I had a MK4 1.8T 2005 and I don't care how much they improved their initial quality I'll never buy another VW. I have friends with new ones that are happy with it now, but one of them had similar engine issues to me, to the point he won a lemon lawsuit against VW.

 

Yep, I agree with you. I do believe you are entitled to the warranty and getting every penny you deserve. Even in like the Hot Coffee case, after getting educated by watching "Hot Coffee" the movie, I do feel the original "high" judgement was appropriate..

But what I'm saying, is you got to put in the effort though to get what you are entitled.

If you extend your "entitlement" to someone handing you a check without putting in any work into your own case (expecting someone else to just do a class-action for you), that's where you're only going to end up with a small fraction of what you deserve or get nothing at all, and I would judge you as having a distorted view of rational reality if you still think you are entitled to a bigger amount. You control your own destiny and you got to fight for yourself.

All this being said, in my experience if you go with a luxury brand (lexus in my personal experience) and you don't have to put up with crap like this in the first place

 

No... I'm not saying VWs, including the GTI, haven't had their problems. VWs are notorious for fuel injector problems for one thing. But I've never seen a VW, GTI or otherwise, with interior construction as wimpy or even as plain and as wimpy-looking (in some areas) as the Fit. Maybe some early generation VW Rabbits or 1st-2nd generation Sciroccos (granddaddy to the GTI as we know it) or something like that. But for modernization sake... the years pass and we move up, and move on.

The Fit, interior wise, in some ways reminds me of an early eighties mass consumer "sport" ride. Again, interior wise they still have that cheaper, dated appearance... with the exception of the instrument cluster. Thankfully that's reasonably modern in appearance. Which, by the way, is an example of something I definitely like a lot about the Fit.

 

I would rather have reliability and resale value over a plush interior any day. The interior of our 2012 Fit is just fine. We knew we aren't buying a Lexus.

 

Thank you!

Funny thing is, I was talking to a buddy about my dads Ford Expedition how the silly thing was like $62,000 new, has so many features that my mom cant even figure out how to use, we got into looking up the value of them. He also has a 2011 Ford Fiesta, currently has 24,000 miles on it, has quite a few options like the 6 speed auto, sync system, stereo option, alloy wheels, its the sedan, it's already worth $1200 less trade in value than my 2010 Fit Sport manual with 28k miles.

I paid $16,583 (I think) new, he paid right at around near 18k for his Fiesta. That's a big hit in value to have a little bit better interior quality.

 

I agree.

I purchased this car because, I knew it would keep it's value. I knew it would be reliable. I knew the majority of it's owners were satisfied with this car. I didn't buy it because of the interior trim, plastics, etc. Did the interior scream cheap when I was looking at the car on the lot? No. Would we like all cars to be perfect in every way? Yes. Reality is, not going to happen.

Having said that, the OP's defective door should be repaired under warranty.

 

I agree completely with you all! I knew I was buying a low-end Honda and don't expect it to ever be anything more than what I drove off the lot with. I'm ok with driving w/o all of the luxury in a cheap plastic interior. I just want that cheap plastic interior to last more than 13,000 miles. Now I think that's pretty reasonable. If it had been even a hard 40,000 I might not be fighting this so hard.

For those who are doubting me, I'm making a list of users w/ this issue. I referenced this post and these: 1 month and this happened,
https://www.fitfreak.net/forums/2nd-generation-ge-08-present/64923-splitting-armrest.html, https://www.fitfreak.net/forums/2nd-generation-ge-08-present/54850-interior-arm-rest.html


adolan21
annunC8
Masafina
robodude
Virtual
Kazs
1150bob
JGW
nukeme70
caddy365
tkrose
JDM-Taffeta-S


Also see: http://repairpal.com/front-door-arm-rest-may-break-023
http://www.truedelta.com/repair_hist...nd=11&model=99

 

I say that you should send them a letter with picture of your speedometer (to show your mileage), fabric problem, and your VIN to ask for their assistance. Most these companies would do something if you write them. Going to a dealership will not work since they do not make money for taking care of you. Sad.

 

Oh, here is the place for mailing them:

American Honda Motor Co., Inc.
Honda Automobile Customer Service
1919 Torrance Boulevard
Mail Stop: 500 - 2N - 7A
Torrance, CA 90501-2746

 

IMO economy car or not...Owners should expect that door rests do not easily crack.

