2000 Insight 5 speed repair & build thread

[cowmeat]

Color me impressed yet again with this car.

Dang, you're (almost) making me miss my Insight!

[Daox]

The Insight is dead!

I was going out last night to one of those escape room things (very fun btw), and my Insight died as I got to the end of my driveway. The engine died and the gauge cluster went black and I coasted out onto the street. It was very similar to what happened when I first started driving the car. That time, I was able to restart the car a few minutes later. That first time I believed it was due to a low 12V battery. This time it is something else. This morning I got my wife to help me, and we pushed it back up my ~600ft long driveway in 7F weather, yay. This time I know its not the battery. It has a new 12V battery in it and the voltage is good on it. I have just cleaned the grounds on it. Also, the radio, hvac fan, and headlights power up and work just fine. I hear relay clicks from the IMA pack, and the fan for the pack turn on as well. But, I get no gauge cluster, and it will not start up at all. So far, I have checked a bunch of fuses and they all look good. My hands were freezing, so I'm inside now typing this post. I'm hoping for some hints! Thanks guys.

[rmay635703]

Wild guess, There are relays in the dash and if memory serves the ecu can blank the cluster.

Was there any damage inside the LH fender well?

Also my insight has problems off the positive terminals, including the battery, check to make sure the positive cables are solid and in good condition.

[MetroMPG]

BUMMER!

This happened a couple of times with the Limo. This type of thing is inherently scarier when it happens with a hybrid (spectre of replacing expensive electronic components).

Sorry, no advice to offer. My problems were 12v battery related.

Originally Posted by Daox

I got my wife to help me, and we pushed it back up my ~600ft long driveway in 7F weather, yay.

That's what a Prius in EV mode with a tow strap is meant for.

[Natalya]

The IMA is bad right? Try turning off the big IMA switch in the trunk. (The one under the metal plate with two bolts.) Then check 12v voltage again.

[Daox]

As far as I know, the IMA is fine. Sure, the battery isn't at full capacity, but I haven't had issues with it in my daily driving. It gets used a fair amount on my way home too which is mostly uphill. I'll give it a shot though.

I haven't had a chance to look at it again yet. The weather has been pretty bad here, either close to zero degrees, or yesterday it was 37F and 30 mph wind and rain.

[ThermionicScott]

At least it happened so close to home! Hope you're able to find the gremlin soon.

[Daox]

I just found out something very cool about the Insight, it has an OEM coolant to oil heater. Apparently, Honda has done this on all their high mileage cars (almost, can't find any use on a Civic HX) like the CRX HF, Civic VX, and yeah the Insight (at least the first few years, sounds like they removed it in 2004). There is a picture I took this morning below. The oil filter screws to the heater, and coolant also flows through the heater. So, as the fluids both flow through hit, they warm/cool each other.

There is more information about these heaters and their importance in a thread Oil Pan started here:
http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...ger-34731.html





Here is a better picture from a different engine:

[Daox]

The Insight lives!

It turns out that it was a loose connection on the fuse panel. I crimped the connectors to pinch the pin better and it worked great. Here are some images.

Here is the fuse panel. The brown connector was the troublesome one. If I lifted up on it, the instrument cluster would come to life.




So, I pulled the connector and found it was simply a blade style connector. I took a small screw driver and bent the connections a bit tighter and reinstalled it. That seemed to do the trick. I wiggled it around and it stayed on.

[Daox]

Its sooo nice to be back in the Insight! The car just warms up so much faster than the Prius. No wonder the 3rd gen Prius' went to a coolant heat exchanger vs the coolant thermos. This morning we had freezing rain. It would hit your windshield and freeze. I didn't preheat the cabin, I just scraped and went on my way. But, as the car was warming up, the ice was building up on my windshield. If I had been driving the Prius, I would have had to stop and scrape. With the Insight, I had enough heat quickly enough (under 1 mile) to put the defrost fan on low and keep driving using my wipers to start wiping away the ice building up.

So, once again... I love this car. I can't wait until its really running good and I can really start modding it.