Hi - I have been browsing around and trying to get info (like everyone else) and one of my concerns is the interior size. We have a Subaru Forrestor now, which I like very much, and would not want to go much smaller.

Also, here is my list of wanna knows:

Is there a retractable cover for covering the stuff in the hatch?

Is the gas cap locked?

Can we get this car fitted with Lojack?

Can we get leather seats?

What about a roof rack?

Is it easy to have a child seat fastened in the back? (we are adopting a baby!)

What about jacking in an iPod? Multi-CD player/changer?

Automatic car starter?

How is the leg room in the back seat?

:-)

 

Check out the FAQ feature on this board - there are many posts that have covered some of your questions already.
Also this car has not been released in the U.S. yet so available options are not yet known...

 

Options and specification are different between markets.

Almost all your questions have been quite thoughly covered throughout the site with lots of pictures.


To answer your questions:

yes standard in some markets (optional in most others).

yes in some markets.

yes you can get any car fitted with lowjack.

no not factory but aftermarket.

yes many different ones avail designed to carry different things eg. bikes, skis.

3 baby seats can be mounted across the back seat and the passenger seat will support a 4th forward facing only due to airbag and by your 5th child a minivan would be a better proposition.

FM transmitter for ipod, 6 stacker glove box mounted avail as factory option in some markets. No factory head unit MP3 or even CDR/RW support.

Aftermarket for remote starter.

3 x over 6 foot adults in back no probs with 2 over 6 foot front passengers with the front seats pushed right back. Excessively wide passengers would be a problem as in most Japanese cars.

 

To answer your questions one by one:

Is there a retractable cover for covering the stuff in the hatch?

Yes, I expect one. It will probably be a dealer-installed option like it is in Japan.

Is the gas cap locked?

If you're talking a cover for the gas cap that is released from the inside of the car, yes.

Can we get this car fitted with Lojack?

I'm sure the Lojack people will have configuration for the Fit shortly after the car arrives on the US/Canadian market.

Can we get leather seats?

You can forget that idea. After all, we're talking more or less an entry-level Honda model!

What about a roof rack?

We could see that an an option.

Is it easy to have a child seat fastened in the back? (we are adopting a baby!)

I think the US-market car will likely offer attachment points for child safety seats.

What about jacking in an iPod? Multi-CD player/changer?

I think one of the car stereo options for the Fit will include a changer and also will offer an auxiliary audio input from any portable music device like the iPod of Creative's Zeo Nano player.

Automatic car starter?

Unlikely.

How is the leg room in the back seat?

About the same as the 7th-generation Civic--pretty decent considering how small physically the Fit is outside.

Hope that answers your questions!

 

Aokane:


You said you have a Subaru Forester now and "wouldn't want to go much smaller." The Fit is about the size of the Ford Focus, and your Forester is the size of a small SUV. You are not going to want the Fit if you want something with the space of a Forester, that is for sure. From reading your post, it seems like you don't know quite what you're looking at/asking for with the Fit. It's a subcompact 4-door hatchback economy car and has very little in common with a Forester.

crazeditalian

 

Yup.. agree with that.. however, assuming your forester is the same as the one in Oz, I've been in my mate's forester before and can tell you that the forester doesn't win by much..

I think the Jazz is more like the size of a Ford Fiesta and not the Focus. (Focus is a medium size car..)

 

Cars in the US are now required to have the LATCH system for child carseats, and carseats are required to have LATCH. So a new car would have it.

Here's some info:

http://www.edmunds.com/ownership/saf...5/article.html

 

Can the Fit really fit 3 car seats? That would be nice.

 

Hi Everyone,


I've been re-reading through this thread, and it seems that what is a "compact" size to one person is a "medium" size car to another! I think the definition of what size a car is, after reading and noticing what countries other posters live in, varies depending on what country you're in! Someone in Australia said the Ford Focus is a "medium size" car--but in the USA, the Focus is one of the smallest cars on the road and its official government classification is "compact." It's all a matter of perception, and what part of the world you live in!

The only way to compare the Fit to anything else is to calculate using cubic centimeters or inches of interior space, and I haven't seen this number for the Fit published anywhere that I can remember. A Subaru Forester model in one country might be completely different from a Forester in another country. In the USA, the Forester is a relatively large 4-door car-based SUV wagon with a lot of rear cargo space, far bigger than a Ford Focus and definitely longer than the 2006 Civic.

http://www.subaru.com/media/image/20...tos/photo1.jpg

 

As for Cargo space here are some stats by my math.

