Does anyone know any cost effective ways to improve the Honda fit's ride quality?

It depends on your definition of cost effective. The cheap (free) way to do it would be to lower your tire pressure 2–3 psi at each corner. This will also slightly decrease gas mileage, possibly throw off your alignment and cause the tires to wear irregularly.

You could buy some tires with a thicker sidewall but this will throw off your speedometer and you’ll have to have it re-calibrated.

The last and most effective option would be to buy some adjustable struts. I’d suggest Koni Yellows as they are generally regarded as the best bang for your buck but they will cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $400 plus labor unless you can do it yourself.

With that said… I wish my car had the soft ride of a Fit. I think it’s got a very good sport/comfort compromise and you’ll have to keep in mind that anything you do to make it softer is going to make the handling sloppier. To what kind of car are you comparing the ride on the Fit?

I’m comparing it to a 2005 Subaru wrx sti. Of course the STI is a stiffer / rougher ride but this much is to be expected.

buy some true coilivers.

gimmedat: I agree a true coiliver system as it is not cheap maybe going with an adjustable shock with oem springs.

Check some fit forums for suggestions.

I run Koni on my integra and it is stiff when it needs to be and I turn it to the softest setting when I commute.

I’m not being a wiseass…I really don’t know…but isn’t it “Coilover” ? Another question, won’t this really hurt the handling or will they just have to be adjusted for different situations as does “gimmedat”?
PS: Thanks to all for the helpful feedback. It’s appreciated!

Yes, they’re called “coilovers” because the coil (spring) on your Fit and most other cars sits “over” the shock. Your Fit actually came with coilovers from the factory. What they’re suggesting would technically be called “adjustable” coilovers but no one really refers to them as such. Adjustablity meaning you can raise and lower the ride height as well as the compression and rebound rates of the shock.

The reason I did not suggest coilovers is because the vast majority of coilover systems have higher spring rates and more aggressively valved shocks than the original equipment coilovers your car came with. In other words, they will improve handling (less body roll, better braking, etc) but hurt ride “quality”. So if you think your ride is too rough now, coilovers will only make it more rough.

I don’t care what anyone tells you, you will not be able to make your ride softer than stock by purchasing coilovers and setting them to their softest setting. Whichever coilover system you theoretically buy, if you set them up as the manufacturer designed them, your car will sit at least an inch lower than it does now and will ride much more tightly (rough) than it does now.

Any modification you make to a car is going to have positive and negative effects. With coilovers your car will probably look a little better and more aggressive because it sits lower, but I don’t think you’ll be happy with the ride quality at all.

I’ve got a slammed Honda S2000 sitting on Tein Flex coilovers (extremely high spring rates) but I like a very tight feeling car and don’t mind a little compromise in order to improve handling. Tein makes a coilover called a “Luxury Spec” or something like that which may ride as soft as you’d like but I didn’t see a Fit application on their website.

Yeah, coilovers. The iPhone automatically changes it to coilivers.