Got a new UFO*: 2000 Honda Insight 5-speed (ailing IMA hybrid battery pack)
 

I only stopped in to ask about the tires (I'm actually still looking for used for RE92's for the Suzukiclone fleet) ... but ended up taking the whole car:

http://ecomodder.com/imgs/insight-front-3-4-500px.jpg

• 2000
• 5-speed
• 269k km / 167k miles
• ailing hybrid battery pack (the reason the previous, original owner sold the car)

Cosmetically it's good. Recent paint job, after the owner scraped the side last year. CORRECTION: not because of a scrape, but because their temporary winter car tent/garage fell on top of it in a windstorm.

Mechanically, I'm not sure. I haven't really had a close look at it yet aside from making sure the front end was tight before bringing it home. It has had full dealer service since new though, and I have its history.

I need another car like I need another hole in my head, but the price was right, and I happen to have the room to store it. (Frank Lee's prophecy has come to pass: the amount of junk one collects will expand to fill the available space.)

Also, these cars are exceedingly rare in Canada, and that factored into my decision to snap it up. Honda sold a paltry 155 Insights here in its first year. And that represented the best year of Insight sales over the 7-year model run (2000 - 2006). (Source: Jim Kenzie, Wheels Oct. 28, 2006 Honda puts clean pioneer out to pasture | Wheels.ca )

Total Canadian sales of gen. 1 Insights were just 396 cars. (Source: Bill Vance, September 26, 2008 Motoring Memories: Honda Insight, 1999-2006 - Autos.ca )

http://ecomodder.com/imgs/gas+elect=hybrid.jpg

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* "UFO": Un-Finished Object. Too many projects!

Nice! Given the chance I'd have jumped all over that as well.

Cool beans!

Bob Wilson

Before I got into Metroids, I knew that a Civic VX would have suited my driving style & patterns best (predominanty rural cruising & highway use, where lean-burn shines). But the VX's have long been distant, rusty memories around here.

The interesting thing is if I choose to not to refurbish the Insight's pack and use it as a non-hybrid instead, it is essentially a sweet VX successor: lean-burn, 3-cylinder with tall gearing. Of course the Insight is also lighter, more aerodynamic, and has an even more efficient ICE than the original VX. (Though 2 fewer seats & less cargo room.)

(I'll likely refurb the pack though. Matt wrote up a good DIY on the subject - http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...ems-13610.html - and InsightCentral is obviously a trove of info.)

One other bonus about the car is the aluminum construction. Don't have to worry about it turning to swiss cheese beneath my feet.

You might want to contact Re-InVolt in Sanford NC. David Taylor is a dang good Prius technologist who I recommend to anyone needing a rebuilt, Prius traction battery. I have a lot of confidence in his abilities and service and you might be able to swing a sweet deal for a drop-in replacement although you might have to work any deal through a USA cousin ... if you catch my drift. <GRINS>

Better still, take a vacation to ... Cape Hateras ... <BIG GRINS> ... and stop by his shop.

FYI, there are a number of USA 'cousins' listed here:
Auto-Careers.org: Hybrid Training Resources Since 2000

The link "Hybrid Shop Finder" is Yankee for "Our USA Cousins."

Bob Wilson

I envy you! I want one, and in that color, too! That's just mean.

When is toast not toast, but just very warm bread?
 

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_nDROPb0kKG...s320/toast.jpg

Potentially good news: the hybrid battery may not be quite as toast as I originally thought.

In January, the original owner decided to ditch the car primarily because the dreaded IMA light came on and a check engine light appeared with code P1449. The dealer quoted ~$3K for a replacement pack.

• The IMA light was on & accompanied by a lack of assist, regen or charging via the ICE. However the DC/DC converter continued working (to supply power to the 12v system) and the engine continued to start from the IMA motor rather than the 12v "backup" starter.
  
  Because IMA was offline, the pack state of charge has been steadily falling since Jan. At the time the car was taken off the road, I'm told there were approx. 15/20 bars showing on the dash battery gauge. When I got the car last week, there was one bar showing. This change would be due to both self-discharge and from the IMA system starting up the ICE, I assume.

• The P1449 code relates to the IMA battery. From what I've been able to gather, it's thrown for a number of potential issues:
  
  - cell over 80°C for at least 2 seconds
  - pack out of balance (weak cell/s)
  - shorted cell

Clearing the code via the ScanGauge & resetting the CEL didn't help. Immediately after starting the engine, the charging display would briefly (for ~1 second) show up to 4 bars of charging. Then the CEL & IMA lights would come back on and charging would cease. Back to square one!

