Negative, car companies follow a test given to them on rented rollers (I think on this side of the country Audi is one of the few that have the facility, other makes rent time in it). It is actually company employees conducting the test, not the EPA.

So you can make some room for conspiracy theories

Source: R&D employees from a facility and company I will leave unnamed.

 

I agree that MOST of the things I want can be added to the car. As you know I own the car, I am not making excuses for not buying one...I bought it and am glad I did. Some things are not this simple though, to buy and add. Even HIDs, which for nearly every other car on the planet I can jump online, drop $500-1000 and have a beautiful high quality plug and play set at my door in two days, instead I have to retrofit myself to get a nice set...annoying and time consuming. This links back to lack of aftermarket support.

-semi-fast, 0-60 under 6.5 ideally
How do I buy and add this to my Fit? Custom turbo kit that kills my reliability and maintenance and costs a fortune? I would need to K-swap and it's obnoxiously expensive and difficult unless you can do most the work yourself. Then I could probably say hello to 25mpg too. Aftermarket forced induction is not a viable option for me, I put 30k+ miles a year on the car. Even the K-swap is a dicey option. If there is a shop near Tampa that has a motor swap answer for me please PM me. My budget is nearly unlimited but I do care about VALUE. $10,000 for a K-Swap is not a good value to me.


-Bluetooth
Yeah I am going to drop $500-$1k swapping out the stock head unit just to add bluetooth, and still retain functionality of my other stuff. Not to mention it will probably look like garbage unless I go with a very expensive touch screen unit. An aux input bluetooth dongle is NOT a good solution either. I am looking for the stock unit from the EX-L w/navi and stock bluetooth stuff with it as that will probably be the best solution. Yeah, it'll be $1000 too probably.

-Cooled seats (oh well)
Had this priced out and would run me about $3k to get nice perf leather seats with ventilation. Not exactly cost effective when this is like a $500 option on cars that offer it. If they will do nice white contrasted stitching and do the leather all over the dash and doors too I would then find $3k to be a good value. Instead, I just ordered some Clazzios last week to see how I like those.

-Sunroof (might go aftermarket some day, will prob just pick up another S2000 to get wind in my hair)
Aftermarket sunroofs have been plagued with problems forever. I don't want to deal with this. If someone makes a nice sunroof option for this car and guarantees it against leaks for life please PM me, I will gladly shell out the money for it.

-4 wheel discs
Yeah, this is POSSIBLE, but it's not exactly like there's a kit to go online and order and drop my car off for half a day to install. You can source all your own parts and jump through a bunch of hoops to make it work right (will it even work right when all is said and done? ABS, stability control, etc, who knows).

-Aftermarket support (Fit is ok here but pretty disappointing performance upgrades available)
Yeah, let me add aftermarket support? How, buy a custom auto company and tell them to make more stuff for the GE8?

Overall I love this car and hopefully can tweak enough things to make me want to keep driving it for a decade. I almost broke down and bought an Audi S4 two weeks ago but forced myself to sleep on it and talked myself out of it...then used that to justify ordering a bunch of stuff I want in the Fit (Clazzios, LED tails, HID retrofit).

 

I said the EPA tests TO DETERMINE ACCURACY. They test to verify the results of the car companies...who are performing the test MANDATED by the EPA. The companies don't just post whatever MPG numbers they want or test the MPG using their own methods.

According to fueleconomy.gov the EPA tests about 10-15% of vehicles themselves to verify the results.

The whole point is the EPA is designing the test, and it is on rollers, not a real world test. They determine the parameters by which companies test, and test vehicles themselves to make sure companies are doing it right.

Now conspiracies can go multiple ways...maybe the 10-15% they test are never American cars and they just take them at their word. I doubt this would work as it would be way too obvious. Instead, I think the test is engineered to favor American cars OR that American car companies engineer their cars to maximize the scores on the EPA test and not real world driving experience.

Why the EPA tests seem to bear no correlation to real world driving MPG is anyone's guess, as is why the EPA feels this invented test is more relevant to consumers than real world driving...

But we are not entitled to answers, because the government only has to answer to...get this...the government

 

10-15% of new models? That's not very many. They don't "take their word for it" lol they have test data they have to send to the EPA from the rollers. If they don't do the test right they have to start over again.

It is impossible to give scientific results using real world driving, thus the test on rollers, because it is standardized. The cars are operated by humans on the rollers though, so I guess that gives a tiny bit of variation (not much or the test is auto aborted and they have to do it again).

By design, some cars will do better on the test than others and won't show their true real world potential. Exhibit 1: Honda Fit.

 

All my Fits have had a problem with the front skirt scrapping the uneven
clearance between the roadway and any driveway. Any one else got two cents on complaint about it. Funny though the 2 cyclinder Honda coupe's I had ( 4 of them over the years ) never scrapped bottom.

 

The 2011 honda Fit sport I had could not handle the roadway without getting a flat if it scrapped the curb. Always dented the wheel, which never occurred with the steel wheels on the 2009. Anyone else have that
problem?

