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It provides 13 cublic feet of rear storage with sufficient height, which could be used hold a full size spare tire with rim and extra gas cans for a trip I am considering to the arctic where gas stations are few and far between and pointy shale rocks often puncture tires.
According to the dimensions, its length of 40 inches easily fits between the two rear brake lights, eliminating the need to wire brake lights externally on this rear cargo carrier. Plus it also sits above the bumper compared to hitch based cargo carriers, which is an advantage considering the low clearance of the Honda Fit.
Although it does cover the rear licence plate, it does have a pocket that the licence plate can relocate to. However one would need to figure out a way to illuminate the licence plate in that pocket if one uses it to drive at night.
I think that the biggest issue is how to properly secure it on the Honda Fit, which is not a recommended vehicle for this product.
Instead of securing it to the roof and underbody of the car, as is recommended for this product, it seems that it should be possible to run straps through the top and bottom of the Honda Fit's rear hatch door and find places such as the top and bottom rear seat belt mounts to anchor it securely.
Does anyone have any thoughts on this. Would running straps through the rear hitch result in rain dripping in? What about possible damage to the Fit's rear hatch door?
I am not as concerned regarding blocking my rear view mirror with this, since I previously drove twice cross country in the winter in below freezing snowy conditions with my fully packed Fit with my rear view completely blocked, and was able to manage without issues.
The photos on the rightlinegear website that you linked show that it can be hooked to the front lip on the hatch as an alternative to strapping to a roof rack bar. So, it might work. But, you'll have a lot of weight cantilevered behind the Fit's rear suspension. The car will squat down in back and the front will be unweighted somewhat. That will impact handling and could make the car hard to manage, even more so in rain or snow. I wouldn't want to drive it with the weight of a full size spare and gas cans back there.
Also, if you have a Fit Sport with rear spoiler, the spoiler won't support the weight. You'll have to remove the spoiler and maybe tape over the mounting holes to keep water out.
Lot's of negatives here. I'd look into a trailer hitch and a small trailer instead.
I agree with the previous post. For the situation you describe I would pick a small trailer (look for a lightweight motorcycle trailer) 100% of the time vs the product you linked to. A full spare plus a extra fuel is a heavy load to be hanging off the back of a Fit, either mounted to a hitch or in some sort of bag. If a trailer is not possible for you, I would also prefer a roof rack over the bag thing. With the rack I would organize my load to put the weight (spares, fuel, etc) loaded low inside the car and light objects on the rack. If you don't want any of that, I would remove the passenger and rear seat to reduce weight (i.e., increase payload) and try to fit the entire load inside.
Just FYI, if my rough-road experience is at all normal it's not a bad idea to have two spare tires for a trip like the one you're planning. If you decide to go far a trailer, it's worth your time to select one (or modify the hubs) so that you can mount the same wheels on the car and trailer.
On a more general note, there's no way I would want a large bag or various straps rubbing against my car day after day. Add some dust and moisture and you will quickly have a mess on your hands.
While I'm here, I'll go ahead and add that if you're thinking about hanging bags off the outside of your Fit to manage your cargo you might have found a rare task that the Fit is not a good... fit for.
And, you might be concerned that a trailer won't do well on the rough roads up north. But realistically, with the Fit's low ground clearance, anything the Fit can go over wouldn't be a problem for a trailer. Here's my trailer behind the Fit. It has tiny 8 inch wheels (and a very long tongue for kayaks) but even those 8 inch wheels handle rutted dirt roads OK at low speed. A trailer with larger wheels would handle rougher terrain better than the Fit itself.
