Gen 1 insight questions
 

I have gathered some info about the g1 from a few active members on here and it seems like the perfect mix of electric and gas and you all have posted some amazing results


There is a silver g1 insight on a used car lot that has been sitting for at least 8 months now. It has a flat drivers front tire but I haven't had time to visually inspect the car other than passing by it and seeing no visible body damage.

Obviously the car has some issue related to the hybrid system preventing it from being sold, I understand electrics and grid charging but this car has been siting for atleast 6 months.

I want to come in low and make the lot owner an offer, would $600 be a low ball offer for a car this small lot obviously knows nothing about?

Just FYI, my car sat for a year and my battery still works decently.

There are a lot of other variables to this equation, though. Are you buying it to drive, or part out?

Whatever you offer, they will try to run you up. You should assume that the batteries are dead. The best deal you will get is as it sits now; probably not running. Leave it that way till you get it paid for and off the lot. Offer them $500 as/is and let them run you to $600. Play hardball. All it may be is a used parts source. Don't worry about insulting car dealers; I don't believe it is possible.

Agreed with above. NEVER assume the high volt pack is any good, unless the owner has PROOF of recent installation. I just bought a CVT for 1200 that sat for 2 years and I slapped a 12v battery in it and it fired right up. I had to hold the engine at 3k to bring the hv pack in the back up to enough voltage to kick on the DC-DC converter, but other than that, it ran great. I put 2k miles on the car and I think it was an excellent buy. For 600 you can sell the headlights and skirts and make more than 3/4 of your money back. If it has a running engine, that's worth 600, trans is worth 2-300, DC-DC Converter is 200$. Etc etc. If you can get for 600, go for it. Just make sure it moves under its own power before you take it.

[Edit]: If you fire the car up (be it from a jump or other source of power) and the battery and brake light stay on, Rev the car to 3,000-3,200RPM. You will notice a few bars of regen, and after 30 seconds to a minute, the battery light + brake light should turn off. If they don't after a minute, turn the car off and try again.

If you get that car for 600 bucks and it runs at all, that's a steal!

You could part it out for five times that if you aren't looking for a DD. Even if the IMA isn't functioning, as long as it's still able to charge the 12V you'll probably never want to drive your other cars again, lol.

Black Widow was a blast, but it was dead to me when I bought Turtle!

One of the major concerns of hybrid battery sitting for any period longer than let's say two weeks, is the possibility of individual sticks getting out of balance due to self discharge.

Now the owner of the vehicle, typically has no way of measuring this, unless they tap into the 10 pack monitor wires from the Insight battery pack.

Because of the possible stick mismatch, and self discharge, if a pack was low enough in voltage when the owner used the IMA to start the car, at least one if not more of the cells in the various sticks could easily forced into reverse voltage from the stronger cells, which would permanently damage the weaker ones. This is because the IMA draws 100 amps momentarily to start the ICE.

The best option therefore is to trickle charge the pack before starting the ICE, after it has sat for a long period of time.

I should mention that did just that, i.e. trickle charge the pack after working on the Insight Tail for four months several years back, before attempting to start the ICE using the IMA.

Jim.

If you can get that car for $600 then I salute you. Any dealer will air up the tires and run it through the dealer auction and get at LEAST double that.

I just looked at Manheim's recent sales for the last 2 months.

Keep in mind the insight will run without the battery pack. There is a hack you can read about on honda insight to remove the connection from the battery pack and still drive the insight.