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Fit/Versa/Vibe/Matrix...?
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peter826
Aug 19, 08 10:43
Post #1 of 20 (535 views)
Fit/Versa/Vibe/Matrix...?
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I'm thinking about a new car to replace my Hyundai wagon. I need a wagon or hatchback, as cheap as possible. I need no frills, basic transportation. I've been doing some research on these, anyone have opinions? The Fit is very highly rated, great mileage, but almost impossible to find one (local Honda dealer had zero in stock), plus the dealers have considerable markup due to the popularity. The Versa is reasonably priced, mileage not as good as the Fit, slightly larger car and engine. The Vibe/Matrix comes with two engine choices (I'd probably opt for the 1.8liter), seems like a nice vehicle, but the car would be probably $2-$3k more than the Versa with similar options. Thoughts on these choices?
MeGustaNadar
Aug 19, 08 12:09
Post #2 of 20 (514 views)
Re: Fit/Versa/Vibe/Matrix...? [peter826]
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I have a 2006 Matrix and love it. Great mileage. Tons of space. No problems at all. That said, the 2009 Vibe/Matrix saw some styling and options changes, but I don't know if they reduced the interior size. The 1.8L engine does a decent job, but I would have gone for a 2.4L if they offered it when I bought mine. Go drive one; you'll like it.
From what I've read, the Vibe and Matrix are exactly the same car with a different exterior. I went with the Toyota because, well, it's a Toyota.
sorelian
Aug 19, 08 12:14
Post #3 of 20 (510 views)
Re: Fit/Versa/Vibe/Matrix...? [MeGustaNadar]
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My wife has a 2009 Matrix...she digs it. Good gas mileage enough space for us.
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Mike Lamb
Aug 19, 08 12:18
Post #4 of 20 (506 views)
Re: Fit/Versa/Vibe/Matrix...? [peter826]
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Fit is nice, but you mention the drawbacks. Note: a redesigned '09 Fit is scheduled to be released very soon and I would imaginge that Honda didn't make the mistake of under-producing.
Matrix--I didn't like it at all. Felt heavy and claustrophobic. Looks nice though.
Versa: I liked the way it drove. You can get a lot of options on it, if you want. My biggest gripe is that the rear seats, when folded down, are not flush with the floor. Really hurts the functionality of the cargo area.
Other options:
Mazda3 5 door. Not quite the gas mileage, but reasonably priced and looks good with the hatchback (probably my choice for a vehicle). Gets excellent reviews from Consumer Reports.
Toyota Yaris: Smaller (only a two door). Good mileage. Cheap (pretty sure it's under $11k).
f/k/a mclamb6
Uncle Phil
Aug 19, 08 13:28
Post #5 of 20 (484 views)
Re: Fit/Versa/Vibe/Matrix...? [Mike Lamb]
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Yup...if you can, probably worth waiting for the next gen. Fit.
Bob Loblaw
Aug 19, 08 13:54
Post #6 of 20 (477 views)
Re: Fit/Versa/Vibe/Matrix...? [peter826]
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when i was looking 2 years ago, i did the research and decided on a Fit. then i tried to get one. total chaos. i wasn't going to buy a car that i couldn't actually drive first, and i didn't want to pay more than msrp.
i also test drove a versa, which i liked a lot; didn't like the matrix, they've got the stick shift way up floating in the middle of nowhere and your right arm would wear out in any sort of city traffic. i also liked the smaller scion, except for teh whole dashboard-dials-in-the-middle thing.
wound up getting a good deal on a subaru, which i'm happy with, but if i drove more i'd want something with better mileage.
-charles
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GJS
Aug 20, 08 10:26
Post #7 of 20 (426 views)
Re: Fit/Versa/Vibe/Matrix...? [peter826]
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2008 Matrix 5spd manual. Plenty of power to drive a family of 4 loaded with gear all over Colorado, including up Mt. Evans road to 14Kft. Averaged about 30mpg during that 2500 mile trip.
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kangaroo -- please do not read or respond to any of my posts
BarryP
Aug 20, 08 11:29
Post #8 of 20 (413 views)
Re: Fit/Versa/Vibe/Matrix...? [Mike Lamb]
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Quote
Versa: I liked the way it drove. You can get a lot of options on it, if you want. My biggest gripe is that the rear seats, when folded down, are not flush with the floor. Really hurts the functionality of the cargo area.
I was concerned about this as well. However, if you wanted to you could just fill up the bottom with stuff to make it flush and you'd still have more room than the fit, Yaris, or XA. I got the Versa mainly because I'm tall....and so is my bike. It was the only car it would fit in (assisde from the more expensive Matrix). The seats are very comfortable and it is quite roomy for a small car. I have no complaints.
______________________________________________
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RunTraining articles here:
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Fast&Crooked
Aug 20, 08 19:19
Post #9 of 20 (381 views)
Re: Fit/Versa/Vibe/Matrix...? [peter826]
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Yaris is coming out with a 4 door hatchback for 09 - better gas mileage than a fit.
