2012 Honda Fit Revived with a Buffet of AG Products

[Desertnate]

This 2012 was recently added to the family fleet. Previous owners took very good care of it mechanically, and I *thought* the paint was in pretty good shape considering 5 years of non-"Geek" life before I got my hands on it. While easy to correct, it matched some of the horror stories many of you have posted here before. As soon as we brought it home, I was actually excited to "play" with the car and see exactly what I could do with it. A couple weeks later I got my chance. This is the story of that adventure. I used a whole host of AG sourced products.

What isn't pictured is a hour or two of vinyl pinstripe removal. The stripes were brittle, cracking, and simply ugly.
Removal products:

• Plastic razor blades
• Poorboys APC
• Stoner's Tarminator

The morning of the big day, I washed the car down with a shampoo my wife won in a charity auction from a GM dealership. No idea who makes the stuff, but it's pretty strong which makes it good of decon jobs. From there, I moved on to the clay. This is where things get interesting.

Wash/Decon

I started with the rear spoiler and got this off just that tiny area. I could feel the difference in each pass.


I was afraid I was in for a long morning of claying, but oddly enough most of the rest of the panels were in surprisingly good shape until I hit one 2x2'-ish area on the roof right above the driver's door. Yes, only ONE spot on the car was this bad. The rest were a mixed bag of light returns on my clay bar.



Again, a noticeable difference with each pass of the clay. This leads me to believe the dealership "washed" and then "waxed" over the grime.
Product used: XMT Clay

With washing and claying out of the way, this was the result.



The car was already looking much better, but what you can't tell in the flat lighting of a cloudy day is the paint has no real pop and it's still pretty dull. Now was time to pull it into the garage and do my worst on the paint.

Wheels were washed with Griots Wheel Cleaner. The tire dressing used by the dealership was thick, sticky and slung all over the wheels. The Griots removed it, but the stuff gummed up my wheel brush. Not happy with that one.

Correction

Hitting the paint with LED's revealed the true damage. This was representative of most the car. In normal daylight the metallic flake wasn't really noticeable.



I then did two two test spots. One with Meguiars UP on and LC White Flat pad and another with Blackfire SRC Polish on the same type of pad.

Meguiars UP:


And the Blackfire...



As you can see, the Blackfire worked much better in this case. In just four passes I had the paint right where I wanted it. The difference was dramatic. This also worked out well for other reasons but more on that later in my "Lessons Learned".

While inspecting my work on the door, I noticed this view of the front and rear driver doors. Even in indirect lighting the heavy swirls which clouded the paint are noticeable.



Once complete, the paint across the entire car now looked like this. A big difference.



At this point I prepped the surface and then coated the car.
Product used: McKees 37 Paint Coating (original formula).

Final Results

Once the coating was applied and cured for a couple hours I took a good look and was very happy with the results. My youngest daughter, who really never pays any attention to my work, asked, "What are all those tiny spots in the paint? I've never seen those before on this car." Reply: "That's the metallic flake in the paint!" That should speak for itself.



Outdoors a couple days later after the rain stopped...





Products also used but not featured:

• I used McKee's 37 Plastic Trim Restorer on all the external plastics and trip. The more I use that stuff the more I like it.
• 0000 steel wool and Mothers Mag and Aluminum polish on the exhaust tip

Lesson's Learned

1. Always check to make sure you have enough product for the job. I was fortunate the Blackfire polish worked best in this case. When I did a test spot with my UP, I was shocked to discover I had almost nothing left in the bottle. This mistake could have cost me time in a trip to the store for more product.
2. Original formula McKee's 37 Paint Coating should probably be used up in a year. My bottle is a year old and I noticed the product flashed much faster and didn't spread nearly as easily as the last three times I used it despite the temperatures being 60's. The damp, cool, temps meant it took a LONG time to cure, but application wasn't as simply as previous experiences.
3. Even if the paint is trashed you shouldn't automatically reach for a compound. It might not be needed. I had my compounds and orange pads at the ready, but this paint is so soft all it took was a polish pad and a finishing polish. Test spot...test spot...test spot.... Where have we heard that before?
4. Don't always stick with your "go-to" products, you might be surprised. In the past, my default on soft Japanese paint was UP. It worked well and I never questioned it until this job. I was surprised by how Blackfire created a shine that was more crisp and clear than UP.
5. Embedded road grime is real. Read up on Mike Phillips article regarding the topic. His pictures were enough to make me a believe, but I experienced it first hand with this car. One of the white pads used on this job was new from the package and it turned black. My other pads are stained purple by the blackfire polish, but they too turned significantly darker during this job despite the polish being purple in color.
6. If you're going to take pictures of the job, plan that out ahead of time. I was constantly thinking of things to document after it was too late!

