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| 2007 Honda Fit Review | |||
| Whether you're about to spend $40K on a brand new car, or half that on a used car, it is always important to learn as much as you can about the used car. Read these car reviews to learn about all aspects of the vehicle. Each of the usedcar reviews cover interior and exterior features, options, road tests, and more. | |||
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Introduction
| Road Test
| Inside & Out
| Other Thoughts
| Last Word
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| Inside & Out | |||
They say each generation is taller than the last, and at exactly five feet tall, this kid stands inches above the Civic and Accord. Since the Fit also restores the Honda family tradition of placing the driver low, the effect feels a little like parking your butt on the floor of a Costco, gazing up at the ceiling in the heavens. This can also cramp a left leg after a few hours if you don't make a habit of repositioning it. Other upheld traditions include a faraway steering wheel and a seat that, for some of us, doesn't go upright enough to compensate. Major points lost.Of course, the upside of a warehouse is sheer space, and there's plenty of that here. It's deceptively out of proportion to the Fit's fleeting footprint on the road, being all but 157.4 inches long (19.3 less than a Civic!) and a scrawny 66.2 wide, as if it were complying with Japan's old restriction on 67-inch cars. Front riders notice fine room in all directions and window sills sitting far beneath their shoulders, lending a fine view out. And surpassing all expectations, rear riders barely get shortchanged at all. Honda ordered a firm seat cushion, put it nice and high, flattened the floor almost as fully as the Civic's, scooped out room under the front chairs, and even designed the backrest to recline a little. As long as you don't try cramming a fifth rider inside (at which point the scrawniness becomes an issue), you should have four surprisingly happy campers - each with head restraints, 3-point belts, and standard side curtain air bags (plus side body air bags in front) to boot. Plus his own personal cupholder. Anyone looking for signs of small car cheapness will need a microscope, because there aren't many at eye level. Aside from the lack of armrests and center consoles, nearly every detail of the Fit's interior suggests it was held to the same standards of the Civic and Accord: perforated leather steering wheel, decent plastics, some of the better seat cloth (with mesh fabric inserts), firm knobs, crisp red/white/blue gauges, etc. Well, there was this annoying rattle somewhere in the dash of this test car - probably because Honda gave us a preproduction sample. Hopefully it was also the fault of preproduction that the air conditioner sometimes felt like it was powered by half-melted ice cubes. The Fit even surpasses the Civic and Accord in some areas. Here on the Fit Sport we get a 200-watt, 6-speaker stereo with a 5-way graphic equalizer and the ability to play MP3s either through CDs or by plugging in your iPod into the Aux jack down on the console. By contrast, the Civic and Accord max out at 160 and 180 watts and the Accord can't play MP3s by any means. Maybe the Fit can't hold 6 discs or get XM radio, and its sound quality is more powerful than crisp, but for the price, it only deserves praise. Further praise goes to the large display with the 15-character readout, a big and crispy volume knob, and high-up positioning that won't let you miss steering wheel audio controls for a second. The Fit's milestones in packaging are no less remarkable. The part you knew is that it's a wagon and hence its back seats tumble to form a huge cavern. The part you didn't know is the hidden efficiency thanks to the careful shaping of those seats (and the fuel tank) that compliments that really high ceiling with a really low floor. Folding the seats down expands the already-Buick-like 21.3 cubic foot capacity to 41.9 - nearly as much as Scion's rolling cubicle (the xB). The Fit also takes a trick from the Ridgeline by letting you fold the bottom of the back seats upward against their backrests. Honda calls it "tall mode" and it is indeed great for hauling home, say, a four-foot cactus. A nice touch that eases either operation is the lever on top of each front seat that lets you slide it forward - useful when you're busy wrestling around in the back. Honda's omission of a sedan body style will surely cost it some sales; the market never rewards wagons. But wagons always reward owners, and Honda has expanded those rewards as far as humanly possible. |
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