I think what’s going on here is kind of funny. You guys are all right...

Making 5th gear taller, or having a taller final drive, or adding a taller 6th gear above the current 5th WILL result in better gas mileage. I know this from efficiency principals, personal experience and from the fact that Honda is making the gears taller for the next gen. We know taller gears will make the car more sluggish, so why would Honda do that unless they knew there would be a gain in fuel economy?

You guys saying that the lack of power is not worth it are probably right, for the US market. The reason they are making the change is for overseas markets, where fuel economy is a much larger concern which is a big part of why small cars are more common. The Fit is generally not that competitive against the other cars in it's class for fuel economy. We only really get one other global car for this segment here in the US (the Yaris) and it beats the Fit on FE.

Personally, I would like to have a 6th gear despite the extra cost. However, I doubt Honda would do that because the Fit is still an economy car and keeping MSRP as low as possible is important. I don't have a Fit anymore, but when I did I would subconsciously try to shift into the 6th gear that didn't exist when I got onto the freeway. It just felt like it should have one more gear.

Also, I live in a hilly area and I never had to downshift to 4th for a hill, or for passing. In fact, when I first got my car one of the surprises for me was how much passing power it had in 5th. I guess it's all about perspective, because my last two cars (a Subaru GL wagon and a Nissan Stanza) both had about 90 HP, and were WAY slower than the Fit.

I think the point here is that everybody would like to get more out of their car. Some people want more performance, some people want more fuel economy. What is clear here is that Honda has decided that the more fuel economy camp makes up a larger portion of their potential buyers than the higher performance camp. That's it...

 

It's an understandable conclusion, but I think it has more to do with matching the gears to the increased output of the new Fit's engines than anything else. I say this only because I've got catalogs for both the new and old Fit's, and the advertised peak mileage for the old and new 1.3L is the same at 24km/l, while the new 1.5L is actually somewhat worse at 19.6 vs. 20.5 for the old. Keep in mind that those are peaks for each engine size regardless of vehicle grade or tranny. If you actually compare the the 1.5L FF MT's (old S grade vs. new RS), the difference is even slighty higher in that the old 1.5 S got 18.8 km/l vs. the new RS' 17.2. You could take this as both bad and good news though, depending. Bad in the sense that mileage is equal to or worse than the previous models, or good in that both engines are making similar mileage to the previous models while boasting noticeable increases in power (the new 1.3 is 14ps higher than prior, and the 1.5 is 10ps more). Based on this, I think Honda is actually focusing more on improved performance across all grades than economy per se.

With that in mind, I honestly think Honda is trying to go the opposite way and actually distance it from other cars in it's class by promoting it as more of a premium compact car, and also further promoting it's sportiness. This is because Honda substantially decreased the number of vehicle grades w/i the line -- particularly the more economical grades. You now only get 3 choices -- 2 1.3L grades and one 1.5L. And, the 1.5L is only available in the sport-oriented RS model. Also, the only 5MT available is in the RS as well. Futhermore, Honda also seems to be promoting the RS a lot heavier than the other two grades -- in the dealer catalog each 1.3L grade gets only a one-page explanation, whereas the RS gets one-page plus a 10 page sub-catalog insert explaining Honda's concept of Compact Sports and how the RS meets that concept. The 5MT RS is also noticeably more expensive than the most expensive 1.3L model or even the RS CVT model (and the prior Fit's 5MT S model as well; about $1500 more on average than any other model).

 

Well I asked for the mod to step in, but I see that didn't happen, so...

I neither called you stupid nor ignorant, but I will now. You are both. Logic escapes you. When confronted with a cogent argument, you lash out on meaningless tangents just to try to get the last word, even if you make absolutely no sense. You use non-existent words in confused arguments and then claim it doesn't matter. Then you resort to childish name-calling. You want to play? Let's play:

Profile of Assenfury:

- 17 years old
- Struggling to graduate high-school so he can enroll in community college
- Likes to provoke internet arguments on Dad's computer, but has trouble with math and big words
- His dad bought him a Fit and he imagines it's a fast car because he doesn't have anything faster
- Watches F1 races on t.v. - imagines that he could keep up in his Fit, then furiously masturbates
- Further biographical info on Assenfury can be found at Bryan's Rice-Boy Page

 

Partner in crime - Chikubi:

- 17 1/2 years old
- avid reader of "Badass modded-out Hondas" magazine
- Likes to randomly regurgitate irrelevant specs and descriptions from performance websites that have nothing to do with the topic at hand
- Keeps inflatable love-doll under bed

 

You sound like such a little bitch, if anyone sounds like they should be in high school still, it's you. I'm surprised you haven't called up your mommy to create an account and come and try and repremand us as well.

