I am now a proud owner of a brand new 2009 Honda Fit. My previous car was a 1996 Mercury Cougar V8 that I had for roughly 8 years. The Fit should more than double the avg. mpg. of the Cougar, and I'm super excited about that.

In the two days I have had the car I am very impressed with every aspect of it. It was between the Fit and Scion xD and I am pretty sure I made the right decision.

Any tips, tricks or stuff to look out for with the new car?


- Bill

 

My wife drives a red 96 cougar! Very comfortable car but yes its horrible on gas. Nice step-up from that to the Fit. Congrats.

 

Congrats on the Fit! have not driven the 09s yet but you got yourself a solid car welcome to Fitfreak and happy driving!

 

Congrats on your new Fit,

For max enjoyment and gas mileage, seriously consider pumping up your tires to 40 or 45 psi. You will not suffer with comfort, and you will really notice a diff in your ability to glide. You will also ensure yourself of getting over 40 mpg most of the time. The legal max on your tire sidewall likely reads 51 psi.

I run mine at 45 psi, and my 1 1/4 yr average of mostly town driving is 41.3 mpg. This is all calculated by hand, with written records of each fillup.

Hypermiling techniques can also help, but not needed....but as gasoline becomes more expensive (which it is), hypermiling is now becoming a smart thing to do.

Have fun,

 

the paint sucks. dont drive behind trucks at all costs. welcome to the site!

 

haha +1.
don't park under trees or lamp posts where birds could poop on you. park in no-mans-land at the supermarket, but you will still get dings.

 

Only do that if you don't mind replacing shocks very often...

 

what's this shocks business?

 

congrads and welcome

 

hmm +1. I don't understand what thats about.



but anyways... Congrats on the car! welcome to FitFreak!

 

the elasticity of the tire allows absorption of major surface imperfections/bumps etc. If the tire is hard and overinflated, the shocks will be forced to absorb the impacts with the frequency they are not designed to operate with. This will wear the valves in the shocks out prematurely.

Ever see cars on the road whose wheels are jumping up and down really fast? That's because their shocks are not working anymore or the tires are overinflated, or both...

By the way, overinflated tires will also stress out suspension parts unnecessarily... tie rods, ball joints, even wheel bearings.

 

Yeah. I'll make sure to keep an eye on that, then. 34 years of working on cars, trucks, and yes, even tanks. 25,000 miles so far with my stock dunlops at 44 psi...

 

Just got back from a Memorial Day trip to Upper Michigan. Put the new fit to the test. Averaged 40+ mpg which I am fairly happy with. I also took it out on some rougher dirt roads. It held up well and thankfully no squeaks or rattles have surfaced from driving on the dirt.

By calculating average .mpg by hand I noticed the in car one is around 2 mpg higher, is this similar on other peoples or does it normally fluctuate with different driving styles, conditions etc.

Solid ride with no problems, here's hoping on another 99,999+ miles the same.

 

"By calculating average .mpg by hand I noticed the in car one is around 2 mpg higher, is this similar on other peoples or does it normally fluctuate with different driving styles, conditions etc."

My observations indicate that the onboard computer is optimistic by about 12-14 percent.

 

Welcome to the family~

 

Congrads on your new Fit and welcome to the forum

Cat :x

 

Welcome, you made the best choice. Nothing against the scion guys (i used to own a xB along with a couple other members here). The fit, while having less room than the xB, drives a hell of a lot better.

 

I just bought an 07 honda fit sport. How do you check the mpg fron the on board computer?

 

I believe you push the knob near the odometer on the dash. It should alternate between odometer, trip a, trip b(if available), then MPG. Hope this helps!

 

If our '08 displays fuel mileage, I've not seen it in the past 9 years. LOL

Luckily my cell phone has a calculator and it's much more accurate than the lie-o-meter mpg reader in my Lincoln, VW, Dad's CR-V, etc. The on-board systems are generally quite optimistic.