Dreaming...lean burn manual taller transmission Civic sedan...or get an Insight

[Ecky]

Originally Posted by mpg_numbers_guy

1. When buying an Insight, what are all the things I should be looking out for when inspecting the car?

2. On his thread, and others, there seemed to be A LOT of maintenance required for the Insight. Compared to how worry free my Civic has been, this is slightly worrisome. Is this typical for Gen 1 Insights, or are y'all just buying beaters and restoring them?

Something to be aware of is that if there's even something tiny wrong with my car, I tear it apart and make it "right". That said, these are some common things to look out for:

-Commonly these cars have a minor water leak above the passenger seatbelt. This can result in a musty smell in the car, and/or the rear latch electrical button not functioning (there's a connector running to it that's near the passenger seatbelt which gets wet). There's a "proper" fix, but I chose to run a bead of caulk along the seam on the roof there, figuring it might very minorly improve aerodynamics too. That fixed my leak. Or you could just ignore it and open the hatch with your key instead.

-Eventually many of the rear hatch motors strip their gear. IC has a 3d-printed replacement for ~$5 which won't strip again. You could also just ignore it and use your key.

-The buttons on the cluster for resetting trip distance eventually wear out and get very hard to push - you have to mash them. A guy on IC sells a replacement for all of them for ~$15 I think, but you have to take your cluster out to get to them. Or, you can ignore it and just mash the buttons.

-The driver side window switch in most cars fails eventually. IC sells a 3d printed replacement for ~$5. I consider this a pretty important fix - being able to open your window . Having taken it apart, it looks to me like Honda tried to shave a sixteenth of an ounce by using less plastic, and it doesn't typically hold up for 2 decades like most Honda parts.

-My driver and passenger power locks failed. My understanding is this is not at all common, and can happen in any car. Mine is 18 years old after all, with a quarter million miles. The replacement lock actuators were less than $20 and not hard to replace.

-The EGR passages get gummed up after a while and need to be cleaned. This happens to any and all Hondas (probably all engines), but is more of a noticeable problem on the motors with lean burn since it can cause them to be a bit jerky (combustion has to be much more carefully controlled at very lean air fuel ratios). You'd likely want to clean these on a Civic hybrid or VX/HX as well. Neglecting this won't leave you on the side of the road or hurt mileage, but makes the car less pleasant to drive.

-The headlights eventually get sun-faded. This will happen to any car.

-The rear engine mount in these commonly break before 200k miles. They're complex mounts designed to absorb some of the extra vibrations the 3 cylinder motors make, and there are no 3rd party replacements. That said, on my previous Honda (90's Del Sol), all 3 of the major motor mounts eventually failed, and on my Insight, only the rear typically ever fails. You might even find your Civic's mounts have some cracks, but you wouldn't notice it as much since it has a smoother motor. This is "normal" maintenance.

-If the engine mount goes, sometimes the two ground straps on the transmission pull free and need to be replaced, because the engine can move forward and backward a little bit more in the bay. Ground straps are cheap and easy to replace.

-I recommend replacing the oil pan bolt with a Fumoto valve, because the lightweight magnesium pan is easier to strip than a steel one. Many never put these valves on and instead opt to do their own oil changes. As a rule, never take an Insight to a chain like Jiffy Lube, because they don't bother to check the oil pan torque specs and will probably ruin your pan.

-It's common for these motors at high miles to leak a very small amount of oil around the timing chain cover. It's almost always so little you won't see a change in the dipstick between oil changes, but it can leave spots on your driveway. Don't worry about this.

-The original hybrid battery is usually good for ~15 years +/- 2-3 in a cold climate, and 10 years +/- 2-3 in a very hot climate. Many southern cars had their original batteries replaced under warranty around the 10 year mark. Mine was a southern car which I moved up north, so at 18 years, the 2nd battery was still in great shape. 3rd party batteries generally don't last quite as long as the originals, but Bumblebee are regarded as the best of the alternatives. Hopefully we'll have a superior, cheaper lithium alternative before too long.

-On many manuals, 2nd gear develops a grind when downshifting from a higher gear. More rarely this can happen to 1st as well. This can be lived with, fixed for zero cost (have to get the transmission out and take it apart), or Scott Hicks (sp?) sells transmissions which have had all of their bearings and synchros replaced and modified so they never develop the grind, for $800, so they're basically zero-mile gearboxes good for half a million miles or more.