- 21
- Junior at Central Connecticut State University
- Only confrontation I have been in on this forum and 8thcivic.com
- Work full time and go to school full time and paid for my 2006 Civic at 19 before trading it in for the Fit now both of which were completely in my name, I can scan the documents if you'd like to see them. What were you driving at 19?
- The last two are retarded and I see no reason to defend them, sounds like something my 13 year old niece would come up with.


Here's a list of everytime you directly commented on someone's intelligence in this thread. This does not include any condesending comments made that would require the context of the whole post to understand.

There was no cogent arguement, whatever civilized arguement that could've been had was lost when you tried to start different confrontations by attacking the Fit and it's "sportiness" even when it was agreed upon that you were correct. Even after all of this, your only point in conjunction to the original topic was that "The Fit isn't a sports car." There was no logic in any of your posts, unless your definition of logic refers to taking every point the opposing side argues and finding some twisted way you can make it "not apply" and then adding "The Fit isn't sporty" at the end. If my words were so incorrect that you could not divulge what I was meaning to say, then you would not have been able to argue against them; so yes, it is irrelevent and once again you're being nitpicky.

 

Fitty, you seem like a very bitter and undesireable person. Although i have never met you, i'd like to assume your past was horrible, and now you'd like to take it out among people online... You once probably wanted to be a car whiz yourself, only to fail miserably and have someone who IS fluent in the study of autos PWNing your every attempt. Now whatever it may be... You seriously got to calm down. You're hearing this from possibly the most obnoxious 16 yr. old you'll ever meet, but seriously... There are limits to things, and you are really going overboard with everything.

Please, if you are going to be on a public website, at least have the decency to respect people's opinions, even if they do disagree with you, there is no need to get into childish name-calling or asking moderaters to solve problems, we should be able to work things out without help. This 5th gear short = ghey thing is understandable. BUT i would like to add that this car has been produced since... 2002? So in the 5 years that it has been produced, if Honda never made the gears longer, then they must've thought that it is fine.

Reading your posts again... You've definately had a hard life to say such rude and disgusting things to people that you've never even met!... Astonishing. Please do us a favor and reflect upon what you had written, if you really mean every ounce of it, then i don't know what to say.

Rediculous... Just Rediculous.

 

Hey, read the whole thread. I didn't start the name-calling, and I offered to drop the whole argument, which nobody took me up on. If people are going to call me names like "asshole" and such, I will respond in kind. It's only fair.

 

And here are all your condescending comments, you hypocrite:

"Do you only like to read what you want to read? Non of your arguements make sense"

"There's two things we can figure from this, you believe yourself to be smarter than Honda engineers and think that you could improve on the Fit's MPG and still let it be driveable, or when Honda decided to make the 5MT Fit have close range gears they designed it in a sporty manner and it was their intent to make the lower horsepower car a more enjoyable drive. Sporty does not equal fast.

So which is it?"

"Get a different arguement; that's all you say"

"Looking through your other posts it seems all you want to do is argue"

"If all you want to do is find ways to disagree and/or push everyone's buttons that don't have the same convictions as you, then just keep quiet."

"you were nitpicky and created an confrontation when there didn't need to be one. Then when the guy conceeded to your request and gave you an average with decimels you flipped out on him some more."

"How supercilious and hypocritical. Stop being such a little girl."

"You sound like such a little bitch, if anyone sounds like they should be in high school still, it's you. I'm surprised you haven't called up your mommy to create an account and come and try and repremand us as well."

 

Eh. I'm closing this thread. My advice next time is posting "don't feed the troll" is feeding the troll. I don't care who is right or who started it. It takes two to tango, and one to end the dance (haha).