Lots of cool stuff coming out late 09 if you can wait a year
Aveo 4 door hatchback?
check out edmunds.com to compare
dvfmfidc
Aug 20, 08 21:50
Post #10 of 20 (369 views)
Re: Fit/Versa/Vibe/Matrix...? [peter826]
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I have a fit (08). Wifes commuter. Nice little car. get about 30 to 33 miles per gallon. Lots of room. But, I prefer to drive my 04 scion xb. get about 35 miles per gallon. nice flat roof for a roof rack. can get my bike in the back, just have to take the front wheel off. pushing 90, 000 miles on the thing and never had a problem with it. lots of room if your a taller person.
IzzyG
Aug 21, 08 5:22
Post #11 of 20 (362 views)
Re: Fit/Versa/Vibe/Matrix...? [peter826]
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Plenty of options but I noticed you didn't list the Toyota Yaris. Honda Fit is pretty nice but others have chimed in on the drawbacks. Another issue as you've mentioned is the above sticker mark up-which is absurd for a small car. That alone made me remove it from my short list. Toyota Yaris looked like a good option-however the base model is seriously bare bones-it needs a package option to get ABS(which I had previously thought was mandatory). Cannot say for the rest but if fuel efficiency is a concern, I would stay away from anything larger than a 1.8l engine.
Personally I went with the 09 Mini Cooper at the end of the day after looking at the Honda Fit and Toyota(I also looked at the Scion xD but hard to find one near where I am). My choice had more to do with aesthetics though. Seeing as how I plan to keep it for a looooong time, I wanted to go with the "want" option versus "meets needs" option. :P
mcdoublee
Aug 21, 08 16:10
Post #12 of 20 (314 views)
Re: Fit/Versa/Vibe/Matrix...? [peter826]
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Mazda 3 Wagon? Those small toyota's that aren't called toyota... what are they called?
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MC Double E
IzzyG
Aug 21, 08 18:14
Post #13 of 20 (306 views)
Re: Fit/Versa/Vibe/Matrix...? [mcdoublee]
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Scion.
Dead Horse
Aug 22, 08 9:01
Post #14 of 20 (279 views)
Re: Fit/Versa/Vibe/Matrix...? [peter826]
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Nice review of the 2009 Fit Sport today in the LA Times. Dan Neil (great writer, check out his other reviews) loves it and says he would buy one if he could ever get near a Honda dealership - his local dealer "looked like it was hosting a cockfight".
http://www.latimes.com/...ug22,0,1913313.story
For thead preservation purposes, here's the article text:
-- quote --
The 2009 Honda Fit: Counterintuitive charm
By DAN NEIL, RUMBLE SEAT
August 22, 2008
Honda is the guy selling umbrellas on the corner when it starts to rain. The lady selling flowers when you're late for an anniversary dinner. The vendor selling fire extinguishers when your underwear bursts into flames.
Shrewdly anticipating the utterly obvious and inevitable, Honda was ready for the recent surge in gas prices in all ways but one: It didn't have enough cars on the lot. Honda has had the highest U.S. fleet average fuel efficiency for the last 15 years and has, with admirable restraint, avoided stuffing gas-aholic V-8s into the trim little noses of its cars.
So when people started panicking about fuel prices this year, there were the brightly lit and cheerful Honda dealerships, arising like Homer's rosy-fingered dawn. I went by my local Honda store a month ago and it looked like it was hosting a cockfight.
The company's hottest product is the Fit, a small, modest, lumpen prole of a car that just happens to be one of the best-engineered vehicles on the planet. It tells us something fundamental about the changing tastes of the American market that Fit sales are up 73% this year, while you couldn't give a Cadillac Escalade away if you filled it with mermaids.
Honda has basically sold out of the 2008 model-year Fits and is rushing the new, redesigned 2009 models to dealerships now, a month earlier than planned. Honda projects that Fit sales in the U.S. will be around 85,000 units this year. I shudder to think how hard management is caning those poor devils at the plant in Suzuka, Japan, where U.S.-bound Fits are made.
The brief: The Fit is a subcompact hatchback, in the same aquarium with minnows such as the Nissan Versa, Scion xD and Suzuki SX4 Wagon. The base price for the 2009 Honda is $15,220 (including delivery) -- $600 more than the 2008 model. The top-shelf Fit, the Sport model with navigation and stability control, will sell for $18,760. And -- here it is, drum roll please -- the fuel economy is 35 miles per gallon highway, 28 mpg city for the base model, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. The Sport won't do quite as well, with 27/33 mpg, city/highway. That's what bigger wheels and tires (rolling resistance) and spoilers and side sills (aero resistance) will do for you.