Definitely get a second opinion, but if I were buying an Insight, I would:

-Check for rust on some of the few items that can rust, because nobody bothers to undercoat an aluminum car and the few steel bits can still be eaten by salt. Look at the exhaust, the catalytic converter, and the brake & fuel lines. In a car that isn't from the salt belt they'll all probably still look brand new at this point.

-Check to see if the transmission grinds. You'll know it because it'll make a very distinct noise if you shift quickly from 3rd (or a higher gear) to 2nd. This isn't a deal breaker for me by any stretch, but it can be a point used to talk the value of the car down.

-Above all else, bully the IMA battery in a test drive. Use a lot of assist and regen and see if you can make it throw a light. A very strong battery should be able to assist lightly for 5+ minutes, and shouldn't move more than a bar or two with a brisk acceleration to highway speeds. A bad battery is an easy -$1000 or more from the car's value.

-As with any car, make sure it doesn't pulse when braking (though this is cheap to fix), check the tires to see if they have good tread or any irregular wear suggesting it would need an alignment, check to make sure it has RE92 or other good LRR tires (non LRR tires make the car a bear to drive), and check the color of the coolant and oil to make sure they aren't mixing - coolant or oil would look like chocolate milk if so.

All of the other stuff is just details.

[Ecky]

Originally Posted by mpg_numbers_guy

3. A lot of these maintenance issues seemed to come from the battery/hybrid system. Looking at it statistically, say I could manage 70 MPG without the hybrid battery, and 100 MPG with the battery. I estimate roughly 10,000 miles/yr - roughly 143 gallons without battery and 100 gallons with battery. At approximately $3/gallon that's $300/yr with battery and $429/yr without battery. A new Bumblebee battery costs $1995 (not including installation costs). Even if I could make a battery last 10 years, my savings with the battery is only $1290, compared for over $2000 for new battery + installation. In order to make having a battery actually save any money, I would need to average 116.7 MPG with the battery if the battery lasted 10 years OR drive 15,555.6 miles/yr, again if the battery lasted 10 years. And that's with me installing it myself, which I don't know how to do, and most hybrid batteries don't last 10 years unless you spend $100s in maintaining the battery, which in the long run can't really be that much more efficient.

4. Another question, how much really does the IMA battery help fuel efficiency? Am I wrong or does the battery only come into play during acceleration and hill climbing? Regen benefits are negligible by EOC. I read in Ecky's thread that without the battery shift points at 3000-4000 RPMs were necessary during acceleration as opposed to 2000 RPMs, obviously burning...4x more gas in acceleration? But other than that, how much really does the IMA battery help fuel efficiency?

5. Without the IMA, does electrical load still affect MPG signficantly compared to other cars? I.e. radio usage, headlights, etc. AC will be deleted.

3) The hybrid batteries won't save you money overall. But, they make the car a lot more fun and pleasant to drive, and to me that counts for something. It's cool as hell to have auto-stop and for it to silent start, for the car to automatically restart the engine if you stall it, to have 3x the acceleration at low speed without any extra fuel usage, to keep engine wear (and cabin noise!) down since you never need to rev it high.

That said, taking the battery out is really very easy. I'd rather do that than replace a serpentine belt on the engine, as a point of comparison.

4) You can check my thread about economy. It does help somewhat, but not at all on a flat road at steady speeds. Mostly it helps mitigate conditions that would sap mileage like stop and go traffic, idling, climbing hills and needing to pass or merge into traffic quickly.

5) I've found electrical load doesn't affect this car as much as other cars, probably because it's more far efficient than an alternator, and the car's base electrical load isn't as large as with many vehicles. It's more than a Geo Metro, but far less than virtually anything else manufactured after 2000.

Leaving the A/C compressor in the belt loop also doesn't seem to hurt mileage, and the system weighs only around 50lbs - most who have deleted it have noticed zero measurable improvement in mileage. You'll probably spend more on the replacement belt than you'll save by taking the system out. It's nice to have sometimes, to be able to defrost or defog windows, or when you have a passenger or pet who is heat sensitive. However, turning the A/C on affects acceleration (and ease of driving) a LOT more in the Insight than in any other car I've ever driven, presumably since it's not a smaller compressor than in a Civic, despite the engine being half the size. The A/C can really crank.

