Last week, I saw 2 manual transmission Fits show up on cars.com in the incoming inventory of one Texas dealer, but did not want to get too excited, until I saw a few more. Today, 2 more were listed by 2 different dealers, so I think it is fair to say that 6MT cars are now in production.

All 4 cars listed so far are LX models and their VIN codes are consistent with manual transmission cars. So that is something to get excited about. Now, I am not sure how excited to get about only 4 out of 987 cars being manuals, but it is more encouraging than 0 out of 987.

Still no white, yellow or purple cars in regular production yet.

 

I think that all this means is that the dealer has been allocated two MT Fits in some future shipment. Serial numbers seem to be assigned far in advance of actual cars being built.

This isn't good news for me as I want a white LX CVT.

 

it's really too bad that honda made the 6speed have the same final and ratio as the 5speed, seems a tad pointless since my biggest complaint with the gd3 was the inability to drop below 3-3500 rpm on the highway :\

 

Serial numbers get assigned the week the car is assembled. But of course from time of assembly to dealer is between 30 days and 60 days under normal circumstances.

 

Really? Aw crap. I always buy Hondas with a manual, but my biggest complaint was always that the final gear is a little too short for the hwy. I thought a new 6 speed would mitigate that - especially with a bump in hp and torque...

 

No such luck, but you do get one additional shift each way going up and down the gears.

Overdrives are nice, but some people view a car that needs to be downshifted on hills as being underpowered. In order to keep the perception of adequate power the top gear is often shortened.

The short gearing, and the fact that my daughters will drive the car, is leading me to the CVT. Beyond that, rowing six gears on a car with a wide powerband is silly. More is not always better.

 

For me I am thinking the CVT will work well, the wife cant drive a stick and sometimes I prefer to just get in and drive, when feeling sporty I can use the paddles. I think most of us are going into this knowing the CVT is no Doug Nash (goes back to drag racing days) gear box but a nice comprimise.

 

This is good news. I'm hoping for a silver EX with a manual transmission. We like light colors but I'm not sold on the white in this body style. IMO, looks too much like an egg (to me).

 

I am very pleased to report that the first 2015 Fit EX 6MT was just listed on cars.com and it also is a Passion Berry Pearl to boot! (All the 6MTs to this point were LX)

So at this point ,it would appear that the factory is now producing all 4 trims in both transmissions and 7 out of the 8 possible colors.

Still many of the 46 different combinations of trim/color/transmissions have yet to be listed. But I expect it will just a matter of time and specific dealer orders before they will be.

Now, if these cars would just start showing up at the dealers. June 9, I suppose is the magic day.

 

TC, you really seem to be in tune with what is going on, is there a particular thing that guides you to the june 9 date?

 

My source is a guy who is in management for a dealer, he told me he got a letter (or email) from Honda specifying June 9. But he feels as frustrated, and in the dark, as we buyers feel. His comment was that we should see cars showing up here in Hawaii within a week of that June 9 date. Others are quoting mid June, including the response that Consumer reports got from Honda, that is being requested all over the internet.

 

Thanks for the response! Cant get a much better source unless you knew someone at honda. Thanks!

 

Exactly! What were they thinking? Probably use the CVT version for mileage hype, and the 6MT for acceleration times. Hmm, sure would be nice to hold about 2500 rpm @ 70 mph.

 

But the 6MT could have easily gotten just as good hwy mpgs with a taller final gear, while still being faster off the line...

 

They were likely thinking "our competitors have 6 speeds and to Joe Sporty Car Buyer 6>5 no matter how broad the powerband happens to be." They were also probably thinking "We can't make top gear too tall because some magazine tester will have to shift down on a hill and will then write that our car is underpowered."

Add those two thoughts together and you get the Fit 6-speed situation.

The only winners are the modifiers who are going to make the powerband peaky as they get a factory close-ratio gearbox.

 

My old Prelude SH has a shortish cruising gear too even though it has more hp and much more torque.
Yeah, Im aware of that underpowered notion, but in a fuel sipping small engined car, dropping a gear should be understandable. Its still rather unfortunate - that and the drum brakes and iPhone only integration...

 

The drum brakes don't concern me since they contribute so little to overall braking on small cars that drums work quite well. On my Scion I replaced front brake pads four times before the rear shoes needed attention at about 150K and the rear brakes never faded out on me even driving briskly on mountain roads.

As far as smartphone integration, I could really care less. I want to drive, not play Angry Birds and I have a nice selection of Old Skool FM stations to choose from. With an LX I even get a volume knob! Trying to integrate a phone with a 2-year life with a car with a 10 year life means that eventually a new phone feature isn't going to be supported. For navigation I prefer a dedicated Garmin GPS because their navigation and traffic algorithms are superior to anything that can be found on a smartphone, and they work even without a data connection.

 

Sorry to get off-topic but the topic of this thread seems to be talking about that final gear.

Have you guys considered installing a slightly larger diameter tire or a wider diameter wheel/tire combination than stock to help with the final gear ratio situation?

 

Changing the wheel/tire diameter would not substantially change the gearing for the purpose of reducing rpm at speed. For example, let's say you went up to a 205/55/17 (and I do not know what kind of rubbing problems this might create) the result would be reducing RPM by 7.8% or say from 3400 @70 MPH to 3131 @70 MPH. I think most would like to reduce HWY rpms by more than this.

Not to mention that your speedo would be off by 7.9%.

 

You're assuming that it is correct to begin with! Usually speedos are a few percent optimistic. Going from the stock 185/60R15 to 195/65R15 on my current car corrected the speedometer! The odometer is a different story, though, since they are normally pessimistic to begin with. It now reads 8% low!

I do agree that most would like to reduce highway RPM by more than a few percent, but a 1.5 liter engine isn't going to cruise the freeway at 2000RPM like a Chevy V8. 3000 would be more realistic.