Does anyone have any ideas on why Honda would make the gearing SO different for the AT and the MT. The final drive ratios listed in the Fit brochure don't make any sense. why would the manual tranny fit be revving so much higher? I just ordered a MT so that won't change but this has been puzzling me.

 

Here's a quote from another thread:

the AT has longer gears and the MT has shorter gears, so AT = more suited for hwy and MT = more suited for city.

There's another thread on Fitfreaks that mentions this b/c people were comparing hwy driving of the AT vs. the MT. In the AT, most people posted that @ 80mph their tach read 2900~3200 RPM. In the MT, people posted that @ 80mph their tach read 3800~4000 RPM, a pretty big shift from the AT.

 

this is normal between MT and AT

MT is always much shorter that AT

 

yeah i was under that same impression

 

I cant believe how high the time MT buzzes at 80. I am really disapointed. when I bought the car all of the test drives were around town and not over 55. Man what to do now.

 

I test drove a manual fit on the freeway yesterday at about 80 and it seemed alright. I'm still not happy about the final drive ratio in 5th but highway MPG reports on the manuals still seem good. I still prefer a manual tranny for the overall driving experience, especially with a tiny engine. I ordered a Blackberry Pearl Sport MT almost two weeks ago and I'm not turning back!

 

been driving for a day now, around town it is a blast, feels like a scooter. on the highway though, 80 is 4grand buzzing along, little annoying, especially thinking the 09 is gonna fix the problem with torque increase at lower rpm. the little car is a hoot, gonna put 17's i have sitting around, that should help a little, very little. oh well, i have had a 82 civic 1300 fe and that thing would go 40+mpg and tach under 3g at 80, couldn't climb a mountain though, had to go to 2nd. my 89 crx hf would do 80 under 3g too but much better on the mountains. i dont know why the fit cant have that gearing especially with vtec

 

The canadian fit recently got better mileage. They said the tuning only affects the MT. I'm strongly certain this is adjusting the 5th gear ratio. It's too high. overdrive 80 should rev at 3000 at most. It's too noisy I can't have a conversation. The only thing I do to keep ignore it is to cover it up with loud music.

 

With all the, in my opinion, frivolous mods offered by Honda. I'd pay for longer gearing in the top two gears. It won't happen, of course, since that would affect the EPA fuel estimates and perhaps emissions. I didn't think it was so loud that I couldn't converse but my test drive only included 5 minutes of 80 MPH driving.

 

The A/T Fit in 4th @ 80 mph is also 4000 rpm. Yeah, right about there, the motor really starts to sing. I tried driving about 90 miles in 4th gear to get a feel for what the M/T is like. Sure is a heck of a lot more responsive than 5th gear.

You know, if you need to talk to the passenger... 75 mph is a lot quieter...
even the road noise at 80 is quite a bit. It's a small car you know...

 

I agree, one of the few things I don't like about the Fit is how high it revs in 5th gear above 75 mph. Your MPG also shoots way down at those speeds.

 

I would love to have the 5sp for the driving fun. But the auto will be best because I don't think I could tolerate hearing an engine reving for a long period of time without shifting..."shift already"