Bought a 2000 Honda Insight ! ! !

[MetroMPG]

FCD button? Oh! I'd be misreading it as "OCD" all this time.

All that other talk... something about airplanes I think!

[payne171]

I bought an Insight just like yours last fall, minus 109,000 miles plus $5,000, but I had to fly to Philly and drive it back to Columbus, Ohio to do it. In pretty good shape though. I had EGR issues when I bought it too, but my driving style cleaned it out I guess, because it fixed itself after a couple of months. I have found that it is an awesome car to drive once you learn to drive it, but it is miserable when you have emptied the battery and background charge becomes four green bars at cruise. If you are having trouble keeping it charged up on a certain trip, leave the headlights on. It causes background charge to stay on, but not so much that it kills your ability to maintain speed (well, 55 is tough without a tail wind). And on a nice warm day, with 50 psi in the tires and some practice driving it, you will be pulling high 60s mpg without any mods. I have a couple of full 5 gallon gas cans at home and filled the tank on March 27, and I hope to skip buying gas in April.

[Tango Charlie]

"OCD button", Ha ha! I had the same thought when I first laid eyes on it.

Sounds like a nice ride, payne. Pretty low miles, what year is it? I'd encourage you to enter it into the garage (link above, in the header) to help track your tanks. I'm looking forward to higher results, too. That first tank was with no driving techniques. It was all the car doing it's thing.

I just received a confirmation email that my EGR gaskets/bolts/nuts are on their way from Hondapartsnow.com; finally! I know what I'll be doing this weekend.

Here's the pictures of my headlight cleaning. This one is the "before" shot;


And this is after the avacado;


And this is what I wound up with after the Turtle Wax kit;


I'm pretty happy with it. They're much brighter now.

[MetroMPG]

Originally Posted by payne171

it is miserable when you have emptied the battery and background charge becomes four green bars at cruise.

An IMA disable switch would be useful. I'm not 100% certain it would override this state, but if not, you could always switch off the main IMA breaker if you were willing to grid charge later.

If you are having trouble keeping it charged up on a certain trip, leave the headlights on. It causes background charge to stay on,

Seriously? That one is new to me. It's fun to learn this car's tricks, but I am getting the impression there are an awful lot of tricks!

[MetroMPG]

Terry - lights look great. I polished mine with standard turtle wax polishing compound and they turned out OK - not as nice as yours though.

Now if only there were an easy way to polish my windshield... it's pretty sandblasted from a decade of commuting by the previous owner on secondary roads. At night there's a lot of glare/scatter in it when facing oncoming lights.

EDIT: looks like there's polishing compound for windshields too. Yay, Google - ask and ye shall receive.

[silverinsight2]

Originally Posted by silverinsight2

Try these links
Long writeup of trip button repair - Insight Central: Honda Insight Forum
Trip button doesn't work - Insight Central: Honda Insight Forum

Highwater is fixing these for free, but I can't find a link.

This is the link you need.

Dash reset button upgrade Gen1 - Insight Central: Honda Insight Forum

[Tango Charlie]

Thanks again, si2. That's too good of a deal to pass up.
I took apart the dash and replaced the window switch. But, alas, it still doesn't work. While I had it apart, I was able to wiggle the trip buttons a bit more. They work marginally better now. At least now I know how to disassemble the dash!

Thanks, Metro. I was happy with the way the headlights turned out, too. I have plenty of experience polishing aircraft windows (they're plastic), and this was a very similar procedure. I didn't know they had anything for glass windshields. Let us know how that turns out.

payne171, your "banking" gas makes me wonder if I could store up enough summer gas to make it through next winter.

[ecomodded]

Sweet find, Great choice, excellent price.
Nice gains !!
Congratulations and nice seeing you up at the top of the pack !

[Tango Charlie]

I cleaned out the EGR channels a couple weekends ago, but I was having some home computer problems, so I'm finally getting around to posting the pictures.
Before;


and after;


I also drilled a hole in the top of the EGR valve and sprayed some Radio Shack contact cleaner in there like I read on InsightCentral.
It runs noticeably better now, no more stumbling or herky-jerky. I can now cruise along through the timed lights in town at 35 mph in fourth gear, instead of third.

The inoperative driver's side window is really getting annoying. If it ever stops raining and warms up a bit around here, I might get a chance to fix it. I really don't want to spend $100+ on a regulator, but it may come to that. I've already pulled the electric motor out of the regulator and cleaned up the commutator with some crocus cloth, but it didn't fix it. The regulator itself must be bound.

[Tango Charlie]

Third fill-up calculated to be 60.8 mpg. Trip meter indicated 61.5, so it's a tad optimistic, but not too bad.