honda civic battery life - should I buy a 2003 w/ 35k miles?

[jhoff]

I'm considering buying a 2003 civic hybrid with less than 35k miles. Price is fair (8.5k) and the owner is an acquaintance / friend of a friend and I know she's taken very good care of it. My question is this - is the battery life related more to time or mileage? I'm guessing mileage due to the number of charge / discharge cycles but I really don't know. If there've been no issues thus far with the battery, can I expect it to last 100k+ miles even if it takes another 5-10 years to get there?

Another few quick questions:

1) the battery warranty is 8yrs or 80k miles whichever comes first, right?
2) the warranty will transfer to the second owner, right?
3) anything else I should reasonably worry about?

Thanks!
Jerry

[Daox]

Battery life is dependent on time and use. I'd have no problem buying an 03 with 35k on it, thats a great find. You'll easily get 100k miles more on it. If the battery did start to have problems after warranty is up, there are businesses that have started up that specialize in hybrid battery refurbishing for significantly less than a new OEM pack. IMO theres not much to worry about buying an old hybrid these days. The market has seen a need and filled that need, and the price is pretty reasonable too.

[luvit]

i used to own one. i would buy it. warranty will transfer.
usually, things far exceed their warranty. -- honda didn't own these batteries for 8 years in real world tests. this means their warranty calculations would be in their favor.

[PaleMelanesian]

Manual or automatic? The early Honda hybrids with manuals were the ones that had trouble with the batteries. 2000/2001 insight especially. If you run it at low rpm / high throttle and it'll give heavy assist and drain the battery pack. The automatic naturally avoids this danger zone. The changed the charge/assist programming and largely fixed that in the '02 insight, so likely the 03 civic has the new programming as well.

In this specific case, I think I'd jump all over it. I don't think age will degrade the batteries nearly as much as use, so this one is a good bet. (I think...)

[jhoff]

automatic Cool, that's 3 votes in favor of going for it

[RobertSmalls]

+1