I'll have to respectfully disagree totally.;) The fit has a great interior for the class, in typical honda fashion, but that's just it isn't it? For the CLASS. The rabbit, despite its hatch configuration and its close to the fit base price, does NOT compete with the fit directly, its a civic/sentra/mazda3 competitor and not built to the same price point as the fit.


Any review on the car will tell you that while it isn't the sportiest entry in the segment, its defintely the classiest and most luxurious, if a little bland...typical tuetonic styling as i put it.



I owned a 07 2 door rabbit for a year before trading in for the fit that my wife and i own now, (VBP sport), so i've got plenty of REAL world experience with both vehicles.


The gas mileage in the rabbit is basically like that of a typical midsize sedan with a big four banger. I used to average 28 mpg which was right on par with the epa's old and new standards, as opposed to the regular inconsistencies some have with the fit.

The car is exceedingly well planted, and does not suffer from crosswinds like the fit.


The only issue we had with it is the expensive service. But other than that no problems at all. The service was expensive enough for us to want to trade in, and maybe leave VW for a different time in our lives, as the fit IS more economical.


But the rabbit is a great car, and yes it has a (i wont say 'better' as that is subjective) 'more nicley appointed' interior than the fit and any other car in its class. It is in no way 'cheap'.:rolleyes:

 

Yes I have test driven the rabbit & the GTI. Both were pretty good though even though I would prefer the GTI. Even the GTI had better gas mileage on the highway rather than the Rabbit. but you have to put premium in it too. But for the price of the Rabbit, it's not so bad.

 

True. The fact that you need premium counteracts the slightly better mileage, especially since vw tuned the 2.5 for 08 to be more powerful and efficient. Its mpg ratingsa are practically equal to the gti now.

 

IMAO having two prior VW's cars, one being a 2.0L Jetta and the other being a GTI 1.8T they gave me nothing but issues! I can say "Check Engine Lights" were coined by Volkswagen. Big reason being is all the electronics in the car...far more then you really understand!
Now I have made the change over to the Fit or Honda for that matter. To tell you the truth..I have not looked back. No more worring about freakin'...CEL's, mass air flow sensors, coil packs, water pumps, thermostat sensors....thank you HONDA. To tell you what, the parts in the VW's are not that well made either...both of my VW's....both glove box handles broke and center arm rest handle broke and have had several issues with windows not working!
As a note your MPG will suffer due to the fact you are lugging around a 3 thousand pound slug (curb weight). This is why VW torque curve is soooo high....otherwise the freakin car won't move off the line!!!

HONDA ALL THE WAY!!!

GD3blaze07'

 

Case in point:

Brand new VW R32 catches on fire - Autoblog

 

haha! i was just about to post that...

frankly, though, that is an item that should have been addressed back in 2001. it's pretty unreal when you start digging up the statistics on how often this happens... those are just the REPORTED incidents too.

 

the mpg in the rabbit is no worse than a car with the same weight and engine size. The offset of this is that the car is incredible stable and can claim a very high top speed (130mph to be exact) while feeling just as stable, even more so, actually much more so than the fit.


I don't doubt your previous experience with your vw's, but i'm pretty sure they are hecho in mexcio mkIV's, which are vastly different than the wolfsburgian mkV's. I actually had more issues with my 06 honda civic than my rabbit; again i'll stress that we traded in for a lower cost to own, as the general maintanence is expensive on most german vehicles.


The r32 blowing up is kinda whatev, every car has issues, vw more so than certain other brands, but don't let the big h fool you into thinking that their vehicles are TOTALLY issue free for EVERYONE.


As for me, i'm still a happy vw and honda fan, having no issues with either companies vehicles that have been under my ownership.:)

 

Not knocking VW, just IMAO I stated what I stated. All my friends have VW's and they ALL have problems even MKV's. This will always be an issue with VW "CEL".
You said made here, I said made there...wow did know a car could be constructed so differently in different production countries?!:confused: It's a nice car from a distance as long as you do not own it...IMAO.

GD3blaze07'

 

so you have tons of friends who owned problematic vw's but it still didn't stop them from buying mkV"s? do they not communicate? And how many mkV owners can one possibly know? you see gti's and rabbits A LOT less than you see even our own little fit, which isn't really common at all.



The gti and rabbit are built and assembled totally in germany, the jetta however continues to be built in mexico. Its kinda like the whole 'j' car thing with us honda guys, except that the 'w' cars from vw are ACTUALLY better than the hecho en mexico ones, as opposed to it being this secret desire on our part to belive that our japanese constructed hondas are superior.


on a side not, not only does consumer reports reccomend the vw passat, but it has yet to say anything bad about the gti and rabbit simply because there are many who just don't own them. And the jetta has been rated as average now, instead of 'avoid it at all costs.' i think thats technically an improvement.;) Audi's overall scores have gone up considerably as well.

 

One thing for sure, it would be interesting to see like a time attack between these two cars. I'm rooting for the fit, though.:D

 

I see about 5 MkVs to every 1 Fit..

