Email Picture

The best subcompact on the market is slightly larger, vastly stiffer, noticeably more quiet and comfortable, and every bit as dorky-looking as the previous edition. But what a view from the cockpit.
By DAN NEIL, RUMBLE SEAT
August 22, 2008
» Discuss Article (10 Comments)

Honda is the guy selling umbrellas on the corner when it starts to rain. The lady selling flowers when you're late for an anniversary dinner. The vendor selling fire extinguishers when your underwear bursts into flames.

Shrewdly anticipating the utterly obvious and inevitable, Honda was ready for the recent surge in gas prices in all ways but one: It didn't have enough cars on the lot. Honda has had the highest U.S. fleet average fuel efficiency for the last 15 years and has, with admirable restraint, avoided stuffing gas-aholic V-8s into the trim little noses of its cars.

• Photos: 2009 Honda Fit
  
  
• Photos: Hot for 2009: 5 cars to...
  
  

• AUTOS A-Z: HONDA
• DAN NEIL RUMBLE SEAT

So when people started panicking about fuel prices this year, there were the brightly lit and cheerful Honda dealerships, arising like Homer's rosy-fingered dawn. I went by my local Honda store a month ago and it looked like it was hosting a cockfight.

The company's hottest product is the Fit, a small, modest, lumpen prole of a car that just happens to be one of the best-engineered vehicles on the planet. It tells us something fundamental about the changing tastes of the American market that Fit sales are up 73% this year, while you couldn't give a Cadillac Escalade away if you filled it with mermaids.

Honda has basically sold out of the 2008 model-year Fits and is rushing the new, redesigned 2009 models to dealerships now, a month earlier than planned. Honda projects that Fit sales in the U.S. will be around 85,000 units this year. I shudder to think how hard management is caning those poor devils at the plant in Suzuka, Japan, where U.S.-bound Fits are made.


The brief: The Fit is a subcompact hatchback, in the same aquarium with minnows such as the Nissan Versa, Scion xD and Suzuki SX4 Wagon. The base price for the 2009 Honda is $15,220 (including delivery) -- $600 more than the 2008 model. The top-shelf Fit, the Sport model with navigation and stability control, will sell for $18,760. And -- here it is, drum roll please -- the fuel economy is 35 miles per gallon highway, 28 mpg city for the base model, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. The Sport won't do quite as well, with 27/33 mpg, city/highway. That's what bigger wheels and tires (rolling resistance) and spoilers and side sills (aero resistance) will do for you.

After spending a day test-driving a 2009 Fit Sport in and around Malibu and Pacific Palisades, I can report that the new Fit is slightly larger, vastly stiffer, noticeably more quiet and comfortable, and every bit as dorky-looking as the previous edition. Honestly, this thing couldn't get a date for the prom with duct tape and a burlap sack. But that's part of its counterintuitive charm.

I will say one thing for the looks. In the engineers' desire to give the Fit "Man-Maximum" ergonomics -- their phrase -- they have expanded the forward cabin area and raked the front window like the futuristic Honda Clarity fuel-cell car. It's cool. Also, by raising the headliner height, slimming the A pillars and enlarging the quarter windows, the designers have increased the outward visibility by 10%.

What's that all mean? The vibe from the cockpit is open, unoppressed and glassine, a luxury of dimension in what is really a very small car.

When the Fit appeared in the U.S. in 2006 (it was already selling well in Japan), Honda rhapsodized about the car's "Magic Seat," which sounds like an endowed chair at Hogwarts but is actually the clever, multi-position rear seat mechanisms. These have evolved somewhat. Now, thanks to new flip-down headrests, the rear seat backs can be folded flat with just a turn of a latch, even if the front seats are pushed all the way back (i.e., you don't have to remove the rear headrests).

The 2009 car's additional millimeters of wheelbase translate directly to rear knee and leg room. I'm 6-foot-1, and I had no trouble moving from the driver's seat to occupy the left rear seat, what's called "sitting behind myself."

The Fit's rear seat bottom still flips up vertically against the rear seat back to allow stowage of tall items, such as plants and bikes, up to 50 inches in height. Even with the rear seats upright, the Fit's rear cargo space still measures a huge 20.6 cubic feet.

As for driving, the Fit has the metabolism and genetic code of all Hondas: well made, well tuned, well sorted, invested with the lifeblood of a thousand nameless Japanese engineers suffering from acute insomnia. Nothing is casually decided in a Honda, nothing is temporized. Some number-haunted wretch has agonized over every yen and millimeter of these cars. I love that.

The little four-cylinder pepper grinder under the hood (a 1.5-liter dual-stage VTEC) is keen and eager and completely floggable.

Peak horsepower comes at mezzo-soprano range (6,600 rpm), and peak torque (106 pound-feet) arrives at 4,800 rpm. Fits come with either a five-speed manual or a five-speed automatic transmission with paddle-shifters behind the steering wheel. The steering is quick, the brakes are powerful.

I know, I know. What about a Fit hybrid, you ask. Well, Honda is about to go on a hybrid tear, with a new Toyota Prius fighter and a new sporty hybrid coupe based on the CR-Z coming in the next 18 months. And early in the next decade, a gas-electric Fit. Eco-hearts go pitty-pat.

You may have guessed: The Fit is pretty near the top of my favorite-cars list, and not because it's so fast and awesome-looking, because it oh-so ain't. It has the beauty of a certain well-wrought urn, exactly what it needs to be -- self-defined, lightly perfect. One of these days I'll buy one, if I can ever get near the dealership.

