I pulled into the local convenience store and saw a lone '09 Civic in the parking lot which was obviously owned by the store clerk. I bought my smokes and as he was ringing me up, he pointed at my Fit and asked what kind of Honda it was. I said it was a Fit and he asked if he could take a look at it as he's never heard of one. I tossed him my keys and said, "lets go".

Bottom line is he was mesmerized. He said he preferred the exterior looks of the Civic a little bit more but besides that, he said the Fit was perfect and had so much more than the Civic and was going to have to check them out a little more at the dealership tomorrow..

(where's my commission check?)

 

thats funny, I have never seen one TV commerical for a Honda fit yet.....
seen a lot for the fiesta and mazda 2
most people that see a fit up close luv the car
as well as most owners luv the car, its one of the best cars I have ever had

 

The only Fit ad I ever recall seeing was when the GE first came out. It was the Guzzlers Be Gone! bit and played in the ads before a movie. Since then, I haven't seen a thing; not a print ad, no TV, no billboards, zip.

 

Honda should keep it that way.

 

its because there is starting to be a backlog of people waiting for fits. Why increase further demand for a car that you cant meet the demand now (while paying to do so in the process)? All the ones that they produce now are constantly being sold out of in both Japan and the US and the profit margin in the US is much less than the Civic which is dangerously close to the price of a Fit.

 

Another possible reason for the dealers backlog may be the whole FIT is assembled in Japan and Honda need to container ship to North America. The local North American dealership may be at the mercy of the shipping lines shipping schedule. The Honda Fit for North America is built in a Japanese City called Suzuka (鈴鹿市, Suzuka-shi?) located in Mie, Japan.

I am not sure where the new 2011 FITs will be assembled or when are they going to move the assembly of the FIT to North America or Mexico (just like the Civics) to save on long shipment dates/costs and to avoid the costly yen currency exchange rates.. at least, mine (2010 SPorts A/T) is directly from Japan, the VIM number starts with "J".

I tend to have the perception that a vehicle made and assembled in Japan may have a higher degree of quality control?? I may be wrong or too biased to say that.. some of you may disagree

 

Perhaps. Word of mouth seems to be working pretty well and as they say, the best advertising is free advertising. If you ask me, the car pretty much sells itself. After all, I don't even own one yet but I've driven plenty and I'm already enamored with the little thing. It truly is the car of the future, today.

I work at the Port of Portland where a large number of Fits come into the US from Japan where all of them are built. Let me tell you something, we will get them in loads of up to 4,000 at a time and within a week or two (at most), they're all gone. We have three ships scheduled in the next two weeks; one on the 10th, the 14th, and the 17th. Now granted some CR-Vs, CR-Zs, Insights and Civic Hybrids will likely be in that bunch but I'll bet my wallet that a majority will be the Fit. It really is something to stand in the middle of several thousand of one type of car in one place. It's like there was a glitch in the Matrix.

 

Actually, the Fit is made in two cities, Suzuka, Mie and Sayama, Saitama.

Mine came from Sayama.

While there is a backlog in some locations, there's a surplus in others.

There were a couple of articles online from 2009 saying that Honda might make the shift to the States (one in particular, Ohio) because they're losing money, not just on the tariffs, but on the exchange rate of Yen vs Dollar (Yen was getting stronger at the time). I guess the Yen didn't get strong enough.

btw, isn't Mexico in North America? >.>'
The port isn't a warehouse/storage location, it's a port where goods move THROUGH to other locations. If anything sits at a port for any reason other than customs (and sometimes even then), the businesses tied to those goods are losing money.

If you follow those 4000 cars, you'd see just how many actually just end up sitting at one dealer or another (and then traded back and forth).

Watching a port is like how Sony made claims to selling xx million units of PS2s and PS3s... their numbers are the numbers shipped out to retailers, not the actual sales made at the retailers.

 

Thanks Goobers for that. Learn a new Japanese City today

oops... now I know why I barely passed my Geography in high school

Regarding the yen vs dollar exchange rates, the Honda dealers in my town were very reluctant to discount their new FITs - they claimed their margins are too slim because of the high cost of yen to import the FIT directly from Japan. If I wanted deeper discounts for a Honda vehicle, they ushered me towards the North American assembled Civic in the showroom - $2000 off right away. I selected the FIT - best decision in my life (apart from marrying my wife)

 

The Fit is GO!!!

 

There is some subtle advertising out there.When people research a car,they often look online at reviews. There are plenty of those for the Fit. After browsing those,you head to the Honda website and download a brochure.Then it's off to the dealer to see one in person. Honda doesn't need to spend money to advertise imo. I remember growing up,seeing the Honda commercials on TV. I was way too young to understand about cars,and living in Manhattan no one drove in my family. There would be a customer in the showroom explaining the car to the salesman. He would even crawl underneath and point out the double wishbone suspension(whatever that is). I did remember the tagline though. "Honda,the car that sells itself". That's pretty much it.

 

True...but dealers wouldn't be allocating them if they didn't think they could sell them.

 

OR is Mexico in Central America?

Check it out.

 

I've been to Mexico many times but never to Central America.... A portion of Mexico is north of a considerable amount of the state of Texas and the southern parts of Arizona, New Mexico, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and a great deal of Florida.... If that part is in Central America then part of the USA is as well.

 

I have (to confirm before my previous post), and it's a big ol NO. Central America consists of about 7 or 8 countries from Guatamala to Panama.

The only reason one would want to consider them part of Central America would be because the languages are are more similar than to English... even if you consider there is a large Spanish speaking population in the States.

There's a difference between "central of the Americas" vs "Central America." Small c vs big C.

 

I still can not believe how many adults I have met or interacted with online that think Mexicans should go back to South America (Tea Baggers), Africa and Asia are countries, Hitler was a Commie, I would continue but I would probably piss someone off if I do.

 

i know this isnt the GE but i fondly remember these commercials:

 

After reading all the posts regarding Mexico, I think you guys are confusing me. My geography is bad enough. So, please help me set my thoughts straight, is Mexico considered as North America?

 

Yes

(stupid 10 char limit!!!!)

 

Thanks Goobers. Regarding the annoying 10 char minimum for each post, You can type this this next time to by-pass the 10 character minumum
" .................................................. .................................................. ........................................"