Ok, Honda. You suck. Stop building awesome cars. Seriously.

I have a 2010 Fit Sport Manual. I bought it in September of 2010. It has nearly 22,000 miles on it now. (yeah, I know, it's kinda high)

I didn't test drive it. Or ANY fit. I bought it based on the fact that I love Hondas, it would serve the need, and I got killer financing. I almost literally mail ordered it. Unbelievably uncharacteristic for me. Just take my word for it.

So my first ubersurprise was the phenomenal handling. I expected a schlubby handling fwd microvan with hellacious understeer and collossal body roll. I live on a mountain road that eats people for breakfast, lunch, dinner... I can't believe how little body roll the car has and how neutral it is (for a street mobile anyway) with neutral power applied to the front wheels. You can feel the line widen pretty instantly with the lightest application of power if you're going a bit but that's to be expected Even trailing throttle seems not to upset the apple cart. The suspension is appropriately taught, the stock tires remarkably grippy, and the steering is brilliantly talkative despite my extreme bias against any form of power assist.

The engine... Holy crap. It's a thing of beauty - though certainly not one of excess. Presumably due to the forward offset cylinders this thing really doesn't lug much. It might not make power down near idle but it pulls with only the slightest complaint. It's relatively smooth, linear enough to my butt, and nets me between 36 and 43 mpgs mixed. Hybrid, schmybrid. A little respect for Newton isn't such a bad thing.

The tranny....... Pure awesomeness. Ratios, shift action, whatever. My fingers giggle with delight as most of the shifts feel the very deliberate detents and feel little to no, uh, anything else. If you don't squeeze the thing you'd never know there were whirly slidey crunchy things in there.

The interior works. I thought the lift seat thing was gimmicky - until I used it. Everything else is cool.

So here's the gripes.

on the Non-navi radio: Seriously, no bluetooth? You have an aux (kludgey front facing eyesore as I use it a lot). You have freakin' USB (and I'm getting to that). But no BT? That's phenomenally stupid.

USB interface: It works inconsistently. The same media sometimes gets recognized and sometimes not. The only way to kick it in the butt is to unplug / plug the media or to kick the power to the unit either via keying off or by switching to start (minus clutch - so no starter engagement but it still blips the power to the stereo). Don't tell me to take it to the dealer. Dealers are unbelievable incompetent. Seriously, I've had such incompetence from motorcycle & car dealers dealing with parts & recalls, I'd rather replace the entire unit & dash plate ON MY DIME than let some "authorized" ape rape my car.

A/C on defrost: OK, I get it. It can help defog. It also runs & lubes the compressor in the months where it might otherwise not get used. I still don't want it. It causes other issues that I don't want. Besides, last I recall, I DRIVE THE EFFING CAR. Let me.

Cigarette / Power receptacle: LEAVE IT FREAKIN' POWERED. Or at least give me the option. But no. Oh, and in a car that touts utility, more than one would be great - and not blocking a cupholder would be a nice bonus too.

I'll give you a pass on the auto door locks because you let me turn them off - albeit with a somewhat nutty procedure.

Wheels: Back when I had a first gen CRX (an 85 Si) the 13" wheels looked a TOUCH small. I had 205 55's on 'em and at least they looked MEATY. Now this Fit Sport has 16" wheels - and they somehow look SMALLER than my CRXs 13's to everyone I've asked. "Seriously, they're 16 inchers!?!? Dude you're wrong." Then they read the tire, pull out the tape measure, go online. How on earth to you design an economy car with 16" wheels that look too small? Congratulations. Your careers as illusionists have begun.

Rocks on the freeway: Oh, wait....

Seriously, this is the first new car I've ever bought. It's the BEST car I've ever had. I just don't get some of the choices. However, judging by the fact that I see 4 other fits in one isle when I go to Trader Joe's, you must be doing something right.

-Saro

 

Try a different thumb drive, I got the cheapest 8 bg one from Staples and it's been fine (albeit the interface sucks, but it always gets recognized).

