A/C better in 3rd-generation?
 

My 2013 Fit just had an unfortunate encounter with a Nissan Rogue. Nobody hurt, but I'm now in the position of having to replace it. During the airbag recall I had a loaner new-model Fit and liked it, but I have one hesitation: where I live, it can regularly be 100+ degrees in the summer. The A/C in the 2nd-gen Fit was not fantastic, and it seems like I'm not the only person to have this opinion. It did OK on the freeway, but sitting in traffic it really didn't keep up with that kind of heat.

Has anyone else had both generations *and* lived in a place where it gets really honestly not? (Not "a couple of 90 degree days in the summer" but more "it's been 106 every day for a week and I live in the middle of a giant sea of concrete") Is the A/C really better in the new one?

i’ve owned all generations and they all suck as far as ac. just over the weekend i was complaining to my wife the GK’s ac is sooo weak vs my vw and subaru

I have a 2015 LX, and the A/C was just marginally better than that in my old 2008 (no longer own).
I live in Florida, and after the car has been sitting at work in the parking lot, it takes a good 10 minutes to cool the cabin down, after that it is OK.
Window tinting is a good idea with the FIT.
I tinted the 2008, and it made a big difference, the 2015 came with factory tint.

I think the 3rd gen Fit A/C is definitely improved. Unlike my '09 Fit, the A/C doesn't constantly cycle on and off blowing alternately cool/hot steamy air. It also doesn't exact as big a mileage penalty when it's running.

Could it be "colder"? Well, I suppose, but then again, it IS called "air conditioning" and not "refrigeration" for a reason. I find it to be perfectly adequate, considering it has to deal with a large interior and a HUGE windshield, which traps heat.

Before I retired last year, the car sat in an asphalt parking lot in the hot summer sun all day. In the afternoon, I would start the car, open the moonroof at the back, and set the A/C on 2 or 3 and head home. By the time I arrived home (10 minutes), the car was nice and comfy.

I owned a 2010, and now a 2016.
I live in the colder, usually cooler climate of the Pacific Northwest, so 100 degree days happen, but pretty infrequently, and for limited duration.

So for me personally, the Fit AC is adequate. Just adequate.

If you live in a significantly hotter climate with more extended days of high temperatures?

You may struggle to find consistent comfort with the FIT AC. IMO both generations were somewhat limited.
Nobody is going to mistake the FIT AC for an ice maker.

The AC in my 2018 is actually pretty decent, and its been miserable here in Atlanta this summer. Its not amazing ice-box cold, but Im not displeased with it.

That being said, I put sunshade up everyday, have tint, and roll the windows down the first minute or two of driving to get the hot air out when getting into the hot car.

No problem running Fit in South Florida, always 90+ just tint your car if you think the AC doesn't work well enough

This A/C in my 2015 Fit simply does not cut the mustard in South Texas.
When idling in the shade, it blows about the same as the outside air.
No leaks, charged well, has been like this since Day 1. Dealer put dye
in under warranty, but still no dice. Laser temp in vents going 70 MPH
get as low as 50F, but passenger vent is 10F lower than rest. Kids in back
cook.

This is Tennessee, wait 2 days and the weather will change. The past two weeks have had 90 degrees plus and the next 3 days are supposed to have heat index temps in the triple digits. My 2015 EX does ok … not great, but adequate. I've seen 103 on the dash. In the SW, along the gulf coast and FL the factory tint is minimal. I'd suggest at least 35 percent. Some states alow darker.

Overdone AC? 1970 Ford Cobra Jet 429 (not mine) Small cabin, ac unit from same year Ford Country Squire station wagon with about 4 times the cabin space. Frost bite in 10.

Best 2008 Suzuki SX4 Sport, true HVAC. Drive less than 2 miles and Temp would be right, warm or cold. I think that true HVAC is an option on most Hondas including the Fit.,

Dash stays hot
 

Great point about tint. Its like the nursery people telling me
"full sun is not South Texas full sun" ...because the plants look like
a dragon flamed them in a day if you think so. My dash is so hot
you can't leave your hand there. After 2 hours of A/C during the day
it has cooled to the point you can just barely put your hand there.

...so it is like having ductwork inside an oven inside your vehicle...

I'm going to try this
 

Do you have any feel for how much of a difference that makes?

Right now (Sun.10:45 AM) it is 90. The Fit might cool down to comfortable within 1.5 miles. The Suzi within 1. Cold weather, on the same settings, warm in the Suzi, still chilly in the Fit. Honda HVAC, if it exists, I don't known.

Thanks for that...never had the heat on...we run A/C 27/7 365 (except during hurricanes).
Come to think of it things weren't so bad before Harvey which bent my double-garage-door and they
have been sitting outside since. I just can't bring myself to buy another when my deductible
is higher than the cost by a couple dollars...cause it happens so easily.

One thing to try is to insulate the suction (smaller colder) line coming from the compressor. A length of 1" pipe insulation hose and some tie wraps will help the refrigerant to stay cold while going to the evaporator.
'

Great idea...I do it on my house pipe that's exposed. Why not? Doesn't LOOK like an area that will ignite.

The cold refrigerant returning to the compressor via the suction line has already been through the evaporator, it won't make any difference, unfortunately.

Thought I would report back on what we decided to do.
We did the whole windshield in UV 80 (blocks 50% of the heat with some type of ceramic film).
We did 35% on the front passenger windows and 15% on the remaining.
So I am sitting in a Marriott in Fort Stockton, Texas after driving straight this
morning from Truth or Consequences, NM. The coolest we were in the car was when we
got in it to leave, when the dash was about body temperature. During the trip the dash
heated up dramatically, and the temperature inside the car got no cooler than 94F while the
outside regularly measured 105-107, full sun. Toward the end of the trip every passenger had
sweated through...even my scalp was dripping. My coolers full of blue ice had all melted in
the trunk over about 5 hours. I can barely imagine what this would have been like without
tint, but after another 6 hours home tomorrow I do not see me ever doing this again.

Geez that sounds like a horrible experience! I've driven South West for about 7 hours and the GK hasn't had that problem, but we don't routinely stay 100+.

What about a dash mat? They don't look great but would they insulate the dash enough to make a difference?

Are you running recirculate with the HVAC?

The highest outside temperature we've seen here this summer so far was 35 deg. Celsius (95 deg. Fahrenheit) and our Fit has performed admirably.
No tint on the car.
The weakest AC of all vehicles I have ever owned was in my 2004 Mazda3.
I would consider the Fit to be average. Nothing to write home about, but not bad.
No idea how it would do in the extreme heat, but hope I will never have to find out...

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.

So you've got one too...
 

...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.

The pavement heats up...
 

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.

Yes it does, doesn't it?
 

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

Interesting you should say that...
 

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.

Just paid $400 for max tint--
 

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.

Obvious but unasked
 

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.

Yes, mine is a dark navy
 

...and so is the dash...

It must be the color...
 

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.