I am at a dealership waiting for financing. Its a red 2000 Insight with 126k miles. Manual transmission. AC. It runs good and the car is in decent shape. Cracked front bumper but not bad. Few scratches and rock chips on hood and around the car. Price is $5992. Looks good to me. http://www.autotrader.com/fyc/vdp.j...=&doors=&max_price=&cardist=92&standard=false I'm not a car guy so I dont know much about buying used cars.
IMA battery is dead which is not uncommon on car lots. Drive it to see if the SOC recovers. Carfax the VIN to check history. It hasn't been babied with a lmpg of 49.1mpg. If it all looks good, offer $4500 and settle on around $5000.
Everything that Msirach said, Plus..... Make sure that the IMA light in bottom right of instrument cluster lights when ignition is on and that it goes off when the car is started/driven. If you can, get a look at Honda service record to see when the batteries were replaced, if so. You might have to take the VIN to a Honda dealer to find out. The Carfax might tell you. Someone will know the answer to that one. All-in-all, it is a nice looking car. Not sure what NADA book price might be but the numbers offered above sound about right. Welcome to the small and deminishing club. It is a little jewel from a far distant place and time
Car fax show maintance and some standard replacements. Nothing to worry about at least I wont. When the salesman drove it for me the battery soc looked OK from my end. Plus I'm not to worried about the battery anyway being this old. If needed I would just have Ron rebuild me a battery. Looks like the loan is approved. Just waiting to finish up.
I'm looking forward to seeing an Insight with an enormous smile-shaped grille block, and tastefully done smooth wheel covers.
Give me some time and you will see it. Just finished up the paperwork. I'm getting it for $141.47 per month for 48 months. Well below what I was planning on. I'll be stuck at the dealership for a few hours while I wait on my dad to come. I still cant drive stick and I need him to drive it back for me. I plan on resetting the trip to see what MPG he can pull in. It will only be a 100 mile mostly highway trip so it better be good.
Jay, the mileage won't be spectacular until you get that SoC topped up. Once it is up to 18 bars it will typically stop force charging -- I recommend some light regen (just some engine braking so at highway speeds you can just let off the gas in 5th) to get it up to 19 bars. After it is topped up you should be able to hold lean burn (without a headwind) at 100mpg up to around 53mph or so on a flat. Make sure those tires are aired up before you start out. The Insight responds a bit more than the typical car to high pressures.
To start off clean, you might pull the negative cable off the battery for a few minutes. That will clear the memory of bad habits from the last few drives and sitting.
I'm not going to do anything to it until it get home because my dad will be driving it tonight. The down side is that it does not have stock tires. I dont remember what brand or type but I know they are not stock. I'll have to get them replaced when I can afford it.
I agree with all of the above. Mine went 262,000. Needed new battery at 186,000. There are sites which will repair the battery pack if it is bad, but check the VIN against the Honda Corp records and see if it has already been done, and if the upgrade of computer also was done. Ted
As Mike pointed out, 49.1 mpg lifetime is not that good. Unless the trips were short, I'd consider it borderline abusive treatment. (41 mpg lifetime is the worst I've heard) I'd plan on replacing the batteries based on the lifetime mpg, the pictures, it sitting on the lot. You're getting a deal that even if you pay Ron the max of $1250 to fix the battery pack, it's still a good deal. I'd get one of those OBDII units to see if it passes emissions...mine has a marginal catalytic converter and maybe O2 sensor. The interior looks cleaner than mine. I just put a plexiglas cover over the battery pack
Just got back. My dad got home with 59.5MPG over 116 miles. And he is no hypermiler. The check engine light came on and I have to figure that out. The car still ran fine. I'm debating whether or not I should take my Prius dash apart to remove the ScanGauge to get the codes or to wait for Evan to return my SG after hes is done with it in the official plug in Prius. Going to read the manual.
You can go to Autozone and have them pull the code. You will have to look it up though. Their definition will not be correct.
I might do that on my next day off if I don't get it from the SG. I'm sure its something simple since the car ran good on the way down. I'll just have to check things in the morning. It could be something simple like a loose gas cap. I need to figure out a custom license plate for the Insight now.
Since the car has been sitting for more than a few weeks waiting to be sold, I would definitely get a grid charger on the HV battery before you run it through its full range of SoC. The car doesn't have a battery balancing routine, and when it sits, the individual cells with slower self-discharge end up at a higher SoC than the others. Running an imbalanced pack causes cell degradation. Also, a big pack can be an mpg advantage, especially if you have MIMA or mountains. Call it overkill, but the next time I buy an Insight, I'll throw the battery switch to "off", drive it home as a 12V car, and run the grid charger/balancer for 36hrs before I use assist and regen.
Jay, so you don't go searching forever for that diagnostic port it is close to the console in the passenger footwell for the MY 2000 Insight.
