Hi everyone, first off, I love my fit and i think its just an amazing car

I have Skunk2 shocks installed on it and i decided not to remove them for winter ( i might do it next week but id rather keep it dropped since it looks so good )

Yesterday, we had a lot of snow outside and while i was driving, i kept seeing my headlights dim a little bit when i ran into spots where the snow was higher on the road.

Is that really bad ?? I don't want to mess up my Fit just for looks ... but id still like some input from you guys before i do anything(such an active forum )

Oh, also, i have the Sport Fit so its even lower (with the skirts)

One last question i had was : is it really bad for the under-car to sometimes drag some snow ???

Jp

ps: sorry for bad english...

 

I Live In Chicago And I Just Lowered Mine. I Have Not Had Any Problems At All, I Dont Have A Sport Though So Its Not Quite As Low.

 

im going to lower me in a few days.

that dimming you were seeing mightve been just the defroster kicking on
the a/c compressor... or if you have a MT, you might've been under
rev'ed for that gear.

 

Same Fit in the same winter as you... I dropped it last year
durring the winter and kept it one day, yes 24H in the snowy
Quebec... Back in my garage for the OEM lift

Dropped Fit in Canadian winter = you gonna scrape the he||
out of it... Oh no, the front lip...

Philippe

 

In Calgary, no problems to date.

 

i might run the stock wheels/tires though if i scrape the car wash rails...
i got some aftermarket wheels/tires for it and not sure if the 5mm is
going to make a difference (195/50/15').

if i don't scrape, i'll keep using the 195/50/15's.

 

you shouldn't have any real problems, just make sure when you're pulling into parking spots that you know how far in you're pulling if theres snow, you don't want to hit the curb. Also watch out taking corners where the snow is plowed funny and you may not see a curb/large pothole/rocks in the road

 

Watch out for the Ice that builds up around peoples wheel wells and drops on the road (road turds) swerve around them, this is the only problem i have had and I live near barrie. Some people take of their front lip?

 

i just has this happen last week, it was horrible and froze so i was sitting there for 20 minutes chipping away at ice

 

Wow, this is a really active forum Thanks all for replies

I actually live in Quebec and it snowed quite alot lately ... Thankfully i have the front bra for the car which i think is a must during the winters here..
I didn't have any problems last winter (also dropped) but it was really crappy weather (ice and wet snow) no big amounts of snow like this year.
This year is a little crazy .. a week ago we got 30 cm in one day . i was unable to get out of my driveway and i was too lazy to plow it myself since someone was supposed to come and do it lol :P

The reason i was panicking a little about the lights dimming .. was because it happened only on one side exactly as i hit a hole on the road and some snow probably went under the bumper on that particular side. (it happened once on each side on the same night ) Like the headlights and fog lights on one side dimmed at the same time really more that when the ac or fan kicks in. and after that it smelled like burnt a little inside my car a little bit.

When i came home, i opened the hood and there was some snow lying on the bottom of the protection bumper in front, where the fog lights are attached. The wires were right there and maybe some snow got in the way and touched the cables.

I really want to try to avoid that kind of situation I love my fit so much i dont want some stupid snow to mess up my circuits. but will 1.5 inch reall make a big difference ??

oh .. im running on stock size rim (not stock rim but same size) and the tires are 195-55-15 goodyear eagle ultra grip .. they work very well


Jp

ps: i forgot to mention i use silverstar as headlights bulbs .. dunno if they draw more power or something ..

 

man you guys have to go through a lot in these cold winters huh? now i appreciate the weather in SoCal a lot more.

 

I also got hit hard a week ago our town was shut down, first we got hit with about 6 inches of snow, then ice rain for about 8 hours, then about 16 inches of snow. Not even snowmobles were out due to the poor visability. The roads were not even drivable till about 10-11pm that night.

 

that sounds pretty close to what happened here, the ice storm knocked out a lot of power.

i love my fit and i love winter, but i do not love combining the two.

 

i love the snow but when i drive to wisconsin in late january i think the fit is gonna stay here in sunny north carolina. i dont want to but the beater buick is my better option seeing i dont want to destroy my lip on all the crappy roads we have in wisco around where i live. im on skunks aswell and i already scrape on damn near everything out here and i can see whats comming. i can only image whats gonna happen when i cant see what im about to hit. lol

 

yah, well i dont have to worry about emblems getting stolen on the street. (i use to live in torrance. )

 

Some snow and salty slush is always going to get into places it can do damage, and it will eat up your car no matter what. So it seems, anyway. I used to drive a big 4x4, quite a bit more ground clearance than the Fit, and it still eventually lost some wiring to that problem.

My Fit isn't lowered, but I still went with winter tires one size taller than stock, just to get through the snow a bit better. I often get to drive on roads that haven't been plowed, plus I'm often too lazy to clear out the driveway properly. So the underside of the car is in contact with snow and ice fairly often. I took a look at it to see what it's done, and it seems to be not too bad. The plastic undertray at the front, and that little thing that sticks down at the rear are thoroughly scratched up, but everything else looks fine. Of course, I've also scraped the underside on some uneven dirt roads too, so it's not all from snow. I'm sure it'll be fine, Hondas are supposed to be indestructable, right? Eh well, nothing lasts forever.

 

Hey Lightarrow

Mine is lowered with Eiback spring this winter I remove the front lip what a difference a inch does took me about 10 minute and give me a little peace of mind.

 

K well I'm not toooooo sure about this, but you're lights might be dimming because of the lower temperature outside. It my also be dimming cause you're ac is using up power too. I'm not too sure though... anyone back this up? hahaha

hope this helps? If it's incorrect I am sorry.

 

Hey, thanks for replies guyes .. i think im going to remove my front lip for now and see what it does. It's really that easy ?? i was also tinking about removing the side skirts but they don't seem to be too much of a problem.

If that isnt enougn then ill have to ask my cousin to help me and put the stock shocks back on (hope not because the look is just slick with skunks)

Thanks again for replies ...

For the lights dimming it really was a pack of snow that hit or touched some electric cables, The dimming was really bad compared to when the ac kicks in or when i krank my subwoofer too much
And it was only on one side at the time so ...

It didnt happen anymore .. but ill watch out for it

Jp

 

I drive my truck if we get a REALLY big dump of snow and wait for the roads to get plowed or packed down before I take my Fit out.

Now that being said, I have had it out in the fresh stuff and while I'm sure it dragged some snow at times, I'm not too worried about it. You simply can't avoid it in a climate like ours in Canada. I'd be more worried about hitting ice chunks with the front skirt and stuff like that. I doubt fresh snow or powder will do any damage. If it did, most every car in Canada would be out of comission come Spring time. There are lots of cars on the road with similar ground clerance to our Fit's.

The other thing I do is try to wash it periodically throughout the winter. This will help get the salt and dirt off of the vehicle so it can't just sit there for months doing its thing. Trust me, once Spring/Summer comes and you get that first coat of wax on the Fit and it's all cleaned up nice, you won't even notice it went through a Canadian winter . . . so long as you are reasonable and careful about driving it in the winter (i.e. don't drive through the crap that plows pile up on the side of the road, etc.).