I heart teh Fit.

When I found out Mrs. Poop and I were having a baby, I was simultaneously excited and terrified to get a more "family oriented" car. I.e., something that didn't have 350,000 miles and a leaky hatch.

I had always sworn up and down that I'd never own a new car, but baby has prompted all kinds of (perhaps) irrational purchases. After doing a lot of noodling, I settled on either an older Scion Xb or Honda Fit.

When it came time to buy, Honda had a killer lease deal on the Fit, and all of the first gen Xb's I'd looked at were either turds or overpriced.

After a couple days of hard number crunching, it just made sense to me to go ahead and buy the Fit rather than leasing.

I've lost count of how many times I've turned to my wife and said "I love this berkeleying car." We picked up an 8 X 11' rug yesterday at Lowes and popped it in with the hatch closed, no problem.

On vacation over Christmas, we plugged the phone into the USB port and listened to Stephen King's new book, making the 7 hour drive go by in a blink. We also packed an absolutely astonishing amount of stuff in there, including a full-size cooler, home depot bucket full of fishing gear, fishing rods, 1 duffle bag, 2 suit cases, a 'pack & play', one of those stand up bouncey baby seat things, a box of books, DVD's, etc., and on the way back, $100 worth of craft beers from Charleston beer exchange...oh, not to mention, Mama, Daddy, and baby. Average for the trip with God-knows-how-much of a payload, was an astonishing 34 MPG. This included a couple half-hour - 45 minute stops to feed baby, change diaper, play around a bit, with the car running for at least 20 minutes a crack.

One night while on vacation, I was snoring so bad that I got kicked out of the bedroom. Not an uncommon occurance, but my nephews were camped out in the living room, and I had nowhere to go. No problem. Grabbed a pillow and a blanket, headed down stairs, folded up the "magic seat", popped the head rest off, laid the front seat flat and slept like a big snoring baby.

I'm still amazed by the steering response and surprisingly, but not uncomfortably how firm the ride is for an econobox. "Stability control" is unintrusive to the point where it's left on all the time. It won't win any races, but 1st and 2nd gear are 'peppy' enough that turning left leaving a light and leaving a mustang or camaro in the dust is fun...if only until they get mad once their front wheels are straight.

Only complaints: Needs a sixth gear. I'm pinging along at over 3500 RPM at 75mph. I'm a wheel hugger, and there's a weird "point" that comes down from the center of the dash that would annihilate my knee in a crash. I'm getting wind noise somewhere from the front passenger side. I read something about thicker glass for that little front 1/4 window in 2012. Maybe it'll be worth a trip to the junkyard down the road.

All in all, I absolutely love this thing, and the savings from not smoking has made the payment every month.

Considering trying to find a "beater" and adding a supercharger.

I agree with all of this. I had one as a long-term rental and loved it.

My dad just bought a brand-new one, too. He says it is "miles better than anything else" he drove. His runner-up was a Scion xD. It was the same deal though, better deal on the Fit, and it was more spacious and equipped the way he wanted. He got an autotragic, though, because his Yeti feet can't usually work a clutch pedal without nailing the brakes at the same time.

I am looking forward to driving it when I go home next.

We're thrilled with our '08 Fit. We've had it for 2 years now and have put 35,000 miles on it (now at 46k total miles). Pretty much agree with everything you said. Has amazing versitility, can carry a E36 M3 load of stuff....we've got 3 little kids and my wife shops at Costco often. All the stuff she buys fits easily in.

Ours is a 5spd also. Definitely needs a 6th gear. It's screaming on the highway.

As slow as it is, it's a blast to drive.

I love those things too, especially the first design. Honda has a gift of making a small car big on the inside. I just bought a 91 Civic Si hatch off the original owner. The Fit's to me are the old Civic. You can haul a good bit even in those. Have fun with it.

Tangent time based on something you mentioned:

I'd always said that I would never lease a car. Then my brother started working as a car salesman, and comes back to tell me that on some of those deals you are paying less than depreciation. Holy Moley, he's right! Wow!

Tangent time vol. 2 - does your wife have any idea that you refer to her as 'Mrs. Poop'?

She's been called worse (I joke...I keeeed.) I like at least a little anonymity on teh 1nt4rw3bz. And seriously on the lease/depreciation thing. Especially with this car. It was a tough call, but in the end, we figured the only reason to get something new is if we planned on keeping it forever...which is pretty much the case. At which point it made more sense to go ahead and buy the thing, given the payments + buyout at the end.

To me, the only problem with planning on selling it at the end is that people are probably going to say the same thing we did: "Why buy a three year old model with 40,000 miles when I can buy a brand new one for a couple grand more?"

But yeah, a lease on a 2011 base model was $0 down, $220/month. They had 1 2010 base that was $0 down, $190/month, but we missed out on that one. We ended up getting a baboon's-ass-red sport model. Probably silly to lay down the extra cash for a spoiler and side skirts, but the base model just looks a little too utilitarian for my taste.

