Ladies and Gents,

As the title says, I am looking for advice and suggestions from all your knowledge lot. Although I have never been a part of this community before and this is my first post, hopefully you would still give a little help.

So., here are the details.
I had my Honda Fit GP1 (2012) She's edition since of 2014. So., essentially 10 years and I have done 250,000 + Kms on it. It has been an fantastic car and always been rock solid reliable albeit except for few of my own stupid eff ups. Now that I have used it for 10 years means this is going to be with me for a long while. So, I am going to spend some good money, time and get some professionals to give the whole car a new make do. Let me list down the things I have done (recently) and the once I have recognized that I need to sort out. What I am specifically looking for is for your expert knowledge in giving me some input in case if I missed any.

Things I have done recently. (with in the last 3 years)
1. Replaced the front break pads (done 2 months back and this is my 3rd set)
2. Replaced the break booster and the break fluid tank (done 3 years ago)
3. Did the whole oil ring factory fault thing long time back, so that's done and over with.
4. Replaced the front wheel hub, both sides (6 months ago)
5. The usual service, oil changed, AC refills, Transmission oil changes etc done as and when needed.

Things I feel I need to get done
1. The whole car to be repainted (not going to change the colour, but going to get the whole thing newly painted)
2. Change the Spark plugs
3. Get the lights cleaned and install new headlights - the bulbs (please tell me where I can order originals or look for when I buy them because my local market is flooded with counterfeits)
4. The IMA bulb comes up after around 1 hour driving and it started about 3 months back, I need to get that checked and I dont know what it is all about still.
5. I feel like I need to do an anticorrosive spray job underneath the car., I am not living near a costal area but still??? Please advice
6. Need to install a new engine guard.
7. Will install a new Audio player
8. I want to install some extra sound deafening form between the panels, but I dont know if I should?? ... any ideas?
9. New seat covers / carpets
10. The side mirror motor doesnt always seems to work. Started recently. Need to get it sorted or replaced.

So. Apart from a laymen (me) point of view of things to done., are there any specific, mission critical things I need to get checked out / replaced/ changed ???

Your input will be extremely helpful.

ps. If it helps, I am planning to spend probably around USD 1500-2000 for all this or more if I need to

 

To be honest, Fits can last a long time and, by U.S. standards, 250K km is about average mileage for a 10 year old car. But it's ten years old and stuff is going to start bending or breaking. If USD 2000 is all you can spend you have some choices to make. I would give the repaint, audio, and sound deadening the lowest priority. The mirror may be a nuisance, but only you can decide if it's worth looking for a used replacement mirror or buying an aftermarket version.

Spark plugs are a consumable item just like tires, struts, batteries, etc. Replace them. Check out the IMA light issue. It may be a cheap fix; it may be costly enough to make you reconsider spending more money on the car. Honda does not make it easy to find a schedule of service but if you've been looking at the maintenance minder display, the owner's manual decodes what your technician needs to check on the car.

Clearing up the headlights is a safety issue; do that. Polish the lenses (there are kits out there designed to do just that; check local auto parts stores). Polishing is never as good a solution as replacing the lenses but it's much cheaper and you don't risk a bad seal allowing water to corrode the inside of the lamp. You should be able to find proper bulbs like Osrams there, too. Use halogen bulbs as they're what the car came with. Changing to LED bulbs in a car not designed for them could be a pain and some trial-and-error to figure out if they're causing problems elsewhere in the car. If the headlights have been good for 10 years, don't mess with the system.

Thing is, it's a 10 year old car. If a meteor came out of the sky tomorrow and crushed your Fit 😟, how much would the insurance pay you? You should think about how much money you want to put into the car compared to its current value. Spending many hundreds on a paint job on such an old car will never pay back. Stick with fixing what keeps you safe and keeps the car useful to you.

 

Thanks for the reply.,

I am sorry for the long delay, I am in a totally different time zone... almost a day ahead of US.

My country went through a massive recession recently and the government had placed an embargo on importing vehicles. So, the second hand market has skyrocketed. Tbh, I can literally sell this car right now without ever so much washing it to around 20,000 USD. So spending 2000 USD to isn't much of a stretch to keep it working good.

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I agree. But I was hoping for the paint job to be not included in the 2k usd. I put that down on the list because I was hoping to get it done as well.

