Personally, I like the Yaris and Jazz, and will be getting one of them once my old Toyota Camry conks out, which is looking like half-past never at this point. Toyota built those old Camrys to last.
Also, Fit? Clearly Jazz is a much better name.
The problem is that various cars go for different amounts of money depending on geography. For example, the demand for 4 wheel drive cars is a lot less in Los Angeles than it would be in Boston.
Oh, you!
That Honda City’s sharp-looking. Reminds me of the Mazda 3.
I will echo what the other couple of Fit owners said previously. I bought an 08 last July for my daily driving and I love it. There was no negotiating back then.
Fast forward to last month. We lease my wife’s family car, and our previous lease was up. When we went to the Honda dealership to test drive a CR-V, it was a totally different experience than last summer. The place was empty (every other time I’d been there, before the current economic woes hit, the place was packed wall to wall with people milling about), and the salesmen literally begged us not to walk out without letting them continue driving their price down. It was kind of sad, actually. Contrast that to 4 years ago when we went by another Honda dealer looking to lease an Odyssey, and when we asked for the exact numbers they were using in their lease calculation they basically told us to leave.
So, I’d say you’re in the driver’s seat (ha) right now if you’re looking to buy a Honda.
Rise from the grave…
So can anyone who has a Fit Sport answer this for me?
I have a 19 month old daughter who is still in a rear facing car seat and will likely be so for at least another 5 - 6 months at her current rate of weight gain. We also have a new baby on the way, due in August. Will I be able to fit 2 rear facing car seats while not being crushed up against the steering wheel?
Probably, yes, but take your specific seat with you when you look at them to be sure. There’s a thread about child seats on the FitFreaks forum, with the general consensus being that most seats fit just fine (and the Fit’s headroom and wide-opening rear doors make it easy to get children into and out of the seats). I think people tend to be surprised by how roomy the rear seat area of the Fit really is–I generally find that I have more legroom in the back than I do on some larger cars, even with the front seats all the way back.
Here’s a photo of a rear-facing seat mounted int he center of the back, with the front seats pushed back (and the driver seat reclining a bit. It looks like it would fit on the sides, too, though it will touch the backs of the front seats.
Thanks for the info Ben. The seat we currently have is one with a detachable base, so the base stays in the car and the seat just clicks down into it.
I am going to go Monday and test drive a Fit, also going to look into the Hyundai Elantra Touring edition.
So with TWO car seats in the back, would the Fit still feel like it had adequate room to load up for a vacation or a big shopping trip?
Arkon, good for you on the extended rear-facing :) My older son is 25 months and still happily rear-facing.
When you go to your test drive, take both the car seats with you, and install them then drive it. They should be accommodating to your request, this what I did when I was car-shopping last month. It is amazing the difference between some cars usable rear seat space, depending on the little intricacies of the interior layout and the shape of your car seats. Also remember to sit in the passenger seat and see how that feels. I am assuming you will put the baby seat behind the passenger, since those seats take up more space than the convertibles rear-facing.
Related note - a great resource of info and advice on car seats is the forums at www.car-seat.org, which is mostly inhabited by trained car seat install techs. They are pretty hardcore on the rear-facing issue, and will claim you can install rear-facing in any car under the sun, but if you want advice on a good seat to buy for your particular situation, or tricks to installing one when it seems like there is no space, they are the people you want to talk to.
Well, Honda says the Fit has 20.6 cubic feet of cargo room with the rear seats up. By comparison, the Civic has 12 cu ft and the Accord has 14 cu ft. I’d still check out the trunk before buying one, of course, but it doesn’t sound like much of an issue.
So, those of you with the newer Sport model, what are you using on your USB input? I don’t have an iPod, and I really like the idea of having a permanently affixed thumb drive in there that I can keep updated with whatever I’m listening to at the moment. We tried to hook up my girlfriend’s Archos last night without any luck. Just got an “UNSUPPORTED” message on the stereo.
My understanding is that it should work with standard flash drives. Flash drives are insanely cheap these days, too.
I should have been more specific I guess, I’m looking for brand recommendations. The bigger drives (I have 40 gigs of music I listen to regularly) are a bit expensive, so I might just have to keep a car rotation or something, and I’m looking for a good size/price mix.
One thing I’ve noticed in my manual Fit sport:
It takes a second for the engine to rev down when you lift off the gas. That means to shift smoothly, you have to let off the gas a second earlier than you normally would before pushing the clutch in. A bit odd, but easy enough to get used to I guess.
It will take a standard Flash drive, but we’re using a cheapo MP3 player that Karen got from work (it’s a “COBY” brand player, with the letters using the same font as Sony’s logo… funny), and it works fine.
Yeah, I just threw a cheap thumb drive with a ton of MP3s drag-and-dropped onto it. Presto!
Tom, you don’t sit in the back seat silly!!
So I went yesterday and test drove a Honda Fit Sport (Automatic) and a Hyundai Elantra Touring edition. I really liked the Fit for the most part. The drivers seat was incredibly comfortable, lots of lumbar support. I wasn’t a fan of how the radio/climate controls were laid out. Drive wise, it was very responsive, especially in the corners. Unfortunately putting the car seat we own behind the driver’s seat cramped me up pretty close to the steering wheel. It is doable, but pretty uncomfortable and would not work for any extended drive.
The Hyundai had a more familiar layout for me and handled very well as well. Again, while doable, I was still pretty cramped once the car seat was installed. I am actually going to look into a Civic as well I think. Price wise I can get a decently equipped Civic for the same price as the Hyundai and Fit, but it looks like it may have a bit more room to fit the car seats and me.
New toy!
I say go for it. I don’t really like the radio/climate controls, either, but you get used to it. I’m sure within a short period of time people will have all sorts of stereo/dash mods you can do if it really bothers you.
My biggest complaint so far is the weird position of the A pillar. It makes aggressive left corners awkward.