Welcome Insight #2! Update: Picked the car up. Update 4/11:

[Eli]

I used to get 60+ in my 03 TDI....not even having to hypermile, haha.

for the love of god, give me a TDI hybrid!

My 2.0T Audi get's 30~MPG, was her civic twice the weight? My old civic (back in high school), used to get 35-40~

Her Civic gets 38MPG highway, but the 24MPG is from her short, in town commute to work.

And no you didn't. I'm sure it's possible, but not on a consistant basis. I've seen mid 50s at best from the TDI's. Which is certainly nothing to scoff at, but..

The Insight is capable of 85+MPG highway.

 

[ViviTheMage]

tdiclub, those guys were crazy, got some good pointers from them on how to achieve 60+...with a tailwind to Chicago

 

[DarkThinker]

A bold move indeed Eli, with all said and done I would probably not pay more than $2000 for it.

HOWEVER Honda might be interested in buying it from you so think about that. when you hit 500K+ miles....

 

[Uhtrinity]

You really think it will be a problem? Meh. I won't be shocked if there are some things that need to be replaced, but I don't think it will be anything major. And even if it does need something major, it'll just guarantee another 400,000 miles out of it.

I'm beginning to look at them like collectors cars. It isn't just about saving money, though that is certainly nice. I think it will be cool to take this high mileage specimen, fix what needs fixing and keep it on the road for another 10 years. Maybe it could be the first million mile Insight. :thumbsup:

It depends how it was treated. If it was flogged hard that engine could be rough, however if it was taken care of it might be fine. Too many variables. I'm with you as far as the Insight being low maintenance and the chassis itself will never corrode.

 

[skyking]

Cool beans Eli. I wish I could fit into one. I will "roll my own" plugin car when the time comes.

 

[JulesMaximus]

Cool! I saw a 2006 Insight for sale near here with about 80k miles recently. Guy was asking $12k for it.

I kind of like the new Insight. With gas up over $4/gallon here it is starting to look tempting.

 

[PhoKingGuy]

Cool! I saw a 2006 Insight for sale near here with about 80k miles recently. Guy was asking $12k for it.

I kind of like the new Insight. With gas up over $4/gallon here it is starting to look tempting.

TBH, its not as bad as the auto press says it is. I test drove one when my uncle was looking for a new car (he ended up with a 2011 Fiesta) and while it wasn't anything special it was perfectly capable as a city runabout.

 

[Uhtrinity]

Looked at the add closer:

These stand out:
Very Clean but needs Paint
Never seen or heard of an Insight that needed paint due to fading or peeling? Maybe it was repainted already?

89,000 Miles left on New Hybrid Battery Warrenty
Did they purchase a new battery and this is the remaining balance of the warranty? The goodwill warranty is 10 years / 150,000 miles, this car far exceeds that?

 

[Eli]

Looked at the add closer:

These stand out:
Very Clean but needs Paint
Never seen or heard of an Insight that needed paint due to fading or peeling? Maybe it was repainted already?

89,000 Miles left on New Hybrid Battery Warrenty
Did they purchase a new battery and this is the remaining balance of the warranty? The goodwill warranty is 10 years / 150,000 miles, this car far exceeds that?

Yeah, he isn't quite clear on the warranty. He seems to think that once the battery was replaced, you have a 150k mile warranty on it.. but that isn't the case, I don't think? So it was replaced ~61k miles ago. Unless I'm the one that's actually confused, but thats what I got talking to him.

I thought it was just going to be the clear coat peeling, but he hit a pole going around a corner. Bodywork has been done, but it needs paint. It's an ugly duckling. That doesn't bother us though. My car needs body work too. We'll get around to it eventually.

Edit: Of course, we can always back out once we actually see the car. I doubt we will though. We'll see!

 

[Occ]

So why would you pick an Insight over a Prius? Just curious.

 

[T2urtle]

has your insight needed any repair? Do you work on the car?

Or what are the guys on the insight boards been replacing other then the battery of course.

I wanted one but scared due to the amps this thing puts out.

 

[Arkaign]

So why would you pick an Insight over a Prius? Just curious.

1G Insight Pros :

Cheaper
Much better fuel economy
Less complex maintenance
Lighter, better driving dynamics

Negatives :

Small, somewhat noisy inside, rare (parts hard to find?)

 

[Uhtrinity]

has your insight needed any repair? Do you work on the car?

Or what are the guys on the insight boards been replacing other then the battery of course.

I wanted one but scared due to the amps this thing puts out.

So far I do and have done all the maintenance on my car including mods.

That has included transmission swap, AC transplant, and brake pads. On the electric side I rebalanced and transplanted a civic battery pack followed by re balancing the original pack and reinstalling it as a paralleled pack with charger. Topped off with mima and a BCM display ...... makes for a nice usable project car. The Insightcentral community has been one of the most helpful and friendly communities on the web.

 

[Eli]

has your insight needed any repair? Do you work on the car?

Or what are the guys on the insight boards been replacing other then the battery of course.

I wanted one but scared due to the amps this thing puts out.

My Insight needed a transmission at 100k miles(bought the car with 86k). That's the only work I've put into it in the 68,000 miles I've owned it, other than oil and filter changes.