As I said, it's rather difficult to find originals here. Chinese fakes have absolutely flooded the market. The original distributors has set crazy prices simply because "they can". I want to actually order them off a reputed dealer or a site. But I actually dont know how or what to search for. What I meant by that is when I search, it comes with lumens, fixture plug type etc etc which I cannot make heads or tails out of. Is there anywhere I can just ... you know.. select my car version and click, click, click and I can just order?? And The originals the came with are long gone and now on a third set of the fakes. The other issue with fake lights are that they burnout within a year.


Now this., could you kindly explains to me this part of what you said and referring to please?

 

Before I bought my Fit (used) I drove my previous car for 21 years. There was a lot of maintenance done over the years and some parts, like suspensions and brakes, had to be replaced more than once. Over time some bigger parts broke (like the air conditioning compressor and the fuel pump). I decided to replace the car because it needed so many repairs that I could not do myself that I was better off spending that money on a newer car (plus I wanted a car that was better in accidents and so on).

If you truly could sell your car now for USD 20,000 you have more options to decide how long to keep it and how much you can spend to keep it in good condition. It may even pay to repaint the car, though in the US a quality paint job would cost several thousands of dollars so that's not something we'd do on an older car unless it was really valuable (like a classic car or luxury car). Then again, 12 year old Fits don't go for 20,000 here.

As for parts, it's possible a local authorized Honda dealer would still have parts. They would be expensive but they would be genuine. Otherwise I think you just have to shop carefully. I would think a shop that sells auto parts has an interest in not selling low quality parts because that would hurt their reputation. I would not buy from Amazon or Ebay if you have those because it's too easy for scammers to misrepresent what they're selling. You might also try ordering from outside your country if shipping and import fees aren't too expensive. Think of it as the extra you pay for the real authentic part. You could try looking at US Web sites for auto parts, like rockauto.com or napaonline.com. They let you narrow down the selection by year and model. You would just have to know what US model your Fit is like and realize that some parts (like headlamps would be US specification and not necessarily the same in your country).

The sad news on headlight bulbs is that there are even name-brand bulbs sold in the US that don't last longer than a year. I don't know if they sell them in your country, but I have had good luck with Wagner bulbs and Osram bulbs, but not Sylvania bulbs. I try not to buy the brightest bulbs a company sells. They usually make them the brightest by pushing too much electricity into them so they fail sooner.

I'm not sure exactly which generation Fit you have. I'm not quite sure what "She's edition since of 2014" from your first post means. In the US (where I am), the 2012 and 2013 models were generation 2 (GE/GG). There was no 2014; the 2015 started off the third generation (GK) for us. So I'm not sure which model you have.

On my GK, there is a section of the instrument panel that displays codes when the car decides maintenance is needed. And apparently Fit users go by that because I've seen very few tables that list mileages and recommended services like I've seen for the other cars I've owned. It will display a wrench symbol and some numbers/letters and the owner's manual describes what service is needed (oil and filter change, inspect serpentine belt, and so on). Your Fit may not have that. I'd rather have the table than keep looking for the wrench symbol but that's not how Honda wants to do it in the US, I guess. Anyway, it's hard to get a really good idea of what maintenance may be coming up soon the way that works.

I wish I could be more help, but it's hard to know exactly what the market is like where you live. I hope this helps at least a little bit.

 

Is GP1 the JDM (or some other?) version of 2nd gen/GE Fit? OP says they're from Sri Lanka so maybe it's something like this? https://riyasewana.com/buy/honda-fit...hawela-8505670
That's indeed $22k which is absolutely nuts.

Generally you just have to do the scheduled maintenance, like oil and filter changes, or valve adjustment (not sure about your engine) and any safety systems that break. Check your manual. Nothing on your list (other than maybe the headlights) falls under that.

From the list, only these are pretty expensive/questionable return:
1. The whole car to be repainted (not going to change the colour, but going to get the whole thing newly painted)
5. I feel like I need to do an anticorrosive spray job underneath the car., I am not living near a costal area but still??? Please advice
8. I want to install some extra sound deafening form between the panels, but I dont know if I should?? ... any ideas?

In the US/Europe, all of this would be pretty expensive due to labor costs. Why do you want to repaint it? Do cars rust where you live? If not much, then don't bother. Installind sound deadeing is a lot of work and seems to have pretty limited impact.

Everything else is pretty cheap and definitely worth doing on a $20k car, especially if you can do some stuff yourself.