2015 Honda Fit: Early Models To Get Better Bumpers For Crash Safety Boost

The 2015 Honda Fit subcompact just recently went on sale, but it's already received a significant update.

Honda has strengthened the bumper-beam welds, and now it will retrofit the stronger front bumper bar to roughly 12,000 of the earliest-production Fits.

The redesigned 2015 Fit garnered an "Acceptable" rating in the small-overlap frontal crash test conducted by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS).

That's an improvement over the "Poor" rating the previous-generation model got--but the 2015 Fit only achieved that rating on its second try.

An early production Fit tested in March received a "Marginal" score, reports The New York Times, so Honda redesigned the welds to be tougher and sent the Fit back to be retested.

In the small-overlap test--meant to replicate a collision with the corner of another vehicle or a fixed object such as a utility pole or tree--a rigid barrier strikes 25 percent of the car's front end on the driver's side, at 40 mph.

The bumper beam of the early Fit--a steel bar behind the plastic bumper cover--broke off on the passenger's side during the early part of the first test, the IIHS said.

That caused more of the crash energy to be absorbed by the driver's side than if it had could have been distributed through both sides of the car.