Terrible advice. AWD is only helpful for accelerating, not stopping/turning. (at least with standard Subaru AWD)

My Fits have been great in the snow.

Even got my wife & I home in the nine inches of snow and ice we got earlier this week. Will be buying blizzaks in preparation for next winter, room for improvement over my Yokohama all-seasons.

 

Actually it was a joke but I've owned 4 subarus and never had any issues in the snow even when turning and stopping. Never needed chains either.

 

Did the U.S. ever get a awd version of the fit?

 

The HR-V is a CUV version of the 2015+ Fit.

 

[QUOTE=Terrible advice. AWD is only helpful for accelerating, not stopping/turning. (at least with standard Subaru AWD)

My Fits have been great in the snow.

Even got my wife & I home in the nine inches of snow and ice we got earlier this week. Will be buying blizzaks in preparation for next winter, room for improvement over my Yokohama all-seasons.[/QUOTE]

Let's not kid ourselves. The Fit is a decent winter driver but in the snow, Subaru is king. If you don't know this, you've clearly never gotten stuck in a snow bank because a plow came by and pushed a ton of snow against and underneath your car. The added bonus is when the snow has time to settle and harden overnight.

 

That's a load of shit lol. A Subaru is going to have a lot more ground clearance than a Fit, so there's the main advantage. I know the Fit does well & I bought snow tires for mine this year since I had a Saabaru last winter, but I guarantee the Fit will get stuck long before the Saabaru would even on all seasons.

I know a lot of people think too highly of awd and get carried away, but awd is definitely superior.

 

No its pretty good advice, they're great cars.

 

I had that happen my freshman year of college in my old Integra which was quite low.

I shoveled the snow out from behind my car, backed up and....went on with my life.

Idiots had pushed it so close to my car I had to scoop it out of my HKS HiPower exhaust before I started it.

RE: Ground clearance. I've lived in WI my entire life. I've never once been stuck. Only time ground clearance was an issue was when I was driving my lowered GD, hit a snow drift around a blind corner (wind had blown snow about 12" deep across the center of a country highway), pretty much filled the engine bay with snow. Let it sit at a dealership all day the next day and was perfectly fine.

Subarus are fine cars, except for the head gasket issues, the difficulty in changing spark plugs, the terrible gas mileage, horrible interiors, etc.

 

Well, I've always gotten about 20-23 MPG with my Fit because of relatively short trips and cold engine. Also, there are some hills in my area. Most Subies get about the same MPG as me so that's a push. Granted, I can get 38MPG on the highway but I don'T do that much highway because I live in the city. Yea yea, I know, take your bike...

So I wouldn't say the Subie has great fuel economy buts its definitely not horrible. My budy drives a Jeep SRT8, now that is horrible fuel economy but it's a car designed for power so...

I don't think subies are all that horrible. Even on base models, you used get A/C, power windows and locks when it wasn't necessarily standard on other brands. The cabin does tend to be cramped.

Subaru did have a problem with blown head gaskets when they went to the 2.5L engine. They have since gone back to 2.0. They've sacrificed some power but gained reliability and MPG.

The snow being packed into your muffler story is basically every day life in montreal. Every morning you have to get up and shovel and often nights you have to dig a parking space. So subies are a hot commodity here. I think I've actually convinced myself: my next car is a subie.

Plus subaru has nice colors like: olive drab, taupe, a kind of dirty orange, perloid white... They might not be your thing but they did a much better job than Honda on offering original colors. Just look at the GK yellow. Yikes!

 

Ya. The gasket and gas mileage on the Subaru are a thing of the past. They were also covered by recall. My 2000 outback had it changed at no cost. My last subaru was a 2013 Impreza with cvt. got about 30 combined. However it was so boring to drive with the cvt and very little aftermarket parts. That's why I traded it in for the Fit. Much more fun and plenty of jdm stuff. The new 2015 and 2016 subies have a better tuned cvt so the wife will be getting one.

 

If you get 20-23 in a Fit, you'd likely be lucky to get 18 in a Subaru.

That said...you should ride a bike, I can't imagine your commute is over 3 miles with that MPG.

You guys can have fun with Subarus, I'll laugh my way to the bank with each trouble-free mile the Fit provides.

BTW, olive drap, taupe, white and a burnt orange are not exactly original colors. They're standard fall tones, and quite plain. The US big three are offering the best colors of any mainstream manufacturers.

30 MPG combined is...not good. At all.

A buddy of mine gets 28 MPG on his all highway (35 miles each way) commute in a 2015 Crosstrek. I average 40 in my 50/50 city/highway (10 miles each way through more traffic) commute.

That said, still not sure why Subarus are being brought up in a thread about driving in the snow in a Fit.

 

That was my fault. I made a joke about buying a Subaru because someone was having traction issues with their Fit and complaining about it.

 

MikeB is just arguing for the sake of it! I'm not gonna waste time responding because if I say, my commute is 5 miles he'll say, "I once knew a guy who bikes 10 miles through a snowstorm to get to work every day". The subaru is available in hot pink no wait, i can buy a Ford Taurus in peach... And on and on...

