I am looking at getting a new car soon. I have narrowed down my choices to the Honda Fit and the Scion xA. I think the xA is a little cuter, but the Fit has a little more storage. Does any one have any experience with either of these cars? Any info or opinions would be appreciated. Thanks!
My wife’s got the Honda (although badged as a Jazz in Europe). I’ve been hideously impressed by just how well designed and built it is. For a practical town car, I’d recommend it highly. Over here’s it’s sold with the 1.4 litre engine, which is a bit underpowered I’d say even for such a small car. I note that they’re doing a 1.5 vtec in the US with 25% more torque, so that should be a big improvement.
One slight problem - they do appear to be invisible to other drivers. Going around in the Fit I find I get carved up all the time. Back in my car, no such problem. Clearly they have adaptive stealth technology, as well as convenient flat folding rear seats.
I’m not in the market for a new car just yet, but what really appeals to me about the Honda Fit is the seat arrangement flexibility. You can fold flat the rear seats plus the front passenger seat which will allow you to toss something 7’10" inside it, which I assume means that you can sleep in it (maybe). This would make it an awesome road trip car for me. There’s other modes for seat arrangement including tall and front seat reclining flat (couch mode).
That’s what appeals to me, too, Darryl. I believe I’ve seen an ad where they do show the long mode used as a bed. If only they could have given us a couple of more inches for bringing home those 8’ studs.
I think a Fit may be my next car. I have a '93 Miata, which I love, but when I bought it I had space and money for a Saab 9000 for occasions when I needed to carry more than a single passenger or a bunch of bags of groceries.
I got a Fit over the summer, and it has loads more storage. The xA was on my semi-short list, too, until I actually got in one. I was looking for something I could haul my dogs (a German Shepherd and a Lab mix) in easily and comfortably, and the hatch in the xA was just way too tiny for them.
The closest Toyota analog in overall dimensions and price is the Yaris liftback (it’s just like a hatchback, but evidently edgier and cooler), but the Fit actually has about as much hauling capacity as the Matrix, which is bigger and gets somewhat worse gas mileage. You can get AWD with the Matrix, though, which you can’t with the Yaris, Fit, or xA. Depending on where you live, that may or may not be a consideration.
I lurve my Fit. Just lurve it. It’s the perfect car for what I wanted and needed. The seats are what make it so great. The back seat bottoms fold up, and there’s plenty of room to put down the huge dog beds and let the girls ride in style. And there’s still plenty of room for someone in the passenger seat, and a ton of room in the hatch for luggage and such. In fact, the hatch is so roomy that on one trip home, we came back with both our suitcases, a tub of food for the dogs, two whole bolts of fleece, about 15 yards of assorted cut fleece, and assorted decorative stuff my mom sent with us. All in the hatch, because we were in the front seat and the dogs were in the back. And we could still see out the back window.
I’ve yet to run into anything we needed to haul that we can’t get into it. An enormous area rug, our 7’ Christmas tree (yeah, we could have tied it to the roof, but it was easier to just drop the seats and shove it inside), a huge firepit, 18 of the huge bags of mulch, all kinds of stuff.
If you go for the Fit, though, I’d definitely go on and get the Sport model. The extra safety and convenience features are well worth the extra money.
Which car has a samurai sword?
This is actually one of the reasons I was leaning towards the Fit. I have a Saluki and for some wierd reason he prefers to stands while riding in the car. The fit seemed more likely to accomidate this weird habit.
Another thing I was wondering, Does anyone have any experience using these as family cars. I don’t have any kids yet, but we are planning on trying to soon. Will carseats fit in these cars. I am not to concerned about forward facing, but I work in a baby store and know that rear facing seats can be a problem. For what it’s worth, I am only 5’1" so space would be at a maximum.
I have been able to test drive the xA, and I LOVED the way it handled. I drives like a car MADE for little people, which is something I have never experienced. It was so light and easy to manuver. I haven’t been able to drive a Fit yet. You have to special order one to try it because they never stay on the lot very long (a good sign I suppose).
Damn you all!
I wanted to get a Fit. I LOVE small cars.
Unfortunately, since my previous car was smashed 6 months before the Fits came out, that just wasn’t going to work.