 

nice.... looks too wussy now. but the interior is stunning.

 

I think it looks nice from the side but Honda may have gone a little crazy with the giant headlights. I think that's an industry wide trend though.

 

Wow, that last paragraph is a doozy. Would that I could turn a phrase that well.

 

I just came back from the dealership looking for the Blue Sport Manual Transmission and I was told that the they will not carry these color until november or so, that it will be a difficult car to get. The car looks sweet!!!!

 

I drove one the other day while at the dealership getting repairs done to my wife's Pilot. They do drive nice, but it was an auto sport, vs my manual '08 sport. The front turn lights stick out of the headlight like tumor. Not a really good look. The fingertip shift levers are a real nice idea. Picked up on their use real quick. The interior IS a lot nicer than the '08, and the driver's window goes auto up as well as down. The one I drove had the navi built into the dash just like the CR-V, and that is really sweet! If I had them side-by-side to compare before I bought, I would have opted for the '09, no doubt at all, but I already have the '08 with about 5,000 miles on her, and we have developed quite a close bond, so ain't no way I could trade her in for a new one. Hell, I don't even have all the parts put on her I bought yet. If someone would offer me enough though......

 

Honda of Pasadena is selling new Fit's at 20,580....with a $3k markup. Ludicrous.

It's amazing those bozos are selling anything at all.

 

Review of the 2009 Fit:

CanadianDriver: Test Drive - 2009 Honda Fit LX

 

What a rip-off, they out to be ashamed. Take your money elsewhere, CA is a big state.

Be certain to call the GM of Pasadena and let him know you went elsewhere and you will not be seeking service at his shithole dealership.

 

I have a 2007 Fit Sport and our neighbors just bought the new model. The interior is nice and the wheels are bigger, but I was stunned to learn that it gets about 5mpg less than the old one. What on earth is the point of THAT?

Considering the VW Polo Diesel gets 70mpg (albeit on 3 cylinders), Honda should have worked harder to at least maintain their fuel efficiency.

Otherwise it looks to be a nice upgrade (although it definitely looks less zippy than the old one--it has that "family car" patina to it).

 

Check out this link, the U.S. mileage ratings changed:
2008 Fuel Economy Tests

From that page, you can check out your 2007 old/new mileage estimates. You'll see, no matter what your transmission, that your mileage will drop with the new ways of calculating the MPG. For instance, the NEW estimates for the 2007 MT are 28/34/31. Lower than the old 33/38/35.

This is because they are testing under different conditions, such as cold weather, hot weather (running A/C), and driving at faster speeds as well as hard acceleration.

They have lots of info on that site, about MPG and how to increase it, by changing driving habits. And if those are the differences, you can see that 5 MPG better is possible, using the new ratings, just by driving slower, not running the A/C, etc.

I expect to do quite well on the MPG. I tend to drive like I have a raw egg in shell on a spoon, held in my mouth. No hard starts, no hard stops, no weaving, no jerking, etc.

 

Yeah, I know about the new EPA ratings, but for highway driving I get way more than 34 mpg in my 2007 Fit, so I find this confusing. In fact I've managed 38.5 on the highway--this with a loaded car, the A/C on and with cruise control set between 70-80mph!

But for city driving it seems more in line with their 27-29 mpg rating (I'm not gentle with the accelerator ).

 

My wife and I got the 09' Fit base model with Automatic tranny, Lojack, and tint for $16k.

 

Did you have any problems finding the base model?

 

That's a Sport model in the LA Time image. It has the chrome backdrop to the lights, which makes them look much larger.

Check out the image here of the front of the base model that has the smoky backdrop (I have a car identical to this one):
Slideshow - 2009 Honda Fit 5-Spd AT - Yahoo! Autos

They look like JEWELS to me. Like citrine, maybe:
Ross-Simons - 6.30 Carat Citrine and Black Onyx Dome Ring In 14kt Yellow Gold - #215627

 

We wanted the Silver base model and told the salesman right when we got to the lot. Right when we said that he took us to a car and gave her the key for the test drive within a minute of saying hello. There were a few base models but tons of sports.

The model we drove and ended up buying had tint and Lojack already. There was only one car on the lot without Lojack.

 

So you got the Storm Silver Metallic? Put up some pics in the thread here:
https://www.fitfreak.net/forums/fit-...ic-thread.html

I don't see any base models in there. I only went back a few pages from the most recent postings. The base model (I have one too) has a different "face" and the lights and the mirrors. Just enough to give it a unique appearance. Which I prefer to the Sport. And I would like to see the SSM base other than just on the Honda "Build A Honda" website.

I think the SSM is the one that looks best with the smoky headlamps.

I don't know if you were considering modifications at all, but someone had posted different tail lights here:
https://www.fitfreak.net/forums/2nd-...ool-stuff.html

I think those would be STUNNING on the SSM base.

the color reminds me of a Russian Blue, like here:
november engels

 

i just got my new ridre about 2 week ago,am soproud of it,is a funn car to drive with M/T now i cant wait to start working on it....

 

the nose of this car just looks all scrunched up

 

I'm picking up a white manual sport with the bumper protector and wheel locks for $15300.

Penske Honda in Ontario, CA! BEST PRICE AROUND! MSRP for my set up is $17,050!