Hey all! This forum helped me out a bunch while I was doing my car research. I'm currently a college senior and I bought my 2015 Fit EX on Friday. I haven't been able to drive it much, but so far I love it. I was between the Fit and a 2014 Prius, and ultimately thought the Fit would be the car that would fit my needs throughout my twenties.

Anyway, I came into the car dealership Friday afternoon and spent around 4 hours just going through the usual car buying process.

My final out the door price was 20,500, including licensing, taxes, etc (I'm in MD). I don't exactly remember what I got the base price of the car down to, but I'm generally happy that my final price ended up to be something I'm comfortable with.

I put 5k down and I financed my car with an abhorrently high APR of 5.9% (I have only had a credit card for 2 years, so I don't have a lot of credit history)

My current plan is to refinance my loan and get something with an APR less than 2% or to pay off the entire thing after a few months so that I can get a boost to my credit. I do have the money to pay off my car, but then I would be using all of my rainy day savings, and I kind of want to just have at least 10k on hand.

Also, since I rushed out of the dealership after I decided that I was paying $20,500 on this car, I missed out on what they told me about tire rotations and oil changes and stuff. Is it standard that Honda does this for free for a couple years or should I email my salesperson and ask what the deal is with that stuff for me.

Lastly, although I love my car so far, there is one thing that's really been bothering me. The right seat has a noticeable gap between the seat and back cushion. Does anyone else have this? Is this something that can get fixed, or is it just normal since the right seat is "attached" to the middle seat.

Here are pictures for reference.

Right rear seat with gap: (link: http://imgur.com/M64d5pD )

Left rear seat for comparison (link: http://imgur.com/N7uCS9l )

Lastly, the last six digits of my car's VIN is 718425. I saw the other VIN thread on the forum, and I assume that my car is relatively new so there shouldn't be any problems with that recall business that I'm also hearing about?

Sorry for the long post, thanks for reading!

 

I don't believe the 2 year maintenance is standard - but I would call them. Some dealers do it some don't. Mine was negotiated during the sales process and they included it for me.


As to your rear seat - no that doesn't look correct. One thing you may want to try is putting the seat down and then trying to re-lock it into its normal position. It might be that the seat isn't fully locked into position. Also note, that if you lift the lock mechanism up you can also push back on the seat to force it back a small amount. I found that this closes the gap between the back seat and the cargo cover... Hope that might do it for you...

 

I can't check right now, since I have two mountain bikes in the back of my Fit, but it looks like one of your seat belt buckles may be under that seat, creating the gap. You should lift the seat up and see if you have a buckle stuck there.

 

It's not the buckle. Under that gap is that metal bar or something. I tried to push the gap in and stuff and I don't know how to fix it. I hope they didn't just give me a car with a wonky seat.

 

If they said they were providing maintenance, then get the info. Honda does not do that standard like Toyota does.

Careful with refinancing. Make sure to consult a professional. Many loans have prepayment penalties that you'd have to pay to switch to a different loan. Also interest is front-loaded so it's more advantageous to do it in the beginning. Calculate your interest savings between the loan you have and another you think you can qualify for. For an inexpensive car, 1 or 2% change in interest rate might not equate to very much difference.

 

An auto loan won't have prepayment penalties, but the issue when you refi an auto loan is that you are then financing a "used" car and likely won't quality for the lower interest rates. A credit union will sometimes lower interest rates to earn business.

 

Check out credit unions. Their interest rates are usually way better than for-profit banks.