New to this forum having collected my 2013 Fit just 4 days ago. I went for a 2013 M/T Sport in white. Like it very much so far although I'm looking forward to getting the first 1,000km under my belt so that I can rev the engine a bit harder ... isn't this what VTEC engines are made for?

I'm running it on 15" winters at the moment, which makes it a bit squishy of course, so it'll be nice when summer comes and I can put the 16" alloys back on (with some decent summer rubber instead of all seasons).

Anyway, it's nice to be on this forum. I've recommended Fit/Jazz to friends and family for years but never actually owned one myself. I think I might want to perform a couple of minor performance upgrades but will ask for advice once I'm thoroughly used to the car. Of course, please feel free to recommend any obvious "great bang for the bucks" upgrades as I know nothing when it comes to Fits.

 

Nice little car, eh?

 

Cool! Why 1,000k? I just broke 600 on mine. At about 375 miles on the clock I took mine up to 5k RPMs in first for a second then made my way through the gears to break it in per motomans suggestion to totally set the rings.

I've heard that this is not a great thing to do though from some people - is this true? Every other time driving it has been taking it easy, nothing above 4 rpms and never above 55mph.

Also, if you're driving a manual, let me know if you have a slight tick in first gear. Noticed that from the start.

 

1,000km (600 miles) is what's suggested in the owner's manual. It doesn't place any rpm restrictions on the break-in period, so just be sensible -- warm the engine thoroughly by driving gently (you should always do this anyway, new or old car) and absolutely no WOT. I always do this with new cars. At 1,000km I'll start giving it some WOT and will gradually wind the revs up all the way to the limit.

I haven't notice any tick in first gear, but now that you mention it I'll listen more carefully. I thought I'd noticed a high level of intake noise but I'm now thinking this might be noise off the winter tires.

 

Rev it, go ahead. Wont hurt a thing. Just keep heavy throttle applications at bay.

 

Yeah, I agree. Warm the engine carefully (I try not to exceed 3k rpm), don't be afraid of the revs thereafter, but don't give it WOT until the break-in period's done.

 

Congrats, you're lucky. I wanted the tafetta white sport MT but could not find one. Had to settle for the grey.

 

Same here settle for red in my case. Congrats.

 

This would be better advice from Honda if their car had more power ... pretty sure that despite my knowledge of avoiding WOT during breakin, I probably did a few merge-into-highway-traffic that required like 80% throttle to not be squashed under a Suburban. Hehe.

No but seriously as long as you don't drive it like a wanker the engine will break in just fine.

 

Thanks guys, sorry to hijack the thread. Why is giving the car wide open throttle bad prior to the break in period? Do you guys think I did any damage during my 0-60 test taking each gear (including first) up to about 5k? Keep in mind this happened when the car was fully warmed up.

Is the risk of damage when the car is cold? I'm not a motorhead yet, still learning the ropes, so please excuse my simplistic questions but this is a great learning experience for me.

 

Your engine was warm when you did your 0 - 60 test so it's unlikely that you would have damaged anything. They are really tough little engines, so try not to sweat it too much. Warming up a car's engine correctly is really important. The different metals expand at different rates and all of the tolerances are designed to be correct at operating temperature, not when the engine's cold. Also bear in mind that the oil will lubricate all of the surfaces far better when it's up to temp. The Fit takes almost 4 liters of engine oil -- it takes a while for all of this to heat up.


I personally dislike the fact that the Fit doesn't have coolant and oil temp gauges. In my opinion, the little blue coolant light isn't enough -- it goes out so quickly that there's no way the coolant temperature has reached its "stable state". Similarly, there's no way the oil is up to temperature within such a short space of time.

 

I agree, the Fit really needs temperature gauges. Has anyone ever determined how long it takes before these machines are at operating temperature? The indicator light seems to go off fairly quickly, but I feel like it may not get up to temperature until about 5-10 minutes.

 

I'll connect my OBDII scan tool and see what the live data reveals. It might allow me to get a rough idea of how quickly the coolant gets up to full temp, although this will obviously have great variability based upon ambient temps and driving style.