The Impsight: My mischievous little devil of a car. ('00 Insight fixing and modifying)

[MetroMPG]

Did your Miata do that too (wiper slop)? Mine had a lot of bushing play when I got it.


I think one of them simply disintegrated. I "cast" a new one with epoxy.

[Stubby79]

Nope. This is my first vehicle to do it. I've had them disintegrate and stop working, but not wear a lot and still operate in a less than optimal way.

[Stubby79]

Oops, something's different!

Soooooo...I "ordered" some spare Insight parts off another forum member, and at the last moment asked if he could throw in the BCM. Wasn't thinking it would fix anything, but the FSM kept saying that if the sensors were behaving properly, replace the BCM.

D'oh!

Best $20 I ever spent? (Wasn't about to throw gawd knows how much on one from anywhere else just to test it)

So, of course, I had to go take it for a drive to let the battery meter fill up, so the IMA would start assisting, and see what it was like. Night and day! Always a gear higher than I would have been before, takes off real quick, and never struggles...

The 70mpg is pretty sad. Terrible conditions...sooo many stops, sooo much traffic compared to my usual commute time (same drive...went and gassed her up)...but its a good 10mpgs better than it would have been under my usual, more favorable conditions. Looking forward to seeing what she can do more long-term!

Welp...that decided what way I'm going forward with this. Time to ponder the newly opened up options ahead, and get used to how she drives now! (it's a lot different, believe me!)

[MetroMPG]

Nice!! It's night and day, for sure.


From driving my modded Firefly, I was used to the too-tall gearing and lack of assist, so I didn't really miss it in the Insight. I rarely enabled assist, but often used regen.

[Ecky]

Congrats! It's great you got it fixed, and that it turned out to be so cheap and simple.

[Natalya]

If you get a chance down the road, can you post the part number on the back of the BCM? There are different versions so it may be curious to see which one you've got now versus the one that was giving you trouble.

[Stubby79]

Don't have them handy...my original one had "Updated" some month "''01" written on it. I assume it was the original, or one from the same age. The one I put in was from a CVT version, so that would make it at least '03 IIRC.

If I can see the P/N without pulling it out, I'll snap a photo of it next time I'm in there.

[Stubby79]

Interesting development...

She gets below freezing, and she loses her mind!

Three mornings in the past week, it actually got down to freezing, or a hair below. CEL came on on the drive home that morning. Was notably rougher in lean burn. Otherwise not much out of the ordinary.

Code was P1607, iirc, indicating an ECM problem. Reset it. Drove it to work the next day, 5 degrees above and no problem. Temp drops down below freezing, even colder this time, and CEL comes on on the way home again, and the engine totally bucks (misfire) whenever I let it go in to lean burn. D'oh!

Same code. Reset.

Gave it a day plus the weekend off. Weather warms up a bit, no problem for the first few days. Then it drops below freezing again, and as soon as I start it...CEL. This time I reset it before driving home. It had a couple of minutes to warm up as I scraped the ice off. Checked all the engine sensor readings before I left, nothing out of the ordinary. Drove home with no problems.

Weather has stayed above freezing. Been just fine since.

So...she doesn't like getting cold. Wonder why? Moisture gotten in to the ECM? quite possibly. ECM ground acting up under specific circumstances? Perhaps. Haven't figure out which ground belongs to it, though. Battery voltage taking a nose dive in the cold? Pretty good possibility. Voltage dip might be serious enough to annoy the ECM before the DC-DC converter kicks in. Will have to monitor battery voltage when next it's below freezing.

It's a mystery! I love chasing quirks on vehicles that have had more time spent working on them than driving them!

[Ecky]

I just gave my spare ECU to an acquaintance, for development of a microcontroller to control the gauge cluster. If you feel it might be helpful to try swapping, I can reach out to him and see if he can pass it along when he's done?

[Stubby79]

If it’s from a 5-speed or similar year, that would be great! (Might solve the fair stutter while in lean burn, if I’m lucky)