For about $3 you can buy a lighter or power port or whatever you call it- splitter. And they had to put it somewhere, it's nice how much stuff you can dump into the console that doesn't slide out when you accelerate up a hill.

I was ready to cut the wire (there's instructions on this site, somewhere) to disable the auto-defrost, but then a week ago I realized that most of the time I'd be turning the AC on anyway, so is it worth a half-hour of my time to cut the wire? We'll see.

Magic seat is great, just put a drop spreader back there so I can finally give my parents a back lawn...

 

Brian-

I appreciate your suggestions. They are besides the point. I'm the ultimate DIY guy and have lived & breathed tech since the early 80's.

This was a post to point out to a hypothetical Honda lurker that the USB interface is faulty. No self respecting PC will spit at any of these flash drives. Similarly, I can easily pop the bottom of the dash and do the plug pull deal. But I'm just tires of stuff happening entirely because someone who doesn't understand my use of a product insists that I use it like some hypothetical American.

In terms of the lighter - REALLY? I didn't but a brand new car to address strange faults and oversights via trips to Pep Boys.

As many things as are right on these cars, it's amazing how many simple (yet somewhat trivial and nonessential things) are FAILURES.

"Sorry, you can't pump Shell gas. No, there's nothing wrong with the gas, really. We don't really know. The car just doesn't like it." Kinda nuts if you think about it that way.

-Saro

 

Well, I have no idea why the car doesn't recognize some thumb drives- does it have anything else on it, like software somewhere, or password protection (even disabled)?

I guess I can see the need for more than one power port- GPS plus cellphone charger, maybe- and yeah, they could've put another one in the console between the seats... but it's a $16,000 car and they've gotta keep costs down. I'm sure they looked into how much difference an extra power port, or auto up-down windows for all 4, or a better radio that would allow an easier interface rather than scrolling through 500 folders one at a time, or a locking glove compartment/locking gas cap... all these add a few bucks to EVERY car they make, to satisfy SOME of their buyers...

And if it were a $60k Mercedes we would all have legitimate gripes that they didn't do everything. But for under $20k there are compromises. There are things you don't get that you want, and things you get that you probably don't care about...

I think the coverage of the sun visors sucks, and that's a safety issue more pressing than a lot of other complaints... but I took a piece of cardboard and cut it to fit. When I need to I take it from the rear seat pocket and shove it in place. I'd prefer better visors but I also prefer having an extra four thousand dollars, or whatever it'd cost to have that plus everything I don't care about.

But with all the cupholders I think you can lose the utility of one to the power port...

And my name is SHAUN.

 

The USB interface is kinda crummy, particularly with an iPod. There's no way to search for songs/artists, it won't pull up podcasts, and if you happen to bump the 'next' or 'previous," it interrupts third party app playback.

IIRC, Japanese cars have usually had 12v lighter outputs that go off with the car.

I think the wheels look small (not just on this car, but on most cars these days) because they are building them all so tall. Remember how tall and awkward those Civic Shuttle wagons looked in the 80s? The Fit is 4 inches taller. It is almost a solid 8 inches taller than the hatches were in those days.

Hell, the current Civic COUPE is almost as tall as those Shuttles were! Hell, they current Civic is taller than the ACCORD was 20 years ago. On top of that, in most cars, the seats seem unusually high these days. I blame it on baby boomers with creaky joints; Honda in particular aims most of its cars toward an aging demographic - just look at the new Civic's very conservative lines, or the typeface on gauges and buttons thta grows progressively larger in each regeneration of the Accord!

 

Cheese 'n Rice.... Sorry Shaun. I read Brian, not Brain. Seemed like a legit name. Seriously, you need a more normal name. Shaun is tough. Now a nice anglo name like Saro....

(can you see I'm trying to get kicked off the forums?)

-Saro

 

Lot of people read it that way, but it's my url and I discovered, happily, that while people forget names they are more likely to remember something like BrainChampagne...

Believe me, if you want to get kicked off you're gonna have to try a LOT harder, there's been some outright nastiness here...

