And as for your last post, no- you weren't clear- if you really want to start a pissing contest, make sure you're not downwind, dude. It hasn't gone anywhere since the '80's

Your post was very lacking in real knowledge, and my post was intended to put REAL knowledge and experience out there for the OP, who is obviously lacking. Putting out hypotheticals you "know" are false to someone with lacking knowledge and experience isn't a good way to spread the word. So don't get butthurt- I'm really not a bad guy. I'm not some little forum 18 year old who reads a lot- I'm a 26 (27 on Wednesday ) who got a fake ID at 16 to go racing. I raced professionally for Subaru for 2 years. I worked for RYR in Moorseville, NC, first as an engine teardown guy, then for a small independent team doing engines and transmissions. I started and ran three high-performance and racing shops, one of which specialized in building Hondas (K-series, mostly). I've prototyped more go fast parts on my own cars than I can count.
Again, I'm not looking to pick on you. I just felt that the information presented was either erroneous, or poorly presented, and wanted to clarify, so that the OP, who in 2000's speak is a noob, wouldn't be confused- Mark W.

Edit: Also, I'm sorry if what I said came across as any kind of a personal affront. I hate to say it, but this week has been pretty rough- getting ready to move, packing, and a million and one things to do before the wifey and I move, so my brain may have 8 spark plugs, but they may not always all be firing No hard feelings?

 

Thanks everyone for the replies... I think I'll stick with my actual 5th gear...

Some people say that 3500 RPM isn't bad for the engine, and some say it will wear faster... If I'm planning to keep this car for 15 years, should I avoid 3500 RPM?

thanks

 

Don't worry about 3500 rpm. My Integra GS-R wasn't much lower at 70mph, if any, and It had around 80K miles when I traded it. (Needed a 4-door). That engine often saw 7000+ rpm and never once had a problem. The two previous Hondas weren't driven much differently and one had 196K on the odo when I traded it and the other 120 when I sold it for the GS-R.

Dont' worry about the engine.

~SB

 

you will be fine. honda has been building high RPM engines for longer than you have been alive. they know what they are doing

 

Ouch, 4k rpm? My auto isn't close to that at 70.

 

It's not 4k rpm at 70. It's closer to 3500 or 3600, IIRC. But regardless, I really don't understand why this remains an ongoing topic of discussion.

First of all, the engine is not loud at these RPMs. I can definitely hear more road noise than engine noise. It's only when you get to 80 mph or more that the engine noise is all that noticeable--and it's still not enough to bother me. I've asked my wife about this as well. Her hearing is way more sensitive than mine and she agrees with this assessment.

In my experience, Hondas are not quiet cars anyway when it comes to highway noise, so I doubt people are buying Fits for a quiet ride. Obviously, if the engine noise at these RPMs does bother you, the MT fit is the wrong car for you. It's no secret about the gearing so it should not catch anyone by surprise.

Now about fuel efficiency, let's stop speculating and get down to some observable facts. I have seen no REAL WORLD evidence that the AT gets better highway mileage than the MT. I know about the EPA rating but I can get over 40 highway on my MT without any effort whatsoever. I hit 43+ on a recent trip and that included some in-town driving and some traffic. And I don't hyper mile or even pay much heed to trying to save fuel (other than just to drive sensibly most of the time). Everything I've read here and experienced with my own car leads me to believe that the MT gets at least as good highway mileage as the AT.

As for longevity, if anyone wants to convince me that Honda (which has made some of the most reliable engines in the world for a long, long time) sacrificed longevity with the gearing on the MT Fit, feel free, but I remain skeptical of that argument. It's hard to imagine they'd go down that road. I keep my cars a very long time and eventually I'll find out but I will not give it a second thought in the meantime.

Look, I don't know squat about engines compared to most people on here. But you know what, even if you tear down engines and rebuild them in your sleep, you still don't know squat about engines compared to the guys and gals that design and build them for Honda. And for some of you to jump to conclusions that the RPMs are going to become a longevity issue is just FUD at this point. If we find out otherwise at some later date, you can say "I told you so."

 

Today, with the ever improving ATs it's hard to outperform them with an MT. About the quiet ride. I can't think of a car in this price range that is quiet. I really don't think higher RPMs are that much of an issue for longevity. The big evil for engines is still heat. You keep it in the right temp range and RPMs, within reason, should not be a big deal.

I see a few here talking about dropoff after you pass 65 mph. Have you noticed that? Crazy thing about my 2003 6cyl Accord is that there was really no difference between MPG at 55 or 80. That fifth gear in the AT was set up soo perfectly that it was like a miracle car. I was consistently in the 30-32 range at those speeds.

 

Yes, there is a slight drop off after 65 or so but I can still get around 40 mpg driving 70-80 a lot of the time. Now, I'm not saying that if you set your cruise to 80 and drive for 4 hours you'll get 40 mpg. I have no clue because I don't/can't drive that way on my usual trips.