Resetting the entire system, however, seems to have temporarily solved the problem. I read that disconnecting the 12v battery could help in a P1449 situation, so I gave it a try this evening.

And it worked!

Upon restarting the ICE, the dash showed 4 bars of charging while idling, and the battery gauge started adding bars. After idling & driving the car for ~15 minutes, the pack was up to ~15 bars.

Driving gently, I saw & felt both assist and regen working. After 20 km the CEL or IMA lights have yet to come on again. The pack got as high as 19 bars, and as low as 17 during the drive.

So! While I may not have a completely toasted pack on my plate, obviously there is still some very warm bread. At a minimum, this reset "trick" may allow me to get the car through safety inspection with all green lights on the dashboard (so to speak), and then I can worry about the pack later.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_nQHC3tTf9D...e_of_bread.jpg

Congrats ! The coolest colour for a 1st gen Insight.

Right on! Quanto?

Way to go on your purchase and temp battery pack fix!.

Love the gecko paint job!

Yeah, I'm digging the colour too.

Quanto... well, I don't want to say in case I decide to sell it at some point, and advertise it on EM :). A reasonable price. Maybe not quite the deal War Wagon got on his Insight!

Congrats!

Green with eco-envy.

What a lucky man :thumbup:

I'm so jealous :o No insight1 has been sold in France, so I'm looking at Germany to try to find some but the only couple I found was sold at 25k€ (35k$US), ie the price of a new PriusIII with solar panel roof option...

Have fun,

Denis.

Wow, Denis. That's crazy.

I'd be sorely tempted to look for a VW 3L or Audi A2 instead - I assume those are more available in France.

Someone on insightcentral gave me a link to a German site where I found 10k€ insight 1. Too much for me and at that price I would prefer a Prius 2 as the local dealers have experience with it.

About the 1.2TDI by VW & Audi, I searched them during a couple months but it seams they are rare in France. I'm talking about CO2 a lot, but more and more I want a really clean car about NOx and particles, which any diesel isn't able to reach, even the 50k€ "clean" diesel sold by Audi, as it's only ULEV while Insight and Prius have always been SULEV.

Anyway, I'm really interested into what you'll achieve with your Insight, by hypermiling it and ecomodding it.

It would be interesting to see what an Insight 1 without batteries can achieve ;)

Have fun,

Denis.

Please consider a HV grid charger before putting anymore miles on it. Contact Ron @ Hybrid battery repair Hybrid-Battery-Repair.
Your not doing you battery any favors, it is unbalanced. A drop in rebuilt is ~$1,200.

This, probably :

Mobile.de Insight I

Still, the price is excessive for an almost 11 years old car.


Good find, Darin !
Maybe Jim can make a few copies of his boattail ;)
You know you want one :D

That's a sweet color. Nice find.

That's not the behavior of a healthy pack.

An unmodified car only monitors SoC when the key is in the On position. It will start showing a few bars of background charging once you get to three bars SoC, so the only way for an unmodded Insight to reach zero or one bars is with a "negative recalibration", i.e. when your pack voltage was found to be below a certain threshold (either under load or at rest) and the BCM decided it was time for you to stop drawing power from it.

You can keep resetting the code until the pack is blackened toast, but you're not going to get good performance out of the pack until you refurb it. The sooner you do so, the easier it will go in terms of how easy the refurb will be and how many cells will be scrap.

And similar to what Bob Wilson said, if you want to bring the Insight over to my (heated) garage for a battery swap or MIMA install day, I'm game.

Oh, I definitely understand this. I've got my fair share of experience with unbalanced battery packs and the implications thereof - viz. ForkenSwift. :)

The main benefit to making the CEL and IMA lights go away is getting it through inspection with a minimum of raised eyebrows, as mentioned.

Following that, the pack will be shut off (if I'm even still using the car) and I'll see about refurb'ing it. I'm looking forward to tackling that job myself.

I definitely prefer my toast lightly browned, not blackened. (And, lately, buttered with home-made maple syrup on top. Mmmm...)

fresh cream butter with maple or cane sugar sprinkled. Dark toast, just before burnt, but slowly toasted so the middle isn't soft.

