I know this is a light car but has anyone else notice this car is terrible at speed in the wet? I am using the stock Dunlops on Konig Heliums with Tanabe springs. I find anything over 65 mph in the rain and the car gets scary light. My Miata never had this problem which is a light car too....

 

I've had my Fit since May and have not noticed any problems with the car on a wet road. I do tend to lower my speed if the pavements wet down 5 to 7 miles below the speed limit - habit I got into driving a small size truck with no weight in the back end. I've never had a problem so far and we've had some pretty heavy rains here.

Cat :x

 

i personally think it handles pretty well. much better than my old monte carlo that liked to fishtail...

 

No problems here in the rain. I do notice it slows down a lot when I hit a larger patch of water, probably just due to its lightness, but no loss of traction.

 

How many miles are on your car? Because my stock tires didn't last me long at all. Mine didn't start hydroplaning really until I needed new ones and the tires only lasted 32000 mi.

 

did you get your tire replaced under warranty or did you have to buy new ones?

 

I had to buy new ones unfortunately the stock tires suck. I had the car a year to the day that I had to repece them. The BFG's that I have on there seem to be fairing much better.

 

Actually, the Fit is far from light (I have owned Volvos that weighed less), but, as others have pointed out, the Dunlops are not that hot, especially when worn, in the wet.

I just (this Friday) had a set of Michelin Harmony put on the car at 34K. Too early to tell how they will do, but good reviews and these are not the first set of Michelin I have ever bought either.

 

Unfortunately (or fortunately for those that don't want another set of Dunlops), the Dunlop SP 31 A/S does not have a treadlife warranty.

Using Cookies

Edit: Not sure why the link above is Using Cookies, it is a link to the Dunlop warranty via TireRack.

 

It's the tires.. not the car..

 

I notice problems when I brake. I think it has to do with using low resistance tires. When I brake, even slowly, I sometimes skid and the ABS kicks in.

 

Yupp no problems for mine in the rain either, i can cruise 65 in heavy rain with out a problem. 80mph may be a diffrent story though!

 

just so everyone knows... falken azenis are NOT made for the rain, I learned that the other day the hard way, lol

 

Can you reply to your own posts????

Anyhow, I drove in a little bit of heavy rain today with the new Harmony tires by Michelin. No problems whatsoever and no need to drop speed unlike the Dunlops.

For non-sporting (commuting, family travel and business) use in the car, I would recommend these.

Harmony®: Passenger Car/Minivan: Tires: Michelin Tires

 

I hope im leaving this reply in the right spot. This is my first time here on this forum. I HAD EXACT SAME PROBLEM ...and my car is totalled. Its a 2010 Honda Fit Sport. I always kept the stock tires on and my tires were still almost new (very little wear) I hadn't hydroplaned EVER in this car before, but it was raining heavily and every single car on the freeway at that moment, was going about 50mph in the middle lane on Northbound 280 in San Jose, CA & someone had gotten in front of me which caused to much overspray for my liking so I decided I would get over one lane, turned on my signal. I checked my mirrors then looked over my left shoulder to check that my blind spot was clear. I took my foot off accelerator slightly & BARELY started to turn the wheel and I was INSTANTLY hydroplanning out of control. There was NO correcting it. Everything I was ever taught DID NOT WORK. It only made it worse I ended up hitting a brick wall al.ost head on. Every air-bag was deployed except passenger (because no passenger on board) For the 5 out of 6 airbags that needed replacing the cost is OVER 15,000 and that did not include any body repair. My auto ins is LYING saying I switched from full coverage to liability WHICH I DID NOT. WHY WOULD I DO THAT?
I'm so depressed. This was my only new car I ever owned and I KNOW this wasn't my fault so I asked Google honda fit hydroplanning and found this forum.

WE NEED TO FIGHT THE CAR MAKERS IR SOMETHING. THIS IS NOT right!. This is believe a design flaw. I know I did nothing wrong. I m this car is NOT SAFE IN THE RAIN OVER 50Mph This is so unfair
not but I week later my mechanic said he saw a car exactly the same car and in exact same situation and end result. If we dont complain theyre goi g to get away withthis. Anyine else please speak up...
To reply to your comnent..may i please ask...did you crash too or get lucky? Dont go over 50 in the rain is my advice. I loved that car. Replaced battery few times headlights and alternator once and those EXPENSIVE very specific odd size tires made just for this car. are also starting to raise and eyebrow. Please any advice anybody?

 

Pretty scary over 80. Never lift.

 

1) Glad to see you're at least ok enough from the accident to engage in conversation. If any injuries were sustained then I do of course which you a speedy recovery. I hope you can get the insurance ordeal resolved because that sounds like an absolute mess.

2) Dead thread... Its been inactive since 2007. Sure, me bumping it isn't helping but I do feel the need to reply to your lengthy comment.

3) The Fit is a relatively light car by today's standards and the factory tires be it Dunlop SP31 A/S, Dunlop SP Sport 7000, and Firestone FR740 (on GK5s) aren't exactly the greatest in terms of wet (or even dry) traction. A small batch of that came equipped GE8s with Bridgestone Turzanas (I believe) were a tad better BUT compared to the other options in today's tire market... There are much better options out there as a replacement and upgrade from the OE tire.

