The Civic VX is an excellent car. I'm sorry about your paint woes, but for hypermiling they are still incredible. And they have more utility than an Insight. If I didn't have an Insight I'd probably get a VX.
When I got my Insight it needed a LOT of work, and it was only at 130k miles.
- Re-welded upper cat
- New lower cat
- New brake lines
- New clutch master cylinder
- New spark plugs
- New tires (finally ordered)
- New IMA battery (got a good condition used one)
- New instrument cluster (only 2001s have a problem with this)
- New ground straps
- New rear spoiler (from a junkyard Insight)
- Still trying to fix A/C
- New carpet
- New underbody panels (some custom, some replace missing OEM ones)
- Built my own grid charger
- Lots of ecomods
By "New" I don't necessarily mean OEM depending on the item. Also, the batteries on our cars are really a problem, it's doubtful you'll end up with a good one when you buy the car. I guess have a look at the one you found and tell us what's wrong with it. But yeah, lots of work either way. It sounds like you already did a lot of work on the VX.
I will say though, with lots of the wrong equipment (wrong tires, bad spark plugs, wrong wheels, no hybrid battery functionality) and driving at like 80mph on the highway my WORST tank (since I started keeping a log) came out to 49 mpg.
http://ecomodder.com/forum/em-fuel-l...vehicleid=9582
But there's absolutely stuff you can do to a VX to push it up into the 70's and 80's.