[mpg_numbers_guy]

Originally Posted by Ecky

One issue with NiMH batteries is that you can't measure how much energy is in them. At all. The voltage is basically the same when they're full and empty, unlike lithium or lead-acid which have voltage proportional to their charge state. In order to keep track of what's in the battery, the Insight's computer records how much you put in every time you regen, and records how much goes out every time you assist. It does this very accurately, and can sometimes keep accurate track for years without a recalibration, especially if the battery is good. But, if you charge the battery from outside, the computer won't know it. It can recalibrate once the battery hits 100% and it detects voltage rising rapidly and the cells heating up - this is, in fact, what it does after you grid charge - but it will greatly reduce the battery's lifespan if you do this every day. Most opt for 1-3x per year. It's the lesser evil than letting the cells get out of balance.

Had a few spare moments so naturally began thinking about Insights again. Revisiting a post made a while back, is it the grid charging itself that gradually kills the battery, or is it the car overcharging the battery that kills it? What if we could make a switch that "reset" the ECU's memory to full battery charge after grid charging?

Also, when a battery is dead does this mean it cannot hold a charge at all?

[Ecky]

Part of what ages a battery is using more of its charge range. I expect the Insight's cells have a lifespan of around 1000 full to empty cycles, but it's more like tens of thousands if you stay between 20% and 90%, and hundreds of thousands between 40% and 80%, which is what the computer does. And, unfortunately, there's no easy way of knowing when you're at 80%.

Overcharging also ages the cells, but relatively little if it's done very slowly and gently as a grid charger does it. There's a system called MIMA which let's you change values in the computer such as the state of charge, so the car doesn't feed 50 amps into a full battery, but you really, really don't want to frequently completely fill and empty any battery.

[Ecky]

"Dead" is usually considered to be when it holds less than 70% of its original charger, at least as is rated by the manufacturer. I don't think the Insight throws a CEL until the battery can hold less than 40% of original. Eventually it will hold so little you won't be able to even start with the hybrid battery.

[mpg_numbers_guy]

Hm, MIMA aren't MIMA units like $800-$1000 though?

I wonder if something could be programmed using an arduino.

So basically a dying IMA battery isn't losing its ability to be charged by the car, it's losing its ability to hold a charge?

There's got to be a way to wire something up to power the electric motor.

Isn't driving an Insight with the battery bypassed still faster and more fuel efficient than a Metro? 66 HP vs 50 HP and better drag coefficient, and similar weight?

Found two Insights today - a gorgeous blue one with 129K miles asking $2000 with 3 issues: 1) IMA light, 2) musty smell from mice (detailed but still present) and 3) instrument panel buttons broken. Also one for $1200 with 273K miles, haven't asked for info on it but suspect bad IMA too.

[19bonestock88]

I’d go with the $2k one...

[Ecky]

Originally Posted by mpg_numbers_guy

Hm, MIMA aren't MIMA units like $800-$1000 though?

Something like that, yeah. I recently saw a used one sold for $2-300 or so. It's mostly beside the point though, because you don't want to be grid charging the NiMH battery every night anyway, since you can't tell the state of charge on it and it will very rapidly use up its remaining life.

Originally Posted by mpg_numbers_guy

I wonder if something could be programmed using an arduino.

I thought the same thing... and I bet it could. My arduino which keeps the CEL off does so by feeding a dummy battery SOC.

Originally Posted by mpg_numbers_guy

So basically a dying IMA battery isn't losing its ability to be charged by the car, it's losing its ability to hold a charge?

That's right. The battery itself is toast. It's pretty remarkable to me the batteries can last nearly two decades if taken care of, considering most batteries on consumer devices last 3-5 years tops before they don't hold a charge well.

Originally Posted by mpg_numbers_guy

There's got to be a way to wire something up to power the electric motor.

You can 100% do this! The motor is pretty simple, just 3 phase wires and a hall sensor. You could probably run it with a $20 ebike controller, albeit with a fraction of the motor's capacity, with whatever battery you want. How about a Nissan Leaf battery, which would run the car on electricity alone for 100+ miles? Only problem is that you have to design this system from scratch.