The P1449 (and some other IMA codes) can't be effectively cleared by the ScanGauge. (They'll clear, but pop right back up in a second or two.) What you need to do is to pull fuse #18 from the fuse box by the driver's left leg, wait 10 seconds, and put it back in. The code should be cleared. It's same as disconnecting the 12-volt battery, but doesn't seem to reset the CD clock or (most of the time) ScanGauge settings.

It's quite possible that the code was set by an intermittent problem, like for instance flooring it and trying for full assist when the pack's at low charge, or (if it's weak) going below a certain charge level and getting a recal. In that case you should be able to keep on driving (more gently :-)) for quite some time, until you can rebalance the pack.

This is in fact pretty much what happened to mine a couple of years ago. Would have to pull the fuse every week or two (even epoxied a bit of cord onto it to make it easy to find in the dark), eventually rebalanced the pack and it worked fine, though I'm thinking I may have to do another rebalance soon.

So thanks to owner/dealer ignorance, you may have scored a real bargain!

PS: Re safety/smog inspection, the record of the code will stay in the OBDI system for a while - not sure just how long - so depending on local requirements you may need to drive for a while. I _think_ it takes a certain number of engine warming from cold to operating temp to clear permanently, but I never did find a definitive answer.

Thanks for that info - equating fuse #18 with the 12v reset. I wasn't 100% sure they were equivalent for what I was trying to do.

Anyway, I wish I could report that my "fix" was as long-lasting as yours, but it wasn't. The car popped the P1449 & IMA lights again after a few more drives (during an automatic battery recalibration, in fact).

That means I'll reset it once more, for the mechanical inspection. Once it passes, I'll be switching the pack off until I have a chance to refurbish it.

In Ontario, the only inspection needed for hybrid vehicles is mechanical (they're exempt from "Drive Clean" emissions testing). So the mechanic won't be probing the computer for past codes.

Very jealous, wish I had one. I can't wait to see what sort of numbers you pull with that!

Darn! But even without assist, it's pretty driveable, as long as the DC/DC keeps charging. You can monitor this by looking at voltage with the ScanGauge - it should run about 13.5V, if the DC/DC quits it'll drop to 12V or less.

Also the pack rebalancing isn't too difficult, though time-consuming. And worst case, you can find salvage packs for under $500.

Picked up the extra keys from the previous owner today.

Found out the real reason the car was repainted (not from a scrape on the side I thought I saw - must have been a different car).

They had bought one of those winter garage/tent things to protect the car...

http://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:A...u74BKhPA2SnQQ4

... and got hit by a big wind storm. It collapsed on top of the car and beat the crap out of it. Definition of irony.

The bill for body & paint work was $7k. :-O Most, but not all, was picked up by insurance.

They also said they had $1500 worth of transmission work done at the Honda dealer a couple of years ago, but didn't recall the specifics. 2nd gear synchro repair? They said they'd look for receipts for maintenance/repairs to give me.

Agreed - I've confirmed that the DC-DC is still working with the P1449/IMA warning lights on, and also when the pack's shut off via the big switch.

Without assist, it actually feels a lot like the Blackfly, with its "too-tall" gearing.

The Insight's engine sometimes has a wicked jerky stutter/judder under some driving conditions, and it's more evident without IMA to smooth things over. I understand it's potentially from blocked EGR, and have located the DIY EGR cleaning thread on InsightCentral.

Would the dealer be able to look up the maintenance history of the vehicle?

Toyota has a database that owners can check for all service calls.

Bob Wilson

Hopefully, it was an input shaft bearing replacement or synchros. That way you don't have to worry about those often-abused Insight parts.

Let us know how dirty your EGR manifold was. Mine was cruddy, but not blocked.

Yes. That's one thing about driving. You can quite easily cruise highway speeds in 3rd, and not notice. If you want to pass or accelerate, master the 5th-3rd shift.

The gearing also produces another oddity: you can sometimes get better highway mpg by going faster. If for instance you're climbing a not-to-steep hill, going faster in 5th to keep revs up (but below the 3K rpm VTEC shift point) is better than downshifting and sending revs over 3K.

Congrats on your new ride! Toast or not, I'm jelly. I'm working on selling my lady on the idea of an Insight for carpooling...

Thanks, dennyt.

Bob: I was able to get the a print out of the car's service history back to 2003 from the Honda shop, but the entries aren't detailed - just a few words. Some are obvious, eg. "oil & filter", but others are less so, eg. "engine mechanical".

