser
thermometer read as follows:

Dash: 189F
Steering wheel: 147F
Passenger seat: 152F

The last one was a bit interesting to me, being a plush surface
on which we sit. That is a lot of residual heat to remove...no wonder
it never cools...dark gray interior.

On the other hand I ran across a package of two large wool "dryer balls"
at Walmart yesterday, and threw them in the cart. When my family asked
what they were for I said they were to keep in the Fit, "that way I'm sure to have some in there".

At least the teenagers liked it.

 

Currently going though my first summer my 3rd gen Fit and so far the A/C is kinda lacking. It is functional but when I compare it to the A/C in my mothers 2009 Toyota Camry it's just inferior in every way. Where I'm at the temperature is normally mid to high 90's and its humid.