Day 58: Outside In

Having had my Fit back for the day, and driving around and parking in bright sunshine gave me a chance to assess what the past two months have been like for the car. What I can immediately tell is that the dirty pollenated outside parking got into the cars nooks and crannies. There are places I know were very clean when the car left me that are now caked with schmutz. I'll get into the cracks this weekend to clean them up. This car has lived in a garage for past 4 years, and was washed/waxed regularly so at least the buildup of polleny grime will come off easily. To their credit, the dealership did clean all the obvious outsides well, and even vacuumed the all season mats in the car--not so much under the mats, but that dirt wasn't their making.

Curiously, there was one small chip of safety glass in cargo area making me wonder whether there was a broken glass incident unreported by the dealer. The documents in the glove compartment were shuffled as well, but there really wasn't anything left in the car fit to steal. After thinking about for a while I'm guessing maybe a box or cooler that I previously loaded in the car from the street picked up the rogue piece of glass.

So far the car is right back to what I remember. Really nice handling and fun acceleration in the high revs. Just a really well made little car, especially coming from the poor imitation, the Nissan Versa Note, that we've been driving for the past month.

Happy to have the Fit home. I just hope the passenger side airbag doesn't need the same repair, as has happened in Accords.

Update: I clay-barred the Fit's roof, hood and fenders. It turned out to be relatively easy to do on such a small car, now those areas are buttery smooth after re-applying a coat of wax.

Day 57: Fin

Lynnwood Honda just called to let me know that they got an airbag inflator in, and installed it in my Fit. I'm leaving now to go pick up the car. Hopefully it didn't suffer too badly sitting around for the last two months. Oh boy, I'm very excited to get my Fit back.

Hooray!

Day 56: Act Accordingly

A friend of mine with a 1991 Accord with more miles that she's comfortable with and more to-do items on the car's repairs list that she wants to spend is looking for newer Accord. I shouldn't be shocked but late model Accords and Civics are really expensive. I knew when I bought the Fit that we were spending less than Accords, and depending on trim level and options, less than Civics. What I wasn't prepared for today was the retained value of those Accords and Civics. The frustrating thing for her is that the only 'affordable' Accord for her is a 2003--considerably newer with better safety options than her '91, but in terms of maintenance costs, it will probably get spendy pretty quickly. I was thinking she'd be able to afford an '09 Accord or Camry, but there's no way. They is just too high a premium on these cars if they've been reasonably taken care of and have minimal mileage. This really contrasts with the complete lack of love for the recent model off lease Nissan Leafs I've been seeing on the market (and been tempted by). 2012 Leafs with low mileage off lease are going for well under $9,000, and then your fuel costs are a fraction of an ICE, and maintenance costs are similarly low, as long as you don't need a new battery. The gorilla in the room is the 75 or so mile range on these cars--a problem somewhat mitigated if one has the quick charge port. But they will never be able to take intercity trips. We definitely are spoiled being able to fill a tank of gas in minutes, practically anywhere, anytime. If I needed a 2nd car, I wouldn't hesitate in getting one of these Leafs, but as a primary car, I just couldn't do it. I do have an idealist friend whose primary (only) car is a Leaf. He rents a car if he needs to go out of town, and ultimately is many dollars ahead.

More and more Fits are getting fixed. I'm expecting mine to be done any day now. My 30 day rental window is coming up again. I don't think I have to swap the car--last time it was just a verbal renewal over the phone. Here's hoping the rental will be over before May 4 when the agreement comes up.

Day 55: Still Waiting

There were at least a dozen reports from FitFreak,net yesterday and today of either notice to bring Fits into the Honda dealer repair shop for the airbag inflator repair, or the actual repair getting done. The repairs appear to be happening all over the country--not just in high humidity zones. More likely it looks like it is based on who has Honda-provided loaner or rental vehicles. This all leads me to believe that it will be a very short amount of time until I get my Fit back as well. I did contact the dealer yesterday about this and was told that they have no record of an imminent fix for my car, but I don't think they really know what is happening on the corporate distribution side. I could be wrong, but Honda hasn't shown itself to be that highly coordinated EXCEPT in the face of social media pressure. Remember, they (probably) had my Honda Airbag twitter account disabled within hours of it starting up, and they actually responded to this blog by the 8th day it was up. A miraculous event considering I still don't see it when doing google searches for Honda Airbag. Maybe Honda's search-monkeys have special powers of intuition that just tell when there is a dissatisfied Honda customer out there on the internet. Now, actually satisfying the dissatisfied customers unreasonable demands--that's a different story.

I want a pony.

I heard there would be punch and pie.

I want my Fit back.

One of these things will happen soon.