Mr Smalls: will definitely report back on EGR condition when I get to that task.

I had one misgiving about the Prius EGR and that was and remains the EGR cooler. In the 1970s we had a Plymouth Fury, 400 ci, station wagon and it had a "heat riser" tube that I had a chance to examine. With over 100,000 miles, it was totally blocked by carbon. This remains a real fear I have with our 2010 Prius because the exhaust tap is before the catalytic converter.

My wife's 2010 Prius is at 18,250 miles and I'm planning another transaxle oil change and test. But around 50,000 miles, I plan to disassemble the EGR cooler and measure the carbon deposits on every pipe. I do not want to learn the ERG is blocked ... after the fact.

Bob Wilson

What little driving I have done in the car has mostly been with the hybrid bits disabled - meaning max power of 67 hp from the 995cc 3-cyl (when it was new :D), in a slightly (~50 lbs) heavier car than my 3-cyl Firefly.

Given the modest oomph available, I've been pleasantly surprised at how tall the Insight's gearing is!

I'm already used to taller than normal gearing, having swapped the original final drive (4.39) in the 993cc Firefly for the tallest one available from the 4-cylinder 1.3L Suzuki Swift version of the car. (see Project 'nerd gear': taller tranny transplant nets +5.2% MPG - MetroMPG.com )

Compare the Swift/Firefly transmission ...

3.523 (f.d.) & 0.757 (5th)

... to the Insight transmission ...

3.208 (f.d.) & 0.710 (5th)

So both the final and top gears are taller in the Insight than the Firefly. And it's entirely manageable. It's made me wish for even taller gearing in the Flea!

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Other than picking up a set of gently used Nokian Hakkapeliitta winter tires that will fit the Honda (165/70 14's), no other news to report. Next week I may get around to scheduling an inspection.

related by efficiency
 

Found the NRCAN (natural resources Canada) official fuel economy figures for the 2000 Insight.

Interesting: both the Chev Metro / Pontiac Firefly and the Insight were on the list of "most efficient cars for 2000" by NRCAN. 2000 was the first model year for the Honda, and the last model year for the Metro/Firefly:

http://ecomodder.com/forum/attachmen...1&d=1304948766

NRCAN Honda Insight ratings (5-speed manual):

- City: 3.9 L/100 km (60 mpg US / 72 mpg Imperial )
- Highway: 3.2 L/100 km (73 mpg US / 88 mpg Imperial )

Compare to US figures...

EPA (old) ratings (5-speed manual):

- City: 3.9 L/100 km (61 mpg US / 73 mpg Imperial )
- Highway: 3.4 L/100 km (70 mpg US / 84 mpg Imperial )
- Combined: 3.6 L/100 km (65 mpg US / 78 mpg Imperial )

EPA (new) ratings (5-speed manual):

- City: 4.8 L/100 km (49 mpg US / 59 mpg Imperial )
- Highway: 3.9 L/100 km (61 mpg US / 73 mpg Imperial )
- Combined: 4.4 L/100 km (53 mpg US / 64 mpg Imperial )

I'm curious to know the difference in fe performance with manual/automatic in the first generation insight.

Even on the EPA's website Fuel Economy of the 2000 Honda Insight, it doesn't mention an automatic transmission.

It does mention a 2006 automatic here: Gas Mileage of 2006 Vehicles by Honda.

Of course, the epa's numbers are always undershot. I'd be curious to know what a conservative driver could get out of an automatic 1st gen insight.

p.s. booo to you and your monopolization of fuel efficient vehicles!

The CVT wasn't introduced in America until MY2001. Also, they didn't give it lean burn, so the performance is not that exciting (assuming 60mpg on a good day doesn't excite you).

no CVT in Canada
 

Interesting - dieselbeetle, you prompted me to check, and apparently the Insight with CVT was never offered in the Canadian market.

That's according to gov't fuel economy ratings, and this article: Honda puts clean pioneer out to pasture | Wheels.ca

Sorry for monopolizing! (Hey, your car was in the best fuel economy list too.)

I don't think my Canadian cousins are missing much. My studies of the Honda CVT approach didn't not excite me as I keep seeing too many friction losses and moving parts. I really think good 4+ speed, manual or semi-automatic, 4+ speed gear box is much more efficient than the Honda sliding-cone, CVT. I don't have any direct, hands-on experience with the Honda CVTs but just from my looking at the approach.

Bob Wilson