I also think Honda should replace the OP's part under warranty. Right or Wrong? I'd like to think on a judgement call, the dealers and Honda are going to side with the consumer. The vehicle is new enough, that I think you can easily conclude either damage done by consumer OR defective part...and probably not prove either. So in that case? I think Honda should go with the owner.

If Honda honors the warranty, replaces the part...and then the owner continues to come back with similar "questionable" repairs? Then I think as a dealer you start to question it....but a 1 time request, on an almost new vehicle? The dealership and Honda should side with the owner. It's better business. It's worth it overall.

You don't replace it? You get this horrible publicity. You don't replace it, you've probably lost a future repeat customer, and everyone that they may tell their experience to...

Better business practice to simply replace the piece.

 

Agree, taking good care of customer will go a long way. It just make good business sense.

 

Mine has been broken for 100k miles (111k on it now). I chalked it up to the cost of doing business with this type of car.

In that time, I have only done maintenance, replaced front brakes (last week), and am about to get the 4th set of tires. I could care less about the armrest.

Best of luck with your claim against honda. I filed suit years ago against toshiba/best buy for a laptop screen issue. They settled before court as well.

 

I agree with Honda. You cracked the arm rest by placing too much weight on it. Pay up and get it replaced.

 

This is why I'm looking forward to my warranty running out. Aside from a recall, I'll have no reason to go to the dealer again.

I don't think is your fault, if you complain to the right person, I'm sure Honda will cover it.

 

It's interesting that the TSB for 2009 even says the cause was excessive pressure from elbow, then goes on to say how it is covered under warranty.

 

Did Honda change anything in the interior in that area since the 2009 model? I know fabric changed, but was the area for elbow padded more?

 

You obviously have absolutely NO CLUE what you're talking about! First of all, were you there, Einstein? Oh, you must be God... you see, hear and know all without even being there!

Did you actually take the time to read (comprehension is a wonderful thing!) most of the posts from this thread? Or the other threads devoted to this topic... including those on other forums who have this same problem? Obviously not.

Who cares about mere opinions, including yours in this instance. You can choose to be the perfect blind Honda shill all you want... those of us with that particular problem could care less what you "think," or, as more probable this day and time, what you "feel." It is a problem that needs to be addressed. Honda put some poorly designed crap parts in the Fit... period!

Some people drop in on a particular thread, they read one or two posts, they decide to jump on some perceived self-righteous bandwagon to make themselves appear cool and/or knowledgeable, or with some self-serving personal agenda... they drop a turd, it stinks up the place, they leave without ever thinking about the problem again and don't even bother flushing before they go away.

Please know what you're talking about before you jump in verbally and embarrass yourself with further near-utter (<--- adjective) cluelessness.


"The less a man makes declarative statements before being FULLY informed, the less likely he is to look like a fool in retrospect!!!"

 

"shakes the bottle of chill pills"

 

"shakes a bottle of knee-jerk, anti-ignorance pills"

 

hey, so to address the dick reasonably, even if the part is perfectly designed, there's a chance that there's one bad part in a batch.

That's the point of a warranty. So you can reassure your customers that if you have the bad luck to get a bad part, the company will make it right and wants to keep you as a customer.

Otherwise, what's the point of a warranty?
You can just sell things "as-is" and don't actually stand behind your product in writing, but let real-world quality speak for itself. If 99% of your cars are perfect, you'll get 99% good ratings, and you can just have the 1% person with bad luck to suck eggs.
But then who wants to roll the dice and maybe you'll be the guy who gets the bad car.

The point of the warranty is to win over the 1% person who gets the bad luck.

Now if you offer a warranty but then when it comes into play, you turn around and don't actually stand behind your product, then you lose credibility as a company and just end up making that person even angrier.

So on the first offense, you should give the customer some benefit of the doubt and keep the window open that maybe you did have a bad part.

If the person comes back breaking the same piece twice, maybe then the service adviser can have a chat saying perhaps it's a user error. But then if you have multiple people with user error, perhaps it's not the user's fault but design was bad. Still in this case, a TSB can specify that this is a common problem but still declare it is NOT covered by warranty.