Even Tire Rack's independent testing yielded rather unfavorable results for the currently produced Dunlop SP Sport 7000 if you click the link below.

https://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires...oModClar=Sport

To be honest though... It sounds like driver error more than anything and if you were running those Dunlops then they sure didn't help in the rain to regain control.

Alignment and tire choice permitting, the Fit actually treads water rather well at highway speeds... so long as you have a tire that treads water well. I've done many of 70+ MPH freeway stints in downpours over the past 15+ years of Fit ownership, intentionally hit large puddles of standing water on wet track days (to hydroplane and shift my driving line mid turn) and if the road surface has good drainage as well as no dips/pockets that were large puddles are known to form, I haven't been too concerned about hydroplaning.

In scenarios when the car actually does begin to hydroplane from standing water (which from what I'm gathering may have honestly been your case while changing lanes)? Its still somewhat easy to recover the car unless vehicle speeds were too high or the difference in water drainage from the leading car's tire tracks to the standing water one lane was drastically different (plus oils on the road coming up and making the surface slicker).

Things to keep in mind...

Always look ahead! Keep your eyes where you need to go, look at your exit point or opening and steer towards it. Avoiding target fixation with hazards is KEY to maneuver around them. Many avoidable accidents happen because the driver locks on and stares at the object then ends up hitting it; be it a wall, large puddles of standing water, object/animal/person in the roadway, etc.

Maintain a steady throttle position or a smooth release/breath of the throttle if you have to make a change in vehicle speed. Coming completely and/or abruptly off the throttle/gas shifts weight FORWARD, taking weight OFF the rear of a light weight car. Potentially inducing over-steer or a spin-out situation.

If you have to make any steering corrections, try to make them as smooth/fluid as you possibly can to not toss the car around and further upset the car's weight balance at this point. A big steering input will need an equally big (or bigger) steering output to recover the vehicle.

 

At 73MPH


Z

 

And per the caption to this video copied straight from YouTube...

"This is what happens when you put your good tires from the rear to the front, and your bad tires from the front to the rear. ALWAYS have good tires in the rear, especially if your car is front wheel drive. PS. This is called 'hydroplaning'"

Not to be rude but this isn't necessarily the car's fault since those details are clearly admitting that the worse tire is in the rear (which Honda does NOT recommend for this very reason). The thinner the drainage channels on the tire, the less effective it will be to tread water at speed.

It is another unfortunate case combining deferred maintenance (not replacing the rear tires or having the better tires on the rear axle) with negligence of the current road conditions (speeding in the rain).

Also yes, I did catch that the vehicle spun at 73 MPH in a 75 MPH zone. But that posted speed limit recommendation is also taking dry conditions into effect, not wet conditions when tires tend to loose about a third of their traction at speed.

 

When I got my '09 Fit Sport in October '08 it came with the stock Dunlop SPs. Terrible tires. I put up with them through the winter and into the following spring, then replaced them with Michelin Pilot Exaltos (great tires). I went with a 205/50R16 size as the stock size availability was slim pickings, and neither of the only two available tires at that time, I did not want (the same Dunlops, and Bridgestone Turanzas). When it was time to replace them the Pilot Exaltos were no longer available so on the recommendation of a friend I put Michelin Premiers on the Fit. Another great set of tires. A few years later I needed to replace the Premiers so I checked to see what was available that I'd want (good performance in the snow and wet, and excellent dry weather handling are most important to me, all for safety reasons). I ended up with a set of Continental ExtremeContact DWS 06 Plus tires which I liked very much. That was in January '22.

That December we finally traded the 09 Fit Sport for a '19 Fit EX as we didn't want to keep dumping money into the older Fit (it needed lots of body work and it was getting to the point of needing lots of mechanical stuff, too, so we weighted the option of keeping it going or replacing the car, altogether. We found the '19 Fit EX at our local dealer (I was there test driving a new Civic Sport Hatchback as a possible replacement car, but came across the Fit on their lot).

We set up an acceptable deal for trading the old Fit for the new (old) Fit which included swapping the stock (crummy) Firestone tires on the '19 Fit for the almost new Continentals that were on our '09 Fit we were trading in. The dealer knew the Contis were not the same size as stock but seemed to have no trouble with doing the swap until, right at the time the swap was going to take place in the service department, the service manager told us he couldn't (wouldn't really, probably to placate his lawyers) do the swap due to the different tire size. I wasn't happy about that as for the past week or so the dealer kept saying, "No problem!" I told them that was a deal breaker, and we were about to turn and drive off with the old Fit when the sales manager said that if I could find a suitable tire in the stock size (185/55R16) that I would be happy with that wasn't crazy high in price, Honda would pay for them. I went home and looked at Tire Rack for, literally, 30 seconds and found my tire, Bridgestone WeatherPeak. It took a few days to get the tires in and mounted/balanced/etc., and I have a very nice new (old) Fit now.

I am still on the fence about the CVT (we've driven nothing but manuals for 45 years), but that's progress, right? I spend most of the time driving with the paddle shifters which are quite nice, actually, but they are still nothing like a manual gearbox.

Bottom line: get the best tires you can afford that has great test results from Tire Rack (or purchase from your choice of tire dealer) and you will be a happy camper. Great tires is the key to a fun, and safe, driving car.