After spending a day test-driving a 2009 Fit Sport in and around Malibu and Pacific Palisades, I can report that the new Fit is slightly larger, vastly stiffer, noticeably more quiet and comfortable, and every bit as dorky-looking as the previous edition. Honestly, this thing couldn't get a date for the prom with duct tape and a burlap sack. But that's part of its counterintuitive charm.
I will say one thing for the looks. In the engineers' desire to give the Fit "Man-Maximum" ergonomics -- their phrase -- they have expanded the forward cabin area and raked the front window like the futuristic Honda Clarity fuel-cell car. It's cool. Also, by raising the headliner height, slimming the A pillars and enlarging the quarter windows, the designers have increased the outward visibility by 10%.
What's that all mean? The vibe from the cockpit is open, unoppressed and glassine, a luxury of dimension in what is really a very small car.
When the Fit appeared in the U.S. in 2006 (it was already selling well in Japan), Honda rhapsodized about the car's "Magic Seat," which sounds like an endowed chair at Hogwarts but is actually the clever, multi-position rear seat mechanisms. These have evolved somewhat. Now, thanks to new flip-down headrests, the rear seat backs can be folded flat with just a turn of a latch, even if the front seats are pushed all the way back (i.e., you don't have to remove the rear headrests).
The 2009 car's additional millimeters of wheelbase translate directly to rear knee and leg room. I'm 6-foot-1, and I had no trouble moving from the driver's seat to occupy the left rear seat, what's called "sitting behind myself."
The Fit's rear seat bottom still flips up vertically against the rear seat back to allow stowage of tall items, such as plants and bikes, up to 50 inches in height. Even with the rear seats upright, the Fit's rear cargo space still measures a huge 20.6 cubic feet.
As for driving, the Fit has the metabolism and genetic code of all Hondas: well made, well tuned, well sorted, invested with the lifeblood of a thousand nameless Japanese engineers suffering from acute insomnia. Nothing is casually decided in a Honda, nothing is temporized. Some number-haunted wretch has agonized over every yen and millimeter of these cars. I love that.
The little four-cylinder pepper grinder under the hood (a 1.5-liter dual-stage VTEC) is keen and eager and completely floggable.
Peak horsepower comes at mezzo-soprano range (6,600 rpm), and peak torque (106 pound-feet) arrives at 4,800 rpm. Fits come with either a five-speed manual or a five-speed automatic transmission with paddle-shifters behind the steering wheel. The steering is quick, the brakes are powerful.
I know, I know. What about a Fit hybrid, you ask. Well, Honda is about to go on a hybrid tear, with a new Toyota Prius fighter and a new sporty hybrid coupe based on the CR-Z coming in the next 18 months. And early in the next decade, a gas-electric Fit. Eco-hearts go pitty-pat.
You may have guessed: The Fit is pretty near the top of my favorite-cars list, and not because it's so fast and awesome-looking, because it oh-so ain't. It has the beauty of a certain well-wrought urn, exactly what it needs to be -- self-defined, lightly perfect. One of these days I'll buy one, if I can ever get near the dealership.
-- end quote --
One cannot enlighten the unconscious.
Stuff that rocks: <fawning links here>
(This post was
edited
by JHo on Aug 22, 08 10:09)
TwinDad
Aug 22, 08 13:40
Post #15 of 20 (252 views)
Re: Fit/Versa/Vibe/Matrix...? [peter826]
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Assuming you're open to used, how about a couple-year-old Saturn SW2? I'm on my second, bought them both for < $5K each, and they work very well. Easy maintenance. Did I mention cheap?
One problem is that a road bike won't stand up in the back. But you can lay it down.
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chiro18
Aug 26, 08 9:30
Post #16 of 20 (210 views)
Re: Fit/Versa/Vibe/Matrix...? [peter826]
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Anybody put a
roof rack
on the Honda Fit yet??
We're thinking about getting an 09.
chiro18 / Matthew Amman
http://mattamman.blogspot.com
peter826
Aug 26, 08 10:47
Post #17 of 20 (200 views)
Re: Fit/Versa/Vibe/Matrix...? [chiro18]
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I decided to wait on buying for the time being...
There is this new Toyota "Venza" that is coming out that looks right up my alley. Can't find any price info on it, though by looks alone I suspect it will be far more expensive than any of the other options I listed.
TTBooooda
Aug 26, 08 11:01
Post #18 of 20 (193 views)
Re: Fit/Versa/Vibe/Matrix...? [peter826]
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Popular Mechanics has a article on line about the 09' Fit if you're interested.
Uncle Phil
Aug 26, 08 11:03
Post #19 of 20 (193 views)
Re: Fit/Versa/Vibe/Matrix...? [peter826]
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Venza is Camry-based...so it's like a cross between a Camry and a Highlander. Bigger than the original vehicles you had listed and more expensive. I think it's supposed to start in the mid-20s.
NCCB
Aug 26, 08 11:40
Post #20 of 20 (182 views)
Re: Fit/Versa/Vibe/Matrix...? [Uncle Phil]
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Is there anything out on the gas mileage?
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