Final Thoughts

This was a fun job. Most of the vehicles I've worked on before were close to being this neglected. It was interesting to see the transformation as I worked. There were some deeper gouges in the hood, but with the polishing they disappeared under most lighting conditions. Since this is a daily driver with thin, soft Honda paint, I wasn't about to chase after those. This 75% solution is exactly what the car needed.

[Klasse Act]

Great turn around!

I had a Revolution orange Fit (2010) and your right about the paint being soft....BIG TIME

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[LSNAutoDetailing]

Way cool find on the Fit and nice write-up and great job in turning it around.


Here is our 2013 with 65K on it... It's our DD, dog hauler, grocery getter.

[fly07sti]

Great job bringing the gloss back to that Fit and congrats on adding it to your stable. BF Polish is in my top 3 favorites for polishes.

[Sicoupe]

Beautiful job my friend!

Kyle

[Desertnate]

Great turn around!

I had a Revolution orange Fit (2010) and your right about the paint being soft....BIG TIME

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

Thanks!

This was my first Honda, and based on research I was expecting it to be similar to the Toyota's I've worked on. After working on this car, I can comfortably say the paint on that Honda is even softer. I was quite surprised.

Way cool find on the Fit and nice write-up and great job in turning it around.


Here is our 2013 with 65K on it... It's our DD, dog hauler, grocery getter.

Thanks! Good looking Fit.

The car amazes me with the huge amount of space inside such a tiny car. The steering is amazing, very similar to Karts I've driven. The only downside is the utter lack of any power. I find it frustrating, but it's perfect for the teen driver who will be behind the wheel.

Great job bringing the gloss back to that Fit and congrats on adding it to your stable. BF Polish is in my top 3 favorites for polishes.

Thanks!

The SCR polish has served me well for a long time. I'm hoping it doesn't change much under the new branding. However, until it is available in 8oz bottles, I'll have to look elsewhere. The 16oz bottle's I've got now has lasted 4+ years and I noticed this time it was a bit thicker, even after a good shaking, and was a bit harder to remove. The stuff was just getting old. I need something packaged in sizes I'll go though a little quicker.

Beautiful job my friend!

Kyle

Thank you!

[machz]

NiceJob !

[LSNAutoDetailing]

Thanks!



Thanks! Good looking Fit.

The car amazes me with the huge amount of space inside such a tiny car. The steering is amazing, very similar to Karts I've driven. The only downside is the utter lack of any power. I find it frustrating, but it's perfect for the teen driver who will be behind the wheel.





Thank you!

Exactly, we normally have two greyhounds, (sadly down to one right now by we're working on it!) and our car is a floating dog bed. The fold flat seats, a big dog bed and blankets and off we go! Two fully standing grey's and they look tiny in the back. Not to mention it's a great car for some mobile detailing when required. I've had that fit packed!

We actually drove it from NH to AZ... six days cross country with our greyhound and everything else!

Lack of power is a huge downer. When we lived in NH the car was great at zipping up and down the little windy roads and occasional highway driving. Here in AZ we're competing against MONSTER trucks (ya, like Mike's...) and everyone here does 90 mph on surface streets. And if we want to head up north to Flagstaff (where AZMike lives) I'm afraid that the fit just isn't going to make it up some of those mountain passes in the I-17.

The other con is the AC. It's on the weak side. Again, in NH it was fine... but here in the desert... no dice.

We hate to part with the Fit cause it can do so much both economically and honda reliability wise. Our models (the gen we have) was the last year it was made in Japan. We've done nothing but oil changes, tires and brakes on the car. The FIT rocks! (just needs a little more horse power!)

[Klasse Act]

The new one has DI and a bit more power, 6 speed too! I mean power is only 128 hp from 117 hp, maybe a test drive is in order. The a/c issue is simple...look at the size of that windshield

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[Desertnate]

I had no idea the previous generation was the last generation built in Japan. I now own the last generation Fit built in Japan, and one of the last VW GTI's built in Germany!

I've not noticed the A/C problem in our car. I found it to work pretty well on the 85* day I did a couple test drives. There is a TON of glass (hello, window tints), but that was one reason my daughter liked it so much better than others we tested: amazing visibility. The big A-pillar is the only let down.

The cargo space in that car cannot be overstated. I hauled my 160 lb Great Dane the other day with ease. Rather than laying flat the back seat, I folded up the rear seat cushions (yes, they go UP like the back seat in a truck). She was able to stand or sit comfortably in the space the back seat occupies.

For a city car that will rarely hit wide open highway's, I can't think of anything better. Adults are comfortable in both rows of seats, and even with the back seats up there is still reasonable room for stuff like groceries or moderate amounts of luggage/sporting gear. It turns on a dime with razor sharp steering and actually handles pretty well despite it being a little top heavy. Honda should really take the platform and make a cheap Miata-like coupe. It would be slow, but handling would be amazing.