I've looked at them a few times myself. They seem to have everything I loved about my 1993 Civic hatch, plus two extra doors. (Whether they have the dreaded "Honda rot", which I hated, remains to be seen). The only thing they seem to lack is used car depreciation, which is why I don't have one right now.

This is all music to my ears as the wife is absolutely convinced this should be the next car added to our stable and honestly, I'm not that far behind her.

Oh yeah, sport trim FTW. The base model just doesn't have the same panache.

mtn wrote: Tangent time based on something you mentioned: I'd always said that I would never lease a car. Then my brother started working as a car salesman, and comes back to tell me that on some of those deals you are paying less than depreciation. Holy Moley, he's right! Wow!

Which is great, assuming that you're going to sell the car when you're done paying off the loan. If you're going to flip NEW cars every 3-4 years regardless, it nearly always makes sense to lease instead. But if you plan to keep it longer, you're better off buying originally.

• a gazillion.

We've had our '09 Sport for almost 3-years & 95,000-miles. I've changed the oil whenever the maintenance-minder light comes on, changed the air & cabin filters, and flushed the trans once. Oh, and we're on our 3rd set of tires.

Still the original shocks, brakes, coolant(I really should flush it...), and spark plugs. It's very comfortable on long trips, and has held up well to our abuse. We've seen as high as 45mpg on a couple tanks, but 33-35 is our normal average. Ours is an auto, as my wife refuses to drive a manual and it's her daily-driver.

+1 on buying. Leasing blows.

original....spark plugs.

Thank god. That's the one thing that has me a little frightened. Maintenance looks like a job for a 5 year old japanese girl with freakishly long fingers on one hand and a mirror for the other.

Yep, my wife loves hers. She's put 65k miles on it since taking delivery new in Summer 2008, and no problems at all. Change the oil when maintenance minder comes on, filters, tires, and I have to flush the MTF some time next week, but that's a pretty easy job too.

I'm glad we bought because she's put on so many miles, and it seems to be holding value extremely well. We actually bought right when the next-gen came out, and the choice was to take the last one on the lot or wait 2 months for the newer ones. Her Volvo died, making the choice for us. No regrets at all.

Also, +1 on the sixth gear/OD. Otherwise the car is perfect.

I miss my 08 Fit Sport

Judging from the comments here it looks like I should drive another.

I had one as a press car on a business trip last year and hated it. Maybe mine was a bad example as it rode very harshly and was twitchy as all get out on the highway. It spun high rpms on the highway, but I kinda expected that in a small Honda. What I didn't expect was the terrible directional stability and booming road / wind noise.

The one I drove was an auto, which also sapped most of the fun out of it. It was nimble at slower speeds, but hideously bad on the interstate.

Me thinks I got one with a bad alignment, or some other problem.

I always liked the looks of the 2-door Yaris hatch. Does anyone have experience with them and how they compare to the Fit? They're obviously smaller but do they drive nice? What about with suspension/wheel/tire swap?

Glad to hear it. I thought for a moment you misspelled 'hate', but you really mean 'heart'

3500 RPM at 75 MPH is high? I bet it wouldn't pull a 6th gear very well on the highway.

Me thinks I got one with a bad alignment

Told you, sucka!!! It definitely can be twitchy on a windy day, but when I drive it, I drive it 80 miles and don't notice any "twitch" unless it's super windy. Then again, I never drove the 2, and I know it pushed all the right buttons for you & Tom compared to the Fit. The only reason I didn't even consider the 2 was because of the difference in depriciation. If the prices are right, I may consider a used 2 in a couple years.

Yeah, I'm about 4-grand plus rpms at 70mph in my mk1 mr2, so I don't think it'll bother me either.

Zomby: Not to split hairs, but I said OVER 3500. It's between 3500 and 4k. Will confirm on the way home, but I'm pretty sure 80 mph is over 4k. Seeing as I do mostly hwy driving, I could be getting way better gas mileage if I was cruising under 3k at 80mph like folks with slushbox civics are. Changing a gear to pass or climb a steep hill doesn't bother me as much as getting 30-34mph when I could be getting closer to 40.

poopshovel wrote:

Me thinks I got one with a bad alignment

Told you, sucka!!! It definitely can be twitchy on a windy day, but when I drive it, I drive it 80 miles and don't notice any "twitch" unless it's super windy. Then again, I never drove the 2, and I know it pushed all the right buttons for you & Tom compared to the Fit. The only reason I didn't even consider the 2 was because of the difference in depriciation. If the prices are right, I may consider a used 2 in a couple years.

The Fit also has a lot more useful cargo capacity. It is magic how transformable the interior is. I'll have to drive another. Glad to see you are happy with yours as it seems like the perfect little utility machine.

Joe Gearin wrote: Me thinks I got one with a bad alignment, or some other problem.

Easy solution, swap some rims and wider rubber onto that bad boy. The best solution to twitchy at highway speeds small cars.

As for 3500rpm at 75mph, that's what my STi did in 5th, so quit yer bitchin!