My Complaints About The Fit

You know, it's kind of strange. The things I thought I would miss, or bother me the most about the Fit, are not the ones I now complain about after owning it.

Before I purchased the car, I thought that the lack of an armrest would really bother me, since I was noticing how often I used it to rest my elbow on the old car. I also thought the colour-coded headlamps would drive me crazy, and that the lack of a standard cargo cover was just silly for a hatchback.

The latter still bothers me. I still can't understand why this would not be a standard feature on a hatchback. Whenever I'm out with the car and have to leave items in the back, I always worry a bit. Leaving nothing in sight just makes the car less tempting for break-ins. I would have still bought the Fit if Honda had included this item, but added $100 to the price of the car, wouldn't you?

As for the colour-coded headlights, it's not bothering me anymore. Well, at least on my Alabaster Silver Metallic. Cars like the Infiniti G35 Coupe, the Volvo R series cars, etc, all have silver painted headlights. So it's actually not soo bad. I still don't think they look good on red, white, blue, etc cars though.

And although I'd still like to have the JDM center console with the armrest, it's only because of the extra storage space, since I'm so used to putting certain items in that space from all of my previous cars (tire gauge, cell phone charger, pen). But I don't find myself missing the actual armrest at all.

What I did find really annoying is the lack of light in the interior of the Fit. No map light, no footwell lighting, and especially annoying, no glovebox light! It's a cave! Even during the day, you don't always get enough light in there to see. A contact switched light would cost near nothing for Honda to add at the factory.

I also found that my left foot keeps rolling over the tiny clutch pedal that does not pivot and my left foot will keep moving up on the pedal. Eventually, the top of my shoes gets caught under the dash, and I can not release the clutch without first wiggling my foot loose. This is made worse by the fact that the steering column does not telescope. I like the sit with my elbows comfortably bent, learned that from performance driving events. However, without a telescoping steering column, this means I'm sitting more forward than my legs would be totally comfortable.

As for the drive-by-wire setup on the Fit, for the most part I find it ok. However, I do find it a bit "laggy". It seems to be half a second behind on what I'm actually doing. Whether suddenly pushing down to accelerate to change lane or merge, or lifting to change gears. It seems to always linger just a bit, causing the engine to rev up in neutral a bit as I press the clutch down to shift for example. Maybe Honda can upgrade their ECM programming to fix this, like Nissan did for the Versa, so we can just get our cars reprogrammed for better throttle response.

Last thing here is the lack of a passenger side vanity mirror. I've already caught my wife flipping the visor down a few times when she needed to check her make-up and not finding a mirror. I say if cost was the issue, then forget the mirror on the driver side, and just put one on the passenger side. No drivers should be using the vanity when the vehicle's in motion anyway! and when the car's stopped, it's easy enough just to use the rear-view mirror since it should be angled towards you anyway.

Anyways, I've got some plans to at least ractify the interior lighting issues on my car, and I'll probably order the JDM Driver-side visor (passenger side for us) with the vanity mirror for my wife. As for the throttle delay, I guess that's up to Honda.