So I decided to make my own thread to keep all my Fit photos in one place. I bought this car in Nov. 2022 with a little under 22K miles on it.... About 21,850 or thereabouts. I needed a new(er) daily driver to replace my Cobalt which was experiencing serious rust issues. It had reached the point where I was worried one good bump would see it losing its rear axle! Totally rotted out along the whole length of the rocker panels and where the rear control arms attach. Yeah, they use a lot of salt here. I looked at a bunch of other vehicles and eventually wound up with the Fit. And I wound up liking it. Apparently the previous owner was an older lady who bought it at age 67 and she kept it for ten years. I'm the second owner. It's totally immaculate inside and out.

I should mention I have two other cars which I don't drive in the winter. They stay clean and dry in the garage while the designated daily driver gets the hazardous salty winter duties.

 

Right away I got some Bridgestone Blizzak tires on plain steel wheels, with some awesome sexy Autozone plastic hubcaps. Maybe the old lady who owned it before me didn't drive in the snow, but I;ll sure be doing so.

Cruised down to Peoria IL just to give the new tires a workout.

 

I play keyboards in a band, and it turns out the Fit is the first vehicle I've had which can hold all my gear comfortably. The keyboard stand fits without having to disassemble it!

 

I wonder if the Ferrari driver realized how cool of a car he was parking by?

 

I added a Scan Gauge III (because I hate the serious lack of gauges on this car!), a Progress rear sway bar and an Eco Hitch 2" hitch receiver so I can mount my bike rack. And some window tint.

 

Another central-IL trip..... These are all out of order because this is before I added the hitch and window tint.

 

We finally got some snow (and a LOT of salt):

 

That's a good looking Fit. I have day dreams of finding a super low mileage, grandma-owned GE8 Fit and preserving it, but sadly I don't have any loose change or storage space at the moment. I hear Blizzaks are good tires, but I'm not a fan of plastic hubcaps. I'll perfectly happy with the utilitarian look of winter steelies and they rust less if you can keep them clean.

If you want your daily driver to last, invest a bit of time in:
1) cleaning as often as possible. I used to jack my cars up after bad winter weather to spray underneath, but I'm getting older and colder, so I made an underbody sprayer mounted on tiny wheels that I can roll around under my Fit after winter drives. You obviously can't clean easily if it's 10F, but even in the frigid Midwest you usually get a warmer day ever week or two.
2) proactively applying products like FluidFilm, Woolwax, or PB Blaster Surface Shield to the underbody, suspension components, etc. Pay special attention to poorly designed "crap traps" such as the rear fender lips, the area in front of the rear wheels, as well as any holes in the unibody structure where salt and moisture can enter and get trapped. You won't go wrong coating the entire underside of the car, just make sure to avoid brake pads and rotors for obvious reasons. Avoid spraying yourself in the eyes, also for obvious reasons. You can find the PB Blaster product at the Home Depot for $11-12/aerosol can, and 3-4 cans go a long way on a small car like a Fit. I did two cars with about 6.75 cans.

 

Oh, definitely! You read my mind. The previous December, and again this past December, I coated the underneath of the car as well as I could with Surface Shield. I went so far as to remove any plastic panels that I could, and I got the little flexi tip so I could spray in various holes and such. Hopefully the spray makes a difference. I did see that it gets good reviews. I've gone the no-rustproofing route (car washes only) with other cars and they usually rust anyway even if it takes ten or fifteen years. I figured with this car I would go 180 degrees in the other direction and coat everything I could with Surface Shield. It's kind of handy being able to observe other Fits around town to see where they rust (like you said, in front of the rear wheels) so I could be attentive to those places.

I think come Springtime, I might powerwash the underneath of the car. The Surface Shield is kind of sticky and I don't want it attracting dirt which will just cause more problems later.

Thanks for looking!

 

Dirt does stick to it, but at least according to the reviews I read and watched on Youtube that is not supposed to affect the water/salt-repelling properties. It does make the underbody look a bit dirty, which may or may not be of concern. A bit of dirt and grime has to be better than rust holes.

My 2010 Fit is very clean underneath, but with the Surface Protect anything you touch is now greasy feeling and dirty. I guess that's the price you pay. As you suggested, I have a plan to clean off as much of the Surface Protect as possible from both cars next summer, let it breathe for a few months, and then reapply in the fall.

 

Hit 40,000 miles a few nights ago. In a couple more months, I will have doubled the mileage the car had on it when I bought it.




Then the next day I went to Michigan City which had about 18 inches of new snow overnight. There's a car buried under that pile on the right.

 

Then when I got home this was waiting for me on the porch. This would have been nice to have a few days ago when it was below zero!

 

I can't resist a photo from inside the car wash....

 

Not really an update, but it was an excuse for a photo. I went to Sweetwater Music in Indiana to look at new keyboards...56,000 miles exactly when I got there.

 

60K miles. I'll be doing brakes this weekend (just the fronts).

 

I like this thread! Keep up the good work.

 

Thanks! It's not a show car or a track car, so it doesn't get many mods.... No K swap, no turbo, etc. So most of my work on it is pretty routine. It's just a daily winter driver.

I was chasing some brake noise so I installed new rotors and new Made in USA Wagner pads. Brakes are perfect and quiet once again (I was down to about 2mm on the OEM Honda-branded pads which the P.O. and I sure got our money's worth from.

A couple comments: The Wagner pads came with new stainless mounting clips, which unfortunately didn't fit my calipers. It's probably a case of trying to use one part number for a bunch of different cars. Apparently they fit some better than others. So I cleaned and re-used my Honda originals. They're stainless, so they cleaned up nice.

Don't panic if you ruin the set screws that hold on the rotors. It really only takes a couple minutes to drill them out. New ones are available, but I didn't get them. I just reassembled everything without the screws (they're mostly there to keep the rotors from falling off while going down the assembly line). Similarly, I don't re-install the clips used on GM cars. No problem.

I'm sure we can all do brakes so I won't burden you with the rest of the photos which I didn't take anyway. Just this one.

 

I took the Fit to the last remaining Rax restaurant within several hundred miles.... Turns out there was a twin there also.

 

Recently I bought a Mightyvac fluid extractor, which is really handy for GM automatic transmissions, which don't have a drain plug; the usual procedure is to drop the pan to replace the fluid, which is a huge mess. The fluid extractor makes it super easy and doesn't spill a drop! So I decided to give it a try on the Fit as well. I did two fluid drains and re-fills, so that replaces the majority of my ATF. Maybe 2/3? I'm only at 64K miles so I'm sure the old stuff I sucked out is only a little due for replacement, but not too terrible.



I finally received my CR-Z lower splash shield after waiting for it about a month. I'd be installing it right now if the driveway wasn't soaking wet from the rain. Hopefully this nets me about 0.2 additional MPG.

 

I posted this photo elsewhere but forgot to post it here in my own thread.... I did like the kids do and upgraded my speakers. I got new Kicker door speakers and tweeters, and installed a JBL Basspro Nano. I'd never installed a sub before so it was fun learning all the wiring involved. Best part is how it fits here in this little area and looks like it might even be a factory option (I showed it to my brother and told him it was the "optional JBL premium audio package" LOL). It sounds great considering how little work I've actually done. I've since had to move it back nearly two inches so the rear seat can go all the way back to its reclined position.