We drove the 2012 Fiat 500 Lounge model. In a couple of years I predict this car will be very popular but at the moment it just felt a bit too "cheap" on the interior and not too refined.

It was a somewhat difficult choice at first but the Fit won over due to reputation mainly. How about you?

 

I test drove the Fiesta, Versa, Fit, and Yaris

The Fit was the only one I could find in a 5spd manual, so the decision was easy.

 

How would you compare those other cars to the Fit??

 

I did drive my neighbors 2012 Fiesta and it was fine. Had a nice interior and had a solid feel about it. The thing that turned me away from it was that so far in what I've seen they have a pretty dismal reliabilty rating even for 2012.

 

i test drove everything except for toyota's, scion's, kia's and hyundai's as i wasn't interested in buying those.

ive not test driven the 500 though as i want to get the abarth as a hobby car, not a dd.

the closest for me was the new impreza wagon. those are made in japan and quality was quite good. i might get it for the wife in 2014 as my 09 GE sport is starting to show age. im hoping subaru will get all the kinks out by then.

 

Mazda 3, Versa, Yaris. All manuals.

M3 was nice but I wanted more cargo room. I was coming out of an Element and I liked that aspect of the Honda, just not the driving experience.

Versa and Yaris were uninspiring appliances.

First car I tested was the Fit and I ended up going back to it.

 

yah, the mazda3 (i was looking at the MS3) is surprisingly small on the inside, especially the width of the car and the leg room in the back compared to its total dimensions.

the Fit on the otherhand is surprisingly big in those areas even though it's a smaller car. it's great how honda knows how to maximize space. this is a workhorse car for me.

 

I was going to test drive a mazda 3, never found one to drive though. I did test drive the suabur imprezza wagon and I didn't like it. Which was weird, my dads 07 outback is nice and the 99 outback I had, I loved.

The car I almost bought instead of the fit was a Golf TDi. What an amazing car to drive. If they offered a base modle tdi I would have had it, but I could not get one without nav, leather seats, sun roof yada yada yada. All said, base price was $25k on the tdi. Out of my range.

All said, I love the fit and have fixed the few things I did not like (seat, traction control and vsa and the clutch delay valve). It is still a bit loud on the inside, but coming from a 97 civic, it isn't bad.

 

They each had their strengths and weaknesses.

The Versa was the only one that felt like it was close to the size of the fit. The Yaris and Fiesta felt much smaller.

The Yaris was a Toyota, which I know very well from owning a few, but that was the only upside. It was too small, and felt sluggish, tho I only drove the auto version.

The versa was nice, and had great mpg ratings, but I found it ugly to look at.

The Fiesta was actually my original choice, but I could not find a manual version anywhere. I really liked that car.

I am ultimately glad I went with the fit tho as it is the perfect size, and has been flawless for 26,000 miles already.

 

I also drove the 2012 Subaru Impreza hatch. I totally love the look, the space, and the drive was pretty decent but I thought Honda's gauges and interior felt more modern and upscale. And the Subaru was more expensive than I wanted to pay. It would be my next choice after the Fit, the Mazda 3 felt to cramped inside.

 

I test drove a 2009 Honda Fit Sport A/T and a 2012 Mazda 3 A/T with SkyActive and ended up with my 2012 Honda Fit Sport A/T. The 2009 Fit that I test drove was noticably louder on the inside than the 2012 that I ended up with and Honda's hold their value so well that I just decided to spend the few extra thousand to get a new one. The 0.9% finacing for 36 months helped the decision a lot also.

The Mazda 3 was a nice car and I liked the looks, performance, and handling a little better than the Fit. But, as others have said the back seat was cramped both in head and leg room compared to the Fit and I have a 3 year old in a child seat, so that wasn't going to work. Also, I was a little worried about reliability of the Mazda versus Honda especially since the SkyActive drivetrain is a new thing.

-Dustin

 

That Versa hatch always seemed to not fit quite comfortably in the subcompact segment, much like the Fit - it's interesting you mention it. It's just large enough that you feel you are driving a complete car, which is so often not the case for subcompacts. Not as pretty even as the Fit, which is a low bar!

I didn't drive an Impreza, not having the need for AWD this time, although I did consider it several years ago. I think the new one is very competitive if you need a quality AWD car for not a lot of money.

The two cars I drove this time around were the Mazda2 and Mazda3. The 2 is too small to be our only car - a criticism you could level at the Fiesta, 500, and many others. Sort of limits the market: to only young people and people with other cars. Fun car though: Cheap, fun and comfortable, and doesn't take itself too seriously.

The Mazda3 is a much more grown-up-feeling car. It drives like a FWD BMW, with similar brake&steering feel. Of course with the Skyactiv engine it going to accelerate more like a euro-market 312i rather than any BMW sold here; but at the same time it easily hits 40mpg while being quite fun. Out of necessity I had to drive the auto, which is very interesting because it's a dual-clutch with a 1st gear torque converter; but I believe the manual would be even more fun. But even this cut-rate 3-series couldn't compete with the Fit in comfort or space, or price.

Cheap space. That's the Fit in two words

 

for me the impreza hatch would be great for the wife because we do see snow here, and that would mean one less thing i need to do in the Fall and Spring... not to have to swap out the wheels from summer to snows.

swapping alone is no big deal, but having to wash them before storage, taking them down to storage, etc. just a pita. i would just let my wife drive the car with a/s all winter long since it's awd. the CVT was nice too for AT. if i bought one for me, it would've been the MT. as with the GE's, the MT's are considerable faster than its AT counterpart. 0-60 is like 8.5sec vs 10sec. 10sec is just too damn sloooooow!

 

I almost picked up an EP3 but the seller tried to play games (raise price from what we agreed upon, canceling on times where I was going to look at/drive/pay for car, etc.) so I gave up and settled for the Fit.

 

Srock GE8 5mt is rated at 9.8s to 60. Though I think that will improve with better tires, the stock ones you cannot put any (of the very limited anyway) power down. The A/T are 10. Something, I forget what.

 

you can believe what you want (not being an arse or anything), but i know from actual comparison between my '12 MT and my 09 AT that the '12 is A LOT faster by a big margin. not 10ths of a second faster, i mean like car lengths faster.

not that it really matters cause it's still slow on paper...

 

No, that rating for the 5MT is with traction control on. With it off it is more like 8.6 (i'm averaging, i've seen 8.3 from Motor Trend, 8.9 from x, etc etc). All tests i've seen are in the 8 second range.

Automatic base is like 10-11 seconds, but that's from Edmunds and they apparently don't know how to drive so i'm not sure how much I believe that. I guess there's not much to improve on an automatic though because any time gained would be in the launch and I don't think they're going to brake stand or neutral drop it.

 

i drove insight then the crz i really wanted it but to blinding so i end with the fit i wish they had stick with nav

 

AT base is supposidly slower than the sport, with shift points changed to return better fuel economy. Hence the different EPA rating.

 

This'll help her go in the snow; it won't help her stop.