 

Just to be clear, most of my complaints about the car are not about missing features or options.. I'm not asking for a backup camera or heated seats. I'm not asking for a factory turbo'd 250 horse motor with a 7 speed dual clutch sequential shift tranny & hydraulics to lift my car enough to make it into my driveway without scraping. I'm asking that what is implemented be properly implemented.

Honestly, I don't give a flock about stuff like power locks & power windows. I wish they'd go away. I think the worst thing about modern cars is the shift towards gadgety features that do nothing for the CAR. So many things get tossed in to please the consumer at initial purchase but these things don't really hold up well or aren't done right in the first place. So at 100k miles you have a reliable car with a bunch of broken nonessential sh!t.

I've got a '98 Corolla that I reluctantly took over payments on from a family member 1 year after its initial purchase - like around 10k miles. That car is a STELLAR example of otherwise decent transportation being utterly destroyed by a series of sh!ttily implemented features / subsystems. The power door locks & power windows degraded rapidly. The stereo lost its use of the tape deck within months. The interior did not hold up for crap. The headlight plastic is seriously the worst of seen on any car. The white paint didn't hold up well.

My complaint is not that it didn't have a leather interior. My complaint is that the interior started falling apart a couple of years into the car's relatively easy life. That the power windows & locks took a dump so early. For better or worse, the transportation aspect of that car (that I COLOSSALLY hate) is awesome.

I'm not saying that the fit should have a DVD entertainment system. However, it has a USB mass storage interface that is faulty. Lame. It has a cabin facing aux input - while there's already a compartment on the dash where the USB interface comes out that could have accommodated the aux input. And what's really nuts is the muddling of options. You can have nav & bluetooth. You can't have the regular stereo & bluetooth. Whatever. That's almost as nuts as making passing emissions optional. Emissions are a national (almost global) regulatory reality. Handsfree communications are also a legal reality. Yet no bluetooth - but the stereo can try to read station programming information that most of the idiots who run radio (at least in the LA area) don't bother to send over the air anyway. Delta Uniform Mike Bravo.

My 2010 Fit Sport is still an awesome car. It's so awesome that I'd buy another without thinking twice despite these complaints. It takes me up & down San Francisquito canyon every day in a satisfying and engaging manner. It rewards my dilligent driving with awesome real world mileage. However, there are things that were not done right. Nonessential things. But things I had to pay for nontheless. I didn't pay for a backup camera - and I'm glad. I did however pay for a stereo I couldn't omit and its associated poorly implemented features. I did pay for the poorly placed and poorly implemented power receptacle that must shut off when the car is keyed off. I guess NOBODY charges a phone when the car is off at Honda.

-Saro

 

You think the Fit's battery is strong enough to charge a phone without the engine running? Yeah, right...

I don't know what's wrong with the USB interface since mine works fine, but I am glad it's hidden in the glove box instead of on the dash, even though I'd prefer to have two inputs easily switchable by the driver (for me- one for rock music, one for classical, rather than have to have them both on the same thumb drive).

 

The aux/USB thing makes sense: anything plugged into the USB jack will be controlled by the head unit, and thus can be plugged in and forgotten in the glovebox (and would be able to be locked up, if Honda didn't cheap on the glove-box lock). The aux input is a straight audio connection, so the attached device will need to be accessible. Next to te 12VDC outlet would have been better, but how many cars even had these 10 years ago, when the big up-sell was a 6-disc changer.

As for the 12VDC power issue, it's how all Hondas are. Which is better, dealing with the occasional irate consumer who wants to leave his phone out on the console to get stolen, or the customer who complains about cheap Honda batteries and how unreliable they are because he keeps leaving it connected to a device that pulls too large a charge.

 

More or less hit the nail on the head with this. The stock head unit was gone within 300 miles, though more because it had a built in EQ that could not be turned off (bet you didn't know that). The stock speakers went a few hundred miles later (audio is my thing, it wasn't the worst radio I have heard in a car).