I do really like my new Civic, but I ogle every Fit that goes by. 
Well, there’s at least as much room in my backseat as there is in my mom’s Buick, and they’ve had a carseat for my niece since she was born. Mom and I are 5’8". I really can’t imagine anyone having trouble fitting two, maybe three carseats in there. And there’s not even a big hump in the floor for them to fight over who has to sit over it. I’m not sure if this is standard, or only on the Sport, but mine has some kind of special carseat-buckling-in mechanism that I’ve never checked out. Also, the Sport model comes with airbags every place you could conceivably have them, so it’s one of the safest small cars out there.
As far as driving goes, it’s amazingly responsive. I used to think my husband’s Cabrio handled really well, but now when we trade cars, it’s like driving a tractor. A really old tractor. Everyone I’ve let drive it has loved it, from my 6’ tall Dad to my 5’ friend who played carsitter/airport taxi for us a couple weeks ago.
I ran into a lot of trouble finding one to test-drive when I was shopping, too. If we weren’t all the way in Kentucky, I’d be happy to let you drive mine around for a while. You may have better luck searching the Honda website for dealerships in smaller towns. You might also email and ask them to call you if they get an unsold one in, or if any of the owners of the ordered ones don’t mind you poking around their car before (or after) they take delivery. That tactic worked out really well for me, because most of the people I dealt with not only wanted to sell me a car, they wanted to make the experience so pleasant we’d buy our future cars from them. (It worked, too–I loved the guy who sold us our car, and I’d buy from him again in a heartbeat.)
With the Honda website search, we actually found a dealership in a small town where they had two in stock, both of them in the exact trim level and options I wanted. One was even the color I’d been leaning toward. And they were expecting a third one to be shipped in sometime very soon. We drove down with the intent to crawl around in the car, play with the seats, take it for a spin, and then come home and resume the search for a Yaris liftback to try out. I drove the Fit home.
I have a Scion Xa. I’m very happy with it. As far as storage goes, yeah, it’s tiny and there is little room. But, I’ve got two car seats filling up the back seat, and I can still fit the wife, both kids, and a weeks worth of groceries into it. I haven’t driven or even seen the Honda up close, but I’ve owned a few Hondas (I’ve got an '04 Accord in the driveway now) and I’ll wager a guess that the overall quality of the Fit is higher than my Xa. But, it’s a good looking car, it gets super milage, and two Hondas in the driveway would make it look like I’d just given up on my dreams completely.
That’s the LATCH (Lower Anchor and Tethers for CHildren) system. Any car built after 2002 has it. I actually live in a small town. The dealer I went to said that they ONLY did special orders. He gave me some line about how Honda only makes a certain amount of them a year so they are hard to get a hold of if you don’t special order. I don’t know if it was true or not. They did let me poke around in one that was ordered for someone else, but they wouldn’t let me drive it. I asked them to call me if they got any in that someone decided they didn’t want. No calls yet, but that was a few months ago. It may be time to go back and remind them that I am waiting. They did say I could order one without a deposit, so I may just do that.
I think I am leaning towards the Fit. Thanks for all the advice. It will be my first new car, so I really want to be happy with it.
Oh, and what is the difference between the Fit Sport and the regular model?
I don’t know how the supply is now, but when I bought mine even the small dealers were getting one every few months w/o special ordering. Actually, the dealer in my parents’ town had a waiting list for theirs.
It was also one of the reasons I flatly refused to deal with that dealership. The salesman pretty much did the same thing yours did, told me I had no options except to order a car I’d never even laid eyes on, with no real idea of how it would fit my needs. When I refused to do that, he tried to sell me another model that comes in a wagon. Bastard.
Check around with other dealers in the area. We wound up having to drive an hour and a half to get my car, but then again, it’s about the closest Honda dealer to us anyway. A new car is a big purchase, and you should feel comfortable that the person you’re buying it from isn’t jerking you around on any front.
The Sport is the upper trim model. It’s got the cruise control (I’m in love with my adjustable cruise control), the shiftable automatic transmission, the wee little spoiler, and the nicer stereo. I think it’s also got a bigger engine, though you’d have to check the site to make sure.