 

My only complaint so far in my '15 Fit: There is no master interior light control. In my old car I had an easily accessible switch I could hit that turned on all of the interior lights. Sounds unnecessary but I used it all the time. In the Fit, you have to manually turn on each light you want.

It's irritating because the lights all go on when the door is opened, so I know there is some control system that can override the actual switch position on an individual light. I wish they had also put a master switch that would do the same thing.

Very minor complaint. I love the car. May it last a million miles!

 

I posted once before but thought of one more thing.

Again, it is really a minor complaint, and I love the car overall but:

I hate the driver side window auto-open function. If you go to open the widow a bit for some ventilation, it continues to open until you hit the 'up' button to stop it and then it's open too far. I know, I know if you bump the down switch ju-u-u-st right it wont happen, but most of the time it does, and why they equip cars with this annoying feature I do not know.

 

Yeah that happens to me too - almost daily! I have a small slope in my driveway and it always surprises me that the skirt hits the pavement on the way out. That's got to cause damage after a wile.

 

I would never have guessed anyone had a problem with this feature. I use it all the time and would have asked for this feature if they didn't have it. Maybe your switch is too touchy... both my 08 and 09 have distinct detentions that are easy to feel.

 

Hmmm - I think that might be it, perhaps I could have the dealer look at it. Or I'll try it in a different FIT.

My old car (Toyota RAV4) had the same feature, but was not as sensitive. Since I usually only crack the windows open, I have never been able to figure out why they even do this, or why not make it a switchable option.

 

Just curious: What did you do for an armrest, mikearonis13? Did you buy an aftermarket one, and are you satisfied with it? If so, could you please provide a link to the store? Many thanks!

 

I haven't even thought about the arm rest on the driver's side, I guess, because I tend to use the top of the door panel-window ledge with the window rolled down. I don't know of an after market source. I can't imagine that such an additon would be very sightly, though.

 

you can get armrests from your dealer. my '12 came with arm rest on the driver side which i never use.

 

Thanks for the info, Kenchan. I'd never considered it. I'll take a look. I've also been interested in some of older conversations regarding hitches and towing. I currently us a car mounted bike rack, but would like to pull a small Harbor Freight type trailer on occasion. I have a manual tranny on my new '15 EX

 

Kenchan and redtailhawk, actually, I was talking about an armrest for the driver's right arm. From what I can tell from photos at Honda's website and comments from users here, the Fit's center console is much too low to act as a right-arm rest, and the stock driver's seat has no right-arm rest. Am I mistaken? If so, then great.

If not, though, and there is an aftermarket right-arm rest available that would fit the Fit, unsightliness would not matter to me. Comfort would.

 

My new '15 EX has a small right arm rest. The top is padded and is the cover to a storage box beneath. I find it ok as an arm rest, although, I'm not used to using one on the right side. I guess that's because none of my previous cars has had them.

Some one asked what I don't like about the new fits. A couple of niggly things, like they have removed the cup holder on the passenger's side of the day that was on the '13 model. A very convenient place to place your coffee cup. Fortunately they did keep the drivers' side holder at least.

The only other issue so far( two days) has been that neither they nor I can make the voice command- cell phone system work. I'm too old for that stuff, and they're not up to speed. A young sales gal is going to research it to see if it's our not properly following instructions or whether it might be the system itself. Specifically, it's supposed to allow me to uplift all the data from my cell smart phone and it's not doing it. I also can't enter entrees manually that work. I used the speed dial function because that was the only choice offered and the system says there are no entries there, yet, I've manually programmed in 8. Any whiz kids out there?

 

The rearview camera on my 2015 LX has such a wide angle view... that a car that is actually only a few feet behind me appears on camera to be parked somewhere on the next block back. It makes you think that you have to back up a LONG way to get near him. That car doesn't look "big" until just a second before you smash into his grill. I think this is just the opposite message you SHOULD be getting. I would much prefer a more normal view instead of the wide angle view--for at least ONE of the three views offered.

The camera IS good for spotting children playing behind you. If you see THAT, any smart driver is going to not budge until that situation is rectified.

 

I've had my 2015 fit for a little over a week now, she has almost 700 miles on her lol. I was on vacation and we had to take the new ride. She's averaging 39.5 mpg mainly highway. I bought this car as a second car for us, I work from home so I rarely need a car but when I do I have to travel so I gave the crv to my husband.

Ok my complaint after driving it extended distances--- arm rest.


That's about it for comfort, she surprisingly handled the highway well, so well we were going 85. I have to watch that I don't want a ticket.


My only other complaint which is more of a concern is that the covering for the spare tire and the support for the jack is all styrofoam, hoping that holds up.

 

I live in a hilly area and have a steep driveway. After 36K miles my front spoiler is worn through from the brief scrape at every entrance or exit. I just replaced the tires on my 2011 Fit Sport MT, and opted for one size larger 195-55R16 (from 185-55R16). Not sure if I would scrape if the spoiler were'nt worn, but it doesn't now. Bonus from the change is that my cruising rpm is 5% lower, and for some reason the speedo didn't lose calibration. It still is perfect vs my GPS.