Bottom line: IMO the fit can be driven hard pushing the RPMs, cruising at 75 mph, whatever and still gets great mileage. The "penalty" for higher revs is minuscule from what I've seen. That's been my experience so far. I think the people getting really bad mileage must have some other factors at play (hills, short trips, terrible driving habits, etc).

 

Yeah, hills are tough. But the weird thing about them is that if you drive right things tend to even out over the whole trip. Hills on the way back should give you great mileage. Unless of course you are in San Fransico or something where you have dead stop hill climbs. But mountain driving I tend to even out on those kinds of drives. I also never do a short trip. My habits are pretty decent. I tend to use the cruise a lot. I hate speeding tickets.


Yeah, there really should not be a substantial dropoff if the last gear is set up right.

 

.......

The redline on the Fit is close to 8000 rpm. The redline on the earlier model S2000's is 9200 rpm; it is 82000 rpm on the more recent (Ap2) S2000's (2005? and later). The parts can tolerate the stresses associated with these rotational speeds, by design. Do not compare to older generation Detroit V-8 engines which would almost literally blow up at 5000 rpm.

 

^ I want your Fit! My redline is ~6,500 RPMs- I don't think of that as "close" to 8,000. But I was never a math whiz! Mark W.

 

My ‘91 Accord had great mileage on the highway too. But I suspect that this has more to do with aerodynamics than it does with gearing. Older Accords don’t have nearly as tall a profile as does the Fit, and I suspect that their outer shape was specifically designed to render them very aerodynamic. With the Fit I suspect that there was a trade-off in the design, giving up a bit in terms of aerodynamics in exchange for the capacity to carry very tall objects in its interior. If I’m right about this then you’ll see a very noticeable drop-off in fuel economy in the Fit at high speeds on the highway, as power consumption grows geometrically as a function of speed.

As far as gearing is concerned, keep in mind that lowering the RPMs is not a miracle cure for low MPGs. At a given speed a given car design will require a certain amount of power to push through he air, power that will have to be produced by the engine. If you lower the RPMs through a change in gearing the engine will have to produce more torque to maintain power output, and to do this it will have to burn correspondingly more gas with each engine revolution. The only savings that occur as a result of lower RPMs at a given speed will be a slightly greater efficiency as a result of drawing less air through the engine, and slightly greater efficiency *if* the change in gearing moves the RPMs closer to the region in which the engine is performing optimally (but with v-tec this latter is a complex matter, and lower RPMs certainly doesn’t in all cases entail greater efficiency).

My experience with the car confirms this exactly, and agrees entirely with what know-nothin says above.

 

.....

My bad. According to Honda specs, the official redline for the Fit is 6800 rpm. That is respectable, but it ain't close to 8000.

 

Considering the fact that my S2000 will happily sit at 4k RPMs at 75mph all day every day, there's no need to worry about 3.5k RPM at that speed in a Fit. Honda knows how to build high rpm motors. It's a 1.5L engine... the rotating components are not exactly heavy.


And yes the mpg dropoff at high speeds on the Fit is due to the rather boxy profile these cars have.

 

Thanks for bringing that up. I too, have a 91 accord and I was going to get a civic to take it's place originally. The civic closely mirrors the older accords in size and profile (although the new civics seem to have a better profile for cutting through wind). This would lead me to surmise that that a civic could get very similar highway results as the fit, even with more weight and a bigger engine. The fit is definitely a jack of all trades car. But that's what I love about it.

 

One of the things I miss about my DC2 GS-R. Redline was 8100rpm and it loved every minute of it. DC2R was I believe 8500rpm... Driving that car was so much fun. I wish the fit was 7500+ as far as the redline goes.

~SB

 

The problem is that you have to use some type of speed control on the downhills - less skilled drivers will ride the brakes, while more proficient drivers will tend to downshift to keep speed in check. Either way, you are applying extra resistance on the way down. The only way to break even on hills would if you could freewheel and carry as much speed as necessary on the downhill side.

The my 5AT was particularly inefficient with city driving on hills - With a commute that takes me from 200 feet down to sea level, then back up to 500 feet, mostly in stop/go traffic, with Cali's famed 4-way stops every quarter mile, fuel economy took a serious hit. On the highway, on flat land, I've seen sustained FE across 20 miles over 50 mpg at 60-65 mph (once I got into the mountains, it would drop back towards my usual highway mileage of 40-ish). Driving to and from work, 26-27 was the norm... I'm getting 25-26 now with a manual transmission in a car with an extra 400 lbs, 1000ccs of displacement, and 60 additional ponies, despite its 23/31 rating.

Funny thing - if I drove those same sustained flat highway stretches in 4th gear instead of 5th, my mileage fell, even though 4th gave me the same ratio as the MT, and the sustained speed and flat surface kept the torque converter locked... It makes me think that the Fit would be a real mileage champ if it had a tall 6th gear, as is becoming common in the B and C segments.

An EPA rating of 40 mpg is the key to advertising fuel economy - if an automaker can't come close to that, they should probably go back to the drawing board, cutting the Fit a small; break since it's a 2008 design.