 

It's funny how NO VW's are recommended by Consumer Reports and just about EVERY Honda is recommended. Just the facts though!

GD3blaze07':)

 

This is a LONG post. If you are serious about knowing the reality about current VW's and have 5 minutes to spare, please read on. If you want to flame me for A) not bashing VW sufficently or B) not understanding how "awesome" these cars are, well don't bother. I welcome discussion, debate, etc.

LEMONS

FACT: About one in one thousand VW's and Audi's are certified for Lemon Claims. VW sold 338,000 vehicles in the US in 2002 and 338 of them ended up in a lemon claims.

Several state government post exhaustive reports on their web sites about Lemon Law Claims. I have read 2001 annual reports for New York, Hawaii and Texas and a 10 year report for New Jersey (1989-1999).

Here are some real numbers;

In New Jersey, from 1989-1998 one in every 993 VW's/Audi's registered had a complaint serious enough to be heard as a Lemon case.
This compares to one in every 1,037 Fords, one in 1,406 for GM.
Toyota/Lexus (oh aren't they wonderful!) had a ten year lemon rate of 1 per 4,911, while Chrysler sucked big time at 1 in 392 registrations.

With 2.7% of the market, VW's/Audi's has 3% of the lemons

Turning just to 2001, things are a bit different:

In Texas in 2001 VW's held 1.3% of the total vehicle market (cars, trucks, Winnebagos, etc). Yet they produced 2.97% of all Lemon complaints and resulted in 6% of all buy backs or vehicle replacements.
In New York state VW's/Audi's represented just 1% of the
Lemon cases, or 3 of 298, and 1.6% of all buybacks and replacements since 1987. Similar figures apply in Florida & Hawaii.

In Canada they don't have Lemon Laws, but consumers can go through the Canadian Automotive Vehicle Arbitration Program (CAMVAP) for a similar type of recourse against bad vehicles. In 2001 VW's represented 2.2% of complaints.WHAT DOES THIS MEAN? They do way better than Chrysler, a bit worse than GM, and WAY worse than Honda, Toyota and Subaru!!:)

GD3blaze07'

 

I do too, but thats including jettas and gti's. Here in nc, you see very few actual rabbits.

 

is it just me, or are we comparing the rabbit to the fit, which isn't old enough to be listed under any of this info? For early 00 vw's i totally belive it, but even then you still have the few that have had no issues.

The mkV hasn't been around long enough to really say how it will be in the long run. All i know is that they have so far been considerably better than the mkIV's and i had 27 thousand trouble free(but kinda expensive) miles.

 

actually, the passat IS reccomended by consumer reports, just had to burst your bubble.:D


There are a lot of cars NOT reccomended by consumer reports, but for the gti and rabbit, they are still currently rated as insuficient data, since very few people own them.


Another 'fact' you may find interesting; CR isn't an out right poll that gets sent to you like some other reporting companies; you MUST be a subscriber to them in order to rate your vehicle.


So here is the big question: if VW's have been consistently been rated SOOOO absolutely horrible, why do the same consumer reports buyers keep buying them?:confused: ;) It could be a simple as anyone who has a lemon vee-dub subscribes to complain, but that logic would also mean that there are those subscribe to keep certain companies golden. (hondas are pretty bulletproof, but you are fooling yourself if you dont think that someone somewhere had a major issue.)


Even toyota has models that are not reccomended by them now, and no i'm not talking about the base manual transmission corolla or some one off model like that, i'm talking about 4wd tundras and v-6 bread and butter camry's.:)

 

Hey there, I used to work at Consumer Reports, and actually I bought my Fit from their test-track just before I left.

Something to keep in mind about their testing and recommending is that they test the car on the track and then they poll only their subscribers (absolutely right eldaino) to get at reliability.

A car has to have either good reliability or good anticipated reliability to get a recommendation. So, while lack of reliability data for a rabbit may disqualify it from getting a recommendation, you should still be able to get a good feel for driving it from their articles. However, I guess VW's reputation for reliability may be so bad you don't care how it drives.

Finally, I now work for USNews on their car ranking site. The Fit beats the rabbit hands down, mostly because of reliability and the overall impression of the reviewers. I don't want to spam with the link to the site, but I'll post it if you ask for it. Otherwise you can go to USnews and find the link there. Once I've proven I'm not a troll, maybe I'll ask you guys for feedback on the site.

Anyway, my advice, get the Fit and get the Sport trim, I'm really bummed I got the standard now.

 

the only complaint cr has had about the bunny is the 'thrashy' five cylinder, which i always found interesting souding, if a bit dinosaur like.


but there is no mention of our little fits tendency to be a bit buzzy at higher rpms....? ;)

 

LOL, that is rather ironic. Stuff like that is so highly subjective, that I'm not even sure why it's mentioned.

 

yeah i don't know why they mentioned it either. while i do agree with honda's great reliability, i do think that cr does cater a bit to the brands like them. so when a car by honda or toyota isn't reccomended by them, it must have been a colossal disaster.


but like i said, not only is the passat reccommended and the jetta now average instead of 'run for you life', the gti and rabbit remain to few in number to really rate.