FIT with seats all up has 13.5 cubic feet of storage in back
Forester has 32 cu feet

With rear seats folded
FIT 31 cu ft
Forester 57 cu ft

Any way that is what I came up with. Feel free to check my math.

Of course this does not take into acount the Magic configuration in which you lay down the front seat.

Keep in mind the forester is about 3 inches wider and 27 inches longer than the FIT. What I am getting at is the forester is bigger, But that is becuase it is just Bigger, by over 2 feet.

The FIT has a lot of room for something so small

 

Well, it's been about 5 years since I was in a Forester, but it's really not that big. Unless they've changed the size since then. And even if the overall length of the Forester is longer than the Fit, the Fit really has a lot of room for a car of that length. They've really maximized it inside. Here are the dimensions I could find:

http://www.subaru.com/shop/specifica...ory=DIMENSIONS

http://www.carpages.co.uk/guide/hond...1.2i-s-5dr.asp

I definitely agree with you at how people look at the size of cars, it depends on where you live. However, I've been in the Fit and think it's comparable to a Ford Focus, not smaller, like somebody suggested.

 

I guess I could include some of the numbers I used for the math.



For the cubic area I took 382 liters (not 352 as that is just up to where the window starts) and converted it to Cubic feet and for the total i took the 845 liters and added 60 as a rough compensation for for only posting the volume estimate only up to the windows. so 905 liters (I would use my Tetris packing skills of course)

All this said I just took the Subaru numbers for granted. I dont know if how they calculated their volume numbers, to the roof or just to the seat backs for instance.

The length of the vehicle was easy.

Forester length = 176.6
Fit Legth 3845 mm = 151.4 inches
Difference = 25.2 inches

My previous numbers received 2 inches from rounding. But the forester is still an easy 2 feet longer than a Fit.

But like pointed out before, they are different classed vehicles. The forester is marketed more like an SUV, and you don't see it turning laps on the race course.

 

I think the direct comparison to a forester in Honda's lineup would be an Element or CR-V.

 

To add to your questions:
Would I be able to fit my double bass into it?

That would be the decisive argument to actually consider this car.

The ads say you can fit a nine foot surfboard in there if you flip the seats down...

 

In long storage mode which is one rear seat down and the passenger seat down you could definitely but to answer your question more precisely would require the measurements of the case (doubt its more than 9 foot).

I've had 4 adults, the baby capsule with baby in it and 2 suitcases upright in the boot with a few overnight bags thrown in. You wouldn't want the 1.3L dsi when loaded.

I carried a big rug home in this long mode shortly after purchasing my Jazz back in 2004. Used tall mode to carry pot plants. Utility mode to carry a heap of baby gear from Canberra to Sydney. Magic seats rock.

 

it seems like the jazz bass would fit into the fit/jazz car...

the bass is 42 inches wide (at the body), and approx. 74 inches long (making it 1.06 m by 1.88).

this would defnitely be a good and economic replacement for the toyota previa that is hauling around my bass now. the problem is, the previa won't die (it is way past 200k miles now).

anyway, as soon as the fits show up at our local honda dealership, i will travel there and see if the jazz bass fits in the jazz car ;-)

 

I'd love to be at the dealership when you rock up with the bass case. You should get someone else to come along with a couple of violin cases too.

 

YES! And I won't forget to bring the camera guy, and document the experiment appropriately, to deliver the real world verification of whether or not the fit would be an appropriate vehicle for bass fiddle transportation. If it indeed turns out to be possible, it could be considered a little sensation since presently the choice of cars that fullfill that purpose is limited to gazzguzzling minivans, SUV and wagons.

It could make a nice commercial -- the jazz band in the concert hall parking lot passing the hummers and other four-wheeled-dinosaurs, and going straight to the jazz becaus that's where the contemporary music is. (actually, in terms of music, the hummer would sound more like stuffy, heavy handed wagnerian valkyrie, as opposed to the fit bouncy jazz a la dave holland quintet.)

 

Big enough for me. Anybody body else notice power windows in the front, manual windows in the back.

 

These are really interesting photos. Apparently from the German Jazz. I hope American Fit will have the same detailed sense of finish.

I can see that 60/40 split back seats means that the 60 is behind the driver's seat and the 40 on the other side. That seems really silly because wouldn't you want to transport bigger things on the opposite side of the driver? In my case, it would probably mean that for the bass I would have to flip down BOTH back seats because the 40 is not wide enough for the body, and I could not take another person along with me (who could sit behind me if the split were the other way round). Or can the back seats be exchanged so they split 40/60 instead of 60/40?