The Mrs. already drives one as her daily driver. I'm looking to ditch my fun to drive VW for something that's still fun but more reliable. I haven't had a chance to test drive the manuals yet - how do you guys like them?

 

Even if you have the Golf GTI, you may have at least more fun with the Fit Sport MT. Many here including myself have come from serious sports cars and have just as much fun with the Fit.

 

Have a 2010 fit base manual and let me tell you, you will not be unhappy with a purchase of a manual. All I can say this it is responsive, and fun to drive. Test drive one for yourself. I am sure you will like it over your VW. Good luck.

 

as long as I don't accidentally put it into reverse while I'm driving (reverse is in a diff place in VWs and while driving other manuals I've almost made this mistake)

 

so I'm just curious guys - what makes you think the fit would be more fun than a GTI for instance? Those are fairly powerful and well handling cars (recently test drove one). The fit does handle well but the power would certainly feel a bit lacking when directly compared to a GTI. where the fit shines for me is that you can fit a lot of stuff in it, reliable, great mpg and a very nice car for the price.

 

There's a lockout; it won't let you do this.

 

I almost did this on a subaru once and it made a pretty nasty sound.

 

keyword... almost, but you didn't.

by "different layout" do you mean that reverse is on the left by 1st gear? or in the upper left corner, with first in the lower left? I think those layouts have more potential from problems... especially the former (1st in upper left, and reverse next to it)... where people can shift into one or the other expecting to go the opposite direction.

I mean, in the Fit, the only time you'd come close to accidentally using reverse is if you thought the car had a 6th gear, they currently don't. Or you missed the 4th gear, which is kinda hard to do as long as you pull the shifter straight down from 3rd.

 

I think the lack of power vs the GTI will get to you once the novelty of a new car wears off.

Having owned a few German cars myself I feel you on the reliability issues. For you I'd take a look at the MazdaSpeed 3 before the Fit.

I like my Fit for what it is, a roomy, cheap, economical car. It may be fun to drive for an economical car, but its main purpose is still an economical car.

 

Each time I saw bigger and more power car on the road or in magazines and I feel I am tempted to go for it (which I don't absolutely need a bigger car, FIT is enough), I managed to fight all the temptations so far by chanting in my head.... feel good at the gas station fuel pump, feel good at the gas station fuel pump.. low cost of ownership... low cost of ownership...and keep repeating over and over to myself and I am fine. I love my FIT

 

feeling good at the gas pump and low cost of ownership is why I enjoy my fit.

If I need a bigger and more powerful car I still have a BMW 530 and turbo miata to fight those temptations haha.

 

The thing that really sold me on the fit is the MT. Buttery smooth shifter and clutch. So enjoyable to drive compared to the other cars I test drove. The Hyundai Elantra MT (6 speed) was complete crap. The Subaru was a little tractor-like. The civic was only OK. The fit was the runaway winner in that category.

 

if you drove a VW you'd see why you'd never accidentally put it in reverse. you have to actually push the entire shifter down before moving it to the left of 1st. it's actually pretty impossible to make that motion accidentally.

 

the main thing that turns me off about the new GTI is that the DI engine has some serious carbon buildup problems in the intake. the mazdaspeed 3 should also suffer from this problem as it is also DI. I don't think anyone has really solved that issue yet.

 

My friend's A3 is in the shop for this issue. Are you sure the MS3 has the same issue? It may be just on the 2.0T. What year is your GTI? If its not carbon, its sludge build up, I got a notice for that for my old A4 with the 1.8T.

 

Do you think the carbon buildup is a design problem? What saves the FIT from this carbon build up problem?

I am glad I moved away from mazda 3

 

according to the specs the fit is a multi-point fuel injection system (so the fuel is injected upstream of the intake valves).

direct injection (what the 2.0t audi/vw cars and some others have) is where the fuel it sprayed directly into the cylinder instead of upstream. this in and of itself is a good thing for performance. the problem is that the blow by gases from the engine get rerouted back through the intake valves. with no fuel passing through the intake valves it allows crud to build up in them which creates a nasty baked on crust which robs massive amounts of HP and causes the car to run like crap. so in order to avoid this the only real solution is to manually clean the intake valves (not a fun job). I've heard BMW (who also has some DI engines) is working on a way to make this process easier and then make it part of their standard maintenance.

What's funny is that when you read wikipedia on DI they say this:
"However, the entire intake is dry, making this a very clean system."

Guess they are incorrect on that one...

 

I don't have a GTI but it is/was one of the cars I'm considering for replacing my jetta GLX (VR6).

I can find some reference to people trying seafoam and other things to clean out their intakes on some mazda forums but maybe it isn't as big of a problem on those cars. I follows VW/Audi a lot closer so I'm not as familiar with the mazdas.

edit: http://forum.mazda6club.com/mazdaspe...big-issue.html

this is almost exactly what I'm reading on the VW forums. almost all the same explanations and possible solutions.

The sludge problem was b/c they were using oil to cool the turbo on the 1.8t. The 2.0Ts use engine coolant.

 

Thanks zymo... I am glad I owned a FIT instead of those gas junk accumulating vehicles...

I am wondering what other type of cars are having the same upstream mult-point injection as the FIT... subaru?

 

direct injection is more the odd technology here. I think multi-point injection is pretty common. could be wrong on that