So Subaru's aside, the fit is a decent car in snow, but low ground clearance, light weight and absence of 4wd means that it can have a tendency to get stuck after parking. It's still a pretty sweet winter driver plus I love my aftermarket remote start. Here I comes mikeb, he once parked his car in a swimming pool which then turned into a block of ice and he was able to drive out on his stock tire while completing a sudoku he's amazing

 

That is one way to respond. Maybe you'd get decent fuel economy if you didn't use remote start. That's terrible for the car too.

 

AWD is illegal in F1 and Indy racing for a reason given 2 equal cars it gives you more control.

It has been many many years since a 2WD car has beat a AWD in WRC rally..

I own a Fit a Jeep and AWD BMW guess which one could not get out of my uphill driveway this morning during a freezing rain storm? The other two had no issues.
I had to drag the fit out of the way with the jeep to get to work. It just would not pull up the hill (About a 15 inch rise over 20 feet or so.. ) Hankook all seasons.. )

BTW I participated in a ice test years ago where they swapped our tires blind and had us drive on a ice rink and guess what.. AWD with Blizzaks won.
My times in a AWD Audi were far faster than the 2wd car. Same with a AWD toyota pickup vs a 2wd pickup.

YMMV...

 

I just started using remote start after Xmas because we had strangely hot weather in Quebec. On Xmas day it was like 40-50 degrees; it hadn't been that hot since 60+ years. Before I even started using remote start, I was getting 23-24 mpg which is like an all time high for me since owning my GD3 MT. I did start going to a university that is about 10 miles and close to the highway so I'd get to hit the highway about 5-6 times a week which might explain my higher MPG.

I was getting low MPG and last winter got an O2 sensor slow response pending code. I chalked it up to the extreme cold we get sometimes, it was just a pending code and I erased it and never heard from it since (going on one year). I'm also on the original coils going on 100k kilometers (66k miles?). I thought Id have to change my O2 sensor so I ordered a new Denso one but every summer for the past two years I've been asking my mechanic to test my O2 sensor and he gives at clean bill of health... I've since changed the plugs and done a valve adjust but still get the same.

Anyway, I started a thread eons ago about my bad MPG and it seemed the consensus was short trips and a cold engine. What can I do, I live in the city! I do ride the bus and bike plenty but that doesn't help my MPG. I'm tempted to just go ahead and change the sensor since its just sitting there but I'm just hesitant on changing a part that's like 200$ for nothing

 

P.S. Sorry to highjack the thread but my MPG's always bugged me.

 

I seem to remember seeing a video on FF that showed that a FWD car with winter tyres can do better than an AWD with all seasons. Why not treat your Fit to some Blizzacks!? It's not a fair fight !

 

Mike, I've been driving in winter weather in Boston / MA since I got my license and I know how to drive in the snow. After reading all of the replies here and then having my tires inspected, the problem was with my tires and not because I was "doing something wrong". Now you and Fit Charlie (assuming he is still alive after passing jeeps on the highway in the snow) may have been lucky but you may also have newer / better tires than I had on mine (for the record I had the original dunlops and my car had approx 75k miles on it at the time).
After owning the car for another year I really love the little thing and decided to keep it for a couple more years so I went and bought a brand new set of blizzaks with a used set of oem sport rims for them to sit on. Fortunately, this winter, it has only snowed once where I live and as is always the case in MA...every plow in town was out clearing the streets and salting the roads after waiting all year to soak up some overtime- so I haven't been able to truly test out the new rubber. I'll post an update here when I do. Last year was ridiculous...I don't care what anyone says. It was extreme (I shoveled over ten ft of snow). Oh and I want to throw in my two cents regarding awd vs fwd. Awd makes a huge difference in the snow. A Subaru will kick any fits butt on hill climbing in the snow, driving in deep snow and situations where the road conditions slushy or just plain messy. The fits low stance makes driving through deep, wet and or heavy snow almost impossible in it's oem tires (if the snow is feather light and dry then almost any fwd car should be able to get through it). I know that AWD can give drivers a false sense of security which causes them to drive faster and wreck but in similar driving conditions at the same speed, an awd vehicle should perform better 99.9 percent of the time. Search "subrau forester deep snow" on google videos and tell me if you think a Fit could do the same thing. Better yet...search Honda fit deep snow and watch the difference. I love the Fit...it's an amazing car for what it is and how much it cost me but it can't compare to a subaru in winter conditions (which is why I'm leaning toward the Subaru XV for my next car). Or..depending on how my new snow tires do...I may decide to buy another fit but I really want an awd.

 

If it doesn't snow that much, getting a whole other car for snow driving is overkill (IMO). You should be alright with winter tyres. I agree whole heartedly with everything you say but I'll add that I think the winter tyre makes an even greater difference in the snow than AWD. Equip a Subaru with warn Dunlop all seasons and it will struggle mightily in the snow. I believe there is a video of cars trying to climb a snowy hill and a front wheel drive car with winters on beat out a 4WD car with all seasons so it goes to show the importance of the tyre.

Congrats on the purchase. Winters are expensive upfront but I'm sure you'll find that the driving experience is literally night and day so I'm sure you'll be satisfied.