I'm planning on buying a new car in May and pretty sure it will be a fit. I've read some info on hear in the past already, like threads about mountain driving since I live in the mountains a bit and it's 45 miles to town(why I want a good mileage vehicle with cargo space). So will get winter tires for it before winter next year.

I'm tech challenged a bit and wondering how the radio works. Can I just plug a thumbdrive of songs into it and have it play them or do I need an mp3 player and if so does it need to be any specific brands of mp3 players? I still have time to ask for one for Christmas. I'm currently in driving hell with a 94 ford taurus so I've not had to deal with fancy radios(and I don't even have a smart phone cuz I have no use for one really) but with our limited crappy local radio playing my own tunes while driving sounds nice.

My only other concern is one favorite hiking trail is on a dirt trun off pull through that has quite a dip going in with a pot hole at the same time. Not the best description, I guess. The taurus makes it though.

 

You can plug a thumb drive into the radio and play songs from it. The organization and playlist features are rudimentary, but the music plays just fine so long as you have files in the supported formats etc.

Stock clearance should be OK if your old taurus does OK; it's not vastly different, especially if the Taurus's suspension is drooping a bit from age and use. Obviously going slowly and aiming carefully, straddling the pothole if possible, is a good idea. (The Fit has about 5.5" of ground clearance, and does have a fairly long low nose, such that the minimum clearance extends a good bit in front of the wheels. I think the newer redesign is a bit better in terms of front overhang, though I haven't studied it in any detail.)

 

Thank you. I had looked at the radio info but it wasn't clear to me if the thumb drive would work.

You got me wondering on the Taurus clearance and I had to resort to going out with a tape measure. The front bumper looks to be just under 10" from the ground so would make an uneducated guess it's actually less than that,maybe around 8"?

I think the suspension isn't that old either at least not in front. A tree fell across the road in front of me in '06 and the taurus launched over it dukes of hazard style. Should have been totaled but due to an insurance technicality they paid to fix it instead.

So yeah a decent difference of a few inches but could be okay. It's fairly wide at the turn in the pothole is where it's least steep. It would probably be easier to miss in the fit though since the turning radius is better. The Taurus sucks big time there.

 

Okay so I pooled my BD and x-max money from a relative who never knows what to get me and got a rugged usb 1T drive. Can I use it for both music and backing up my photos long as they are separate folders or will that confuse the Honda system. It would be a shame to waste all that space. I could always just get tons more music.

 

I think the radio will basically ignore non-music files, but I'd suggest just getting a cheap 8 or 16 or so MB thumb drive for car music. It makes life easier all around, and with 8MB thumb drives being $5 or so, it won't break the bank.

My Fit radio every once in awhile (maybe once in a few months) manages to corrupt the directory structure on the flash drive such that it won't play properly. Reformatting and recopying the files from my computer solves that problem. It would be a bummer if that were to happen and take out your picture backup, though. I don't know if it's a bug in the radio, or questionable compatibility of my thumb drive, or the occasional usage with harsh temperature conditions in the car, or what.

According to a couple of things found via Google, the 94 Ford taurus has 5.4" ground clearance, virtually the same as the Fit. This is basically to the lowest non-wheel part of the car, which is typically well below the front bumper. On a rear wheel drive vehicles it frequently is the differential case, but on most front wheel drive cars much of the underside is more or less the same distance above the ground.

 

I tried finding the clearance of the Taurus and couldn't. Thank you. This was really my only worry about my decision to get a FIT. Being about the same then it should be fine taking it slow just like now. We've actually abused the Taurus taking it on dirt roads and even taking it through that one muddy area to go berry picking. I don't plan on that with the FIT. The Taurus was always a beater. Though if we HAD to take it to get firewood cuz the Blazer is busted sounds like the FIT might survive(those areas are nice dirt roads) as we've also done that with the Taurus. Really not planning on doing that though.

Yeah if there's a risk of corrupting the disc then sticking with a thumbdrive sounds better. That would suck and hadn't even occurred to me. Whether a fluke or not better not to risk it.

Thanks a bunch.