I was talk'n to another friend about the greatness of the paddle shifter in the fit sports, and was told that for cars that can convert from auto to manual, the shifting mechanism might not last that long...any words on the durability of the paddle shifter??

 

What do you mean by the shifting merchanism?

The paddle shifters themselves (the plastic pieces) or the actual automatic transmission?

 

the paddle shifter, not the auto tranny...

 

The shifters are just plastic pieces (I think) that control the electrical signals to determine when to upshift/downshift. Should be just as reliable as a window up/down switch. If it breaks, I dont see why you just cant replace it.

 

Yeh You Could Just Replace Them And Im Sure That Honda Would Replace Them For Free..

 

I drove a sport at the "ride and drive", and when you tug the paddle there is a click, and very little travel, I'm talking just a click. You probably can break it if you squeeze it hard enough, but you only need a slight pull to shift. You also have a 3 yr 36k ltd. warranty that would cover breakage for those or us who have bear traps for hands .
I don't know if anyone has addressed this issue, but you need to take care when moving your front seats forward to switch different modes. There is a little latch at the top corner of the front seats that release the seatback. When you push this latch do not use it to then push the seat forward, place your hand on the back of the seat and push from there, or the head rest. At the "Fit ride and drive" everybody was doing it the wrong way, using the latch, but it didn't break so I know it's pretty durable. Honda said this was a problem in Europe, and told us to show the correct way to our customers. I am willing to bet that most sales consultants will forget to show the correct way to set up your front seat for the different modes.

Just remember who's lookin out for ya.

 

i'm more concern about the electronic system that controls the shifting rather than the plastic paddles, i'm sure the paddles are very easy fix, but the durability of this shifting system...

 

Honda has been making autoshifting manuals for a while. In the US, I think it first appeared on 1999 TL; it was called sportshift. I havent heard of any problems with the autoshifting electronic control system.

 

I don't see any reason why an auto with manual option would be any less reliable than a normal auto, other than driver flogging. Manual shifting is just something that's enabled using software with the requisite switches being the only additional hardware...right?

 

5th gen Prelude (1997 - 2001) had sportshift on the automatic transmission as well. And it seems owners are either still on the original transmission or on their fifth rebuilt transmission.

 

The shifters on the Fit/Jazz sold worldwide since 2001 are still fine today. With over 1 million Jazz/Fits sold around the rest of the world there has not been an issue in any other countries.

 

I thought the '97 Preludes were available with that option?

I know at least some BB6's were, although for all I know, it could've come later.

Anyway, I wouldn't worry about the actual paddles. There aren't really any moving parts there, it's just electrical, it's no more complex than a normal "touch shift" automatic.

The trick is that if you're going to be shifting aggressively, you want to keep that transmission cool. Heat kills auto trannies (generally), not wear, so I advise an aftermarket (I prefer B&M) transmission oil cooler. With that in place, you can likely bang around on those paddles all day for 200k and not sweat it too much (as long as you change your tranny fluid regularly).

 

I have a 97 Prelude with the Sportshift sequential shifter. The car is 9 years old. Zero problems with the shifter electronics and the tranny.

 

I'm not quite getting the point of the paddle shifters on an automatic car?!?!

What's the whole thrill? Can people that buy automatics REALLY use their car as if it were a manual and save on gas?

 

I don't think it's a gas saving thing as much as it's just a "fun" thing...I can't imagine actually being able to get better fuel economy by shifting an automatic yourself...that defeats teh purpose of an auto tranny, doesn't it?

 

The point of the paddle shifters or any other manu-matic shift option has NOTHING whatsoever to do with fuel economy.

The ability to select what gear one is in has important implications in performance driving situations (i.e. downshifting for corner entry to be able to stay in the powerband and accelerate out of the corner). This is the primary advantage, no one buys a sport-shifted auto over a normal auto to save on gas.

Engines make different power levels at different places in the powerband (i.e. rpm range). The ability to select gears allows you to select where in the rpm range, and thus the powerband, you are. In most cases, peak power is made high in the rpm range, and so the ability to downshift early and stay near redline is very important in performance driving situations, as if you fall too low, you will "bog out" a little bit and have to rev back up to make power, wasting time.

 

IOW,..sounds like racing stuff.

Wonder if the insurance is gonna charge more for me gettin a sport.

I hope Cruise Control gets on some of the automatics somehow.

 

Sequential shifting (or manual override or whatever you wish to call it) is not for everyone. And not everyone gets the point to it.

1. It's not about saving gas at all. In fact, spirited driving with sequential shifting usually leads to worse fuel economy ;-)

2. If I were asked to describe the benefits of using the Sportshift on my Prelude, I would say that one is to prevent upshift until I WANT it to upshift and the other is is force a downshift earlier than the automatic logic would command a downshift.

But I say again.... it's definitely not for everyone.

 

cool,...now tell me,..for someone that wants to learn how to drive a manual,... could you drive this Fit w/ Paddle Shifters the exact same way you would drive a manual x speed car (save the optional paddle shifters) ?

 

Well, electronic sequential shift is a decent way to learn some aspects of driving a manual, i.e. being aware of where you are in the rpm range, learning your shift points, things like that.

But in the end, there's no substitute for just trial-by-fire in a real manual car with a clutch pedal. It really isn't that hard, I learned to drive for the first time on a manual, did my in-car instruction with one, and took the license test in one at 16 (1990 Supra Turbo, w00t).

Find some friend who drives a clapped-out POS manual car that won't mind you grinding a couple of gears.

To answer your earlier question, I do NOT expect that the Sport will cost more to insure aside from the minute increase of the added actual cost of the vehicle. Almost every piece of crap has a "sport" variant, but in general, they don't carry insurance implications different from the base car as a result of that nomenclature alone.

The only exception is well-known sports cars. A Z06 will cost more to insure than a Corvette, an M5 much more than a 540i, an STI way more than a 2.5RS, et cetera.