I can do all the work myself.

Why scared of the amps? That's silly. As far as I'm concerned, I wish it did 200A @ 144V.

 

[Eli]

So why would you pick an Insight over a Prius? Just curious.

The Prius is just a regular car, albeit a hybrid. The Insight is a unique, technologically advanced/ahead of it's time automobile that can get well over 100MPG under the right conditions. There really is nothing like it.

There's no comparing it to the Prius. The only similarities are the hybrid drivetrains, which are in themselves completely different.

 

[Vic Vega]

Cool! I saw a 2006 Insight for sale near here with about 80k miles recently. Guy was asking $12k for it.

I kind of like the new Insight. With gas up over $4/gallon here it is starting to look tempting.

My daily driver is looong paid for. Gas would have to get ridiculous for me to consider replacing it.

 

[JMapleton]

The resale value of these cars only increases or at least maintains as gas prices go up.

But 400k is not "high mileage", it's "astronomical mileage."

 

[Eli]

The resale value of these cars only increases or at least maintains as gas prices go up.

But 400k is not "high mileage", it's "astronomical mileage."

Just getting broken in.

Let's look at it another way. Mileage is actually a terrible way to rate a car's wear and tear. Like I said, I would rather have a 400k car that spent all of it's time at 2,000RPM @ 65MPH than a 200k car that saw stop and go with frequent climbs to 4500RPM+.

Anyway, according to my GPS my average moving speed has been 41MPH over the last 96,000 miles(since I got the GPS).

That means there is probably something like 3800 hours of moving time on my engine.

Since this car was used to travel back and forth between LA and the bay area, we can assume most of the miles are highway. If we assume that the car's average speed should therefor be considerably higher than mine, let's say 55MPH, the car's engine has 8,000 hours on it. If the car averaged 60MPH, that shaves a thousand hours off that figure. 3x as many miles as my car, only twice as many hours.

If my car's engine had logged 8,000 hours, the car would "only" have 328,000 miles on it. So that would be better, right? No. In the scenario I just painted, it wouldn't be. Shrug. I'm not worried at all.

If this were a Chrysler, then I would be worried. Honda got most everything right with this car as far as longevity is concerned. If the transmission goes out, the transmission goes out. That would be a worry with any used Insight though, and it can happen at any time. I won't feel very bad if I have to dump $1000 into a $2700 Insight. I would be pretty pissed if I bought a 5k specimen, and then had to turn around and replace the transmission though. Just trying to give perspective. At this price, there's a lot of room for broken stuff.

 

[alfa147x]

The Insight is awesome because it was built in the NSX / S2000 factory

 

[Eli]

The Insight is awesome because it was built in the NSX / S2000 factory

Yep. By hand...

 

[Doppel]

Looked at these yesterday, one of the two had a tranny replaced but it was an auto. Seems maybe the transmissions are not great. But if you can replace one for $1000 that's pocket change for a transmission.

Although the CRZ is a more substantial car it's amazing that in a decade Honda has taken a two seater car that gets great mileage and turned it into a two seater car that gets terrible mileage.

The 1G insight weighs 30 lbs and has a tiny engine and very little air signature. Does anybody know what its city and highway numbers would be if it was a conventional ICE-based vehicle only?

 

[Eli]

Looked at these yesterday, one of the two had a tranny replaced but it was an auto. Seems maybe the transmissions are not great. But if you can replace one for $1000 that's pocket change for a transmission.

Although the CRZ is a more substantial car it's amazing that in a decade Honda has taken a two seater car that gets great mileage and turned it into a two seater car that gets terrible mileage.

The 1G insight weighs 30 lbs and has a tiny engine and very little air signature. Does anybody know what its city and highway numbers would be if it was a conventional ICE-based vehicle only?

The Insight's highway fuel economy isn't dependant on any aspect of the hybrid drivetrain, overall. It could come into play with hills, but assuming level ground you don't ever use the electric motor. City numbers would suffer considerably. I would estimate something like 30/60MPG.

I'm not aware of any problems with the CVT's, I was only talking about the manuals. Yeah, you can get used transmissions for 700$ all day long. It's about 1500$ to have a shop do it. Not bad, in the scheme of transmission work.

 

[SearchMaster]

Yeah, you can get used transmissions for 700$ all day long.

That's surprising if there were only 18,000 made - or do they share them with a more common car?

 

[PlasmaBomb]

Um... I could replace every suspension component and bushing AND the transmission AND the IMA battery pack for $3000.. if I did the work myself.

I'm well aware of what I'm getting myself into guys. These cars don't break down, besides the transmission glitches. They are bulletproof. They are cheap to maintain. No timing belt. Nothing to go wrong except the transmission and battery pack, more or less.

You could... but do you have time to?

 

[Eli]

That's surprising if there were only 18,000 made - or do they share them with a more common car?

Nope. Their transmission was purpose built for the Insight. It's similar to the Civic transmission, but is more compact and has some lighter internals, shaving off about 10lbs.

I assume they're readily available because of their failure rate... They're not hard to rebuild or anything. But that is a good point.

Parts aren't hard to find for these cars - yet - because of how easily they're totalled due to the almuminum construction.

I am sure this will change in 10-15 years...