Trading/Selling my Civic VX for a Insight? Thoughts?

[Natalya]

The dealer's an idiot if you offered $2500 and he declined. $1500 bid is good. The car looks clean which is always nice, but the miles and the damage to the driver's mirror and door handle are big negatives. Also, there's absolutely no way the hybrid battery is okay.

The hybrid battery is probably dead. I don't know what the dealer means by it was serviced by the dealer, that's probably a load of bull unless they got like an invoice from Honda for whatever work was done.

But you can drive this car with a dead hybrid battery as long as you make 1 mod (clutch switch) to keep the car from ever learning the battery is bad. Or you can trick it into constantly charging the 12V battery and remove the dead hybrid battery altogether, saving 40 pounds.

[GearHead]

I'll probably avoid buying the car from this dealer. I just found the SAME auction that sold on the 13th. Check it out for yourself:

2000 Honda Insight HYBRID 5-SPEED! SERVICED! HYBRID BATTERY REBUILT! | eBay

I'm going to take my time and if I do end up buying an Insight, maybe I can convince the seller to have the battery tested before I buy it.

[GearHead]

I test drove the car that was local to me in my state today. This wasn't the car from a dealer. Oh my goodness, it is like night and day from my Civic. The guy's condition wasn't so great and it was missing somethings. It's a cool car to drive, but I would be more comfortable if I got one that was in better shape than the one I looked at today. When I got back into my Civic, I felt like I was in a more luxurious car, haha.