Hello. Long-time Honda fan (and car owner), first-time Fit owner. I chose the Fit after coming to a realization after having our first child that I wanted more money to save and less money going into car payments on an expensive car. Because of that I traded in my Jetta GLI and picked up a Fit for a great deal. I chose a Fit because I've always been a fan of them and I'd like a car I can drive/autocross guilt-free which hasn't been the case with my last two cars (Focus ST, Jetta GLI).

The Fit is a 2012 Sport 5-speed with 45k miles. I got a great deal because the car is a bit on the rough side. The interior is filthy so I've been spending the week cleaning it up. A lot of seat scrubbing with shampoo, vacuuming, etc., trying to get all of the grime out of the seats. The people that owned it seemed to really use it for family use and the condition of it reflected that. Once done with the interior I have just as much work to do on the exterior. The body itself is in pretty good shape, but the paint hasn't seen much wax over it's time and it's swirl-city. I'm going to Dr. Colorchip the front to clean it up as well.

Long-term plans are to get a pretty decent suspension setup on it so I can autocross it, hopefully upgrade wheels to help with the looks, and outside of that just enjoy how cheap it is to own it.

Anyhoo, howdy. I'm sure I'll lurk more than anything but at least now I exist on the board. lol

 

Great looking GE!

Milano Red works so well on Hondas.

Welcome to the forum, keep us updated with your progress!

 

Welcome, and another STICK driver!!

 

Welcome! Manual tranny ftw

 

Thanks for the welcome, and I agree that driving a manual is FTW. I've owned one automatic my entire life and only owned that car for 6 months. I couldn't do it. We do have one automatic in the stable and that's my wife's Prius. She loves it, I love the gas mileage, and it transports our 5-month-old child around like a champ with plenty of interior room to spare.

I apologize for a lack of pictures, but after a couple of days of working on the inside of the car it looks great now. It took a lot of scrubbing, shampoo, even a baking soda treatment but the funky smell and multi-colored seats are no longer issues! I'll more than likely do another plastic cleaning here in a week or two but that's it for the interior. When I was done, my wife looked at it and said "Wait, these seats were black? Wow. I thought they were grey." Eww.

My focus now is on the mechanics of the car. I'm not sure what this thing was used for in it's previous life, but the rear shocks are completely trashed at 45,000 miles. In side-to-side movement both struts groan like their far older than they are and the rear suspension bottoms out over a pebble it seems like. Because of that I ordered the following "fun on a budget" setup:

Front and rear Koni STR.T struts.
New Monroe strut hat/bearings for the front struts.
Progress lowering springs.
Progress rear sway-bar.
Eibach alignment/camber kit for the front so I can dial in some more camber.

All of that and I'll still be rocking the 185 Bridgestone Turanza tires that are on the car. This should be interesting. I'd like wheels and tire at some point but reading up on what works and what doesn't with this car is a gigantic pain in the ass. Sounds like anything and everything rubs unless you run a pretty weak offset.