I've suggested this very thing over on IC, but most want to keep the stock electronics in the car because an aftermarket EV controller and battery system would 1) have poor (or zero) integration with the Insight's ECU and 2) be relatively expensive. However, you would have the advantage of being able to do anything you want with it.

Insight owners are notoriously cheap, and the idea of having to spend more than a few hundred dollars in maintenance (ever!) on the car is unacceptable. Nevermind that there are tons of german cars on the road where it's normal to spend $XXXX per year on "regular maintenance".

Originally Posted by mpg_numbers_guy

Isn't driving an Insight with the battery bypassed still faster and more fuel efficient than a Metro? 66 HP vs 50 HP and better drag coefficient, and similar weight?

Yes, 100%. It's a lighter (with batteries removed), more aerodynamic, more efficient car. The engine is more efficient, more powerful, and typically lasts 2x longer (or more) than a Geo engine. Insight owners are just spoiled by the awesome IMA system.

Originally Posted by mpg_numbers_guy

Found two Insights today - a gorgeous blue one with 129K miles asking $2000 with 3 issues: 1) IMA light, 2) musty smell from mice (detailed but still present) and 3) instrument panel buttons broken. Also one for $1200 with 273K miles, haven't asked for info on it but suspect bad IMA too.

The 129k Insight sounds great.

[teoman]

Wish we had insights over here.

[mpg_numbers_guy]

Originally Posted by 19bonestock88

I’d go with the $2k one...

Originally Posted by Ecky

The 129k Insight sounds great.

I would totally look into it if I were back home from college and had my current car de-ecomodded and sold.

It really looks promising if I could go for it. The blue color is gorgeous, the IMA light just came on so grid charging for a while is still a possibility, and the instrument panel buttons can be replaced with 3d printed ones from IC, right? Only issue really would be the musty smell that even a professional detailer couldn't remove. And of course the checklist.

EDIT: Per the seller's listing, he/she seems acquainted with Insight Central, and has had a lifetime fuel economy of 59.9 MPG.

Originally Posted by Ecky

Something like that, yeah. I recently saw a used one sold for $2-300 or so. It's mostly beside the point though, because you don't want to be grid charging the NiMH battery every night anyway, since you can't tell the state of charge on it and it will very rapidly use up its remaining life.

What if I only had it grid charge to 80% or 90% capacity and set the ECU accordingly? Rather than overcharging and damaging it - would 80% or 90% still damage the battery?

Originally Posted by Ecky

I thought the same thing... and I bet it could. My arduino which keeps the CEL off does so by feeding a dummy battery SOC.

Is the CEL due to your IMA bypass?

Originally Posted by Ecky

You can 100% do this! The motor is pretty simple, just 3 phase wires and a hall sensor. You could probably run it with a $20 ebike controller, albeit with a fraction of the motor's capacity, with whatever battery you want. How about a Nissan Leaf battery, which would run the car on electricity alone for 100+ miles? Only problem is that you have to design this system from scratch.

I've suggested this very thing over on IC, but most want to keep the stock electronics in the car because an aftermarket EV controller and battery system would 1) have poor (or zero) integration with the Insight's ECU and 2) be relatively expensive. However, you would have the advantage of being able to do anything you want with it.

Insight owners are notoriously cheap, and the idea of having to spend more than a few hundred dollars in maintenance (ever!) on the car is unacceptable. Nevermind that there are tons of german cars on the road where it's normal to spend $XXXX per year on "regular maintenance".

Naturally with such a set up regen and assist wouldn't work (right?) but even with a different battery setup couldn't I still maintain Auto Stop? Or would this be more complex than just wiring up a regular kill switch (again I'm leaning toward a hybrid-disabled Insight setup).

A Nissan Leaf battery is like $5500...

There HAS to be a way to maintain at least SOME of the hybrid capability for an indefinite period of time apart from buying new batteries. Even grid charging like y'all do doesn't last forever. And, of course, without spending $$$$.

Originally Posted by Ecky

Yes, 100%. It's a lighter (with batteries removed), more aerodynamic, more efficient car. The engine is more efficient, more powerful, and typically lasts 2x longer (or more) than a Geo engine. Insight owners are just spoiled by the awesome IMA system.

Alright, that's comforting confirmation. So if ecomodded Metros can get 60-70 MPG than an IMA-bypassed Insight should be good for 80 MPG...maybe?