Buyer Research

2013 Honda Fit — Should You Buy One?

Typical asking price: $6,500–$10,000. There are 3 high-severity known issues you need to know before handing over a check.

Deciding between model years? Compare the 10 Honda Fit years we've written up →

Kestrel Take

The last year of the second-generation Fit and the biggest record of the four, 176 complaints, more than half of them Takata airbag paperwork from the 2016 parts shortage. What is underneath is more varied than on the 2011 and 2012 pages: an electrical cluster with three fires and a crash — the radio, headlights and power steering dropping out together, with the battery mentioned over and over — spark plugs that back out of the cylinder head and melt their coils, and two driveshaft recalls, one of them specific to manual cars built in six weeks of summer 2013. Ten recall campaigns is a lot of VIN lookup, and every one of them should read closed. A 2013 with the recalls done, a load-tested charging system and plugs torqued on a recent invoice is a sound buy at this money; one with an unexplained flicker on the dash is not.

What we checked

Reconciled against public records, 2026-09-25

NHTSA holds 176 owner complaints for the 2013 Honda Fit, and 10 recall campaigns.

A big number here usually means a lot of these were sold, not that it is a bad vehicle — popular models collect more complaints for the same rate of trouble. So the total on its own says little. What is worth reading is the shape of it. 52% of them are about one thing — airbags. That much concentration is a genuine pattern rather than background noise, and it is the first thing to check on any example you look at.

10 recall campaigns cover this model year. Recalls are repaired free, for any owner, with no time limit on most safety campaigns — but only if someone books it in. Ask the seller to show it was done, or have any dealer check the VIN; it takes them a couple of minutes and costs nothing.

Counts come from the NHTSA complaint and recall database — free, public, and worth checking yourself.

Known Issues for the 2013 Honda Fit

Ranked by wallet impact. These are documented, recurring problems — not freak accidents. How we decide that.

Takata inflators on both front airbags — eight campaigns that must all read closed (recall)High — wallet impact

Recall 16V061 replaces the driver's Takata inflator and 19V500 widens it; 18V042 and 19V502 replace the passenger's; 18V661 reaches Fit EVs in the humid states; 18V268 and 19V378 chase inflators installed wrongly the first time. A degraded inflator can rupture on deployment and throw metal into the cabin. Of the 92 airbag complaints, 78 were filed in 2016 alone by owners who could not get parts, with Honda and its dealers pointing at each other. One 2023 owner whose recall was done in 2016 was hit at about 50 mph with no deployment — six complaints here are non-deployment reports after crashes, which a buyer cannot inspect for. Run the VIN on NHTSA's lookup and have the seller or a dealer produce the airbag service history before you drive it.

Repair cost: $0 with the recall — verify it was performed

Source: NHTSA complaints filed under airbags (92); 10 NHTSA recall campaigns on this model year.

Electrical dropouts that take the power steering with them — three fires and a crash in the clusterHigh — wallet impact

Twenty-two complaints, and the word that keeps appearing is battery. The pattern that matters: at 76,000 miles the radio shuts off, the headlights dim, the dash flickers and the power steering assist vanishes, with the engine and steering warnings lit afterwards and the dealer unable to find it. Three fires sit in this cluster, one of them a car that burned in the passenger footwell area while parked overnight. Smaller items: a VSA module failing and lighting the stability, traction and brake warnings together (an independent quoted a replacement), an ignition switch that would not release the key at 84,000 miles, and a dash that cannot be read in bright sun. A voltage drop that takes the EPS offline is a safety failure on a car this small, so have the battery, alternator and main grounds load-tested and the ignition switch checked before you buy — cheap tests, and the fires make them worth doing.

Repair cost (estimate): $150–$1,500 from a battery, ground or ignition switch up to a VSA modulator

Source: NHTSA complaints filed under electrics and electronics (22).

Spark plugs back out of the cylinder head and cook their ignition coilsMedium

Fifteen engine complaints and the specific ones are all plugs: the number-three spark plug worked its way out of the head while driving on a two-lane road, was repaired, and did the same thing again two years later; another owner's car was found at 48,000 miles with all four plugs loose and two coils damaged, caught only because a friend's identical Fit had done it first; a 2026 report has a coil melted completely and the car dead at the roadside. Loose plugs on the 1.5L run rough, misfire, and eventually strip the aluminium threads, which turns a $150 job into a thread-insert repair. The rest of the cluster is a stall traced to debris on the MAP sensor and an air conditioner that gives up above about 88°F. Ask when the plugs were last changed and by whom; a shop that torqued them to spec will have said so on the invoice. A rough idle or misfire code at the inspection is this until proven otherwise.

Repair cost (estimate): $150–$800 for plugs and coils; more if a stripped plug thread needs a thread insert

Source: NHTSA complaints filed under the engine (15).

Two driveshaft recalls — a bad heat-treat batch on manuals, and salt-belt corrosion on every 2013 (recall)High — wallet impact

Recall 14V258 is this year alone: manual-transmission Fits built May 24 to July 5, 2013 got passenger-side driveshafts with an improper heat treatment, and the shaft can fracture while driving, leaving the car to coast to a stop — or roll away if parked without the handbrake. Recall 20V770 covers every 2009–2013 Fit sold or ever registered in the salt-belt states, where road salt corrodes the shafts until they snap pulling away from a stop. Both are free dealer inspections with replacement if needed. Twelve powertrain complaints on this year, one with a crash. Check both campaigns on the VIN; if the car is a manual, ask for the build date on the door-jamb sticker; and have any 2013 put on a lift so a mechanic can look at both shafts for rust scaling near the inner joints.

Repair cost: $0 with the recall — verify it was performed; $300–$900 per axle outside the recall states

Source: NHTSA complaints filed under the transmission and drivetrain (12); 10 NHTSA recall campaigns on this model year.

Stability control software allowed too much yaw before intervening (recall)Medium

Recall 13V157 covers 2012–2013 Fits — Sport models built to March 22, 2013 and base models to April 19, 2013: the electronic stability control software let the car yaw further than it should before stepping in, so it offered less help in a skid than certified. A free software update at the dealer has been available since August 2013. Ten stability-control complaints on this year, three with crashes, describe the VSA and ABS warnings lighting together and the system behaving unpredictably; some of that is the VSA module failure in the electrical cluster rather than the recall, and a dealer scan separates the two. One line on the VIN lookup.

Repair cost: $0 with the recall — verify it was performed

Source: NHTSA complaints filed under stability control (10); 10 NHTSA recall campaigns on this model year.

Walk-Away Red Flags

✗Radio, headlights or dash flickering on the drive, or the steering going heavy for a moment
✗Rough idle, a misfire code, or a ticking from the top of the engine that suggests a loose plug
✗VSA, traction and brake warnings lit together at startup
✗A clunk pulling away from a stop, or rust scaling visible on the driveshafts
✗Any of the ten recall campaigns still showing open on the NHTSA VIN lookup

Good Signs

✓Every airbag campaign shown closed on the NHTSA VIN lookup, with the dealer paperwork
✓Recalls 14V258, 20V770 and 13V157 all shown complete
✓Battery and alternator load-tested at the car, reading 13.8–14.4V at idle with the lights and blower on
✓Spark plugs replaced and torqued to spec on a recent invoice, with the coils inspected
✓Steady dash and constant steering effort through a twenty-minute drive with the headlights on