Trading/Selling my Civic VX for a Insight? Thoughts?

[GearHead]

Hey all,

I'm looking for your opinions on what is going on with my car currently.

I have a 1995 Honda Civic VX V-TEC E Hatchback. I love the car very much, but it's been a huge project since the day I bought it. I bought it about a year ago.

Currently, the majority of the interior has been replaced/refreshed, as well as most of the windows have been replaced on the vehicle. The majority of things under the hood has also been replaced with OE parts. Basically, I replaced most things on the car to extend its lifespan.

I'm almost done putting this vehicle back together. I just noticed that my rear quarter panel is now bubbling after I just had a complete paint job done not even 8 months ago. This is the 2nd repaint I have done from this body shop. They have been horrible with me and actually they are no longer in business now. I'm getting to the point where I want to say I'm going to cut my losses and sell the vehicle now and buy a 1st Gen. Honda Insight.

My question to all of you guys is, am I crazy for considering this? I would expect I could get $3,000 for my car because it really is clean and has no problems.

Is a 1st Gen. Insight something to look into? I read amazing reviews on them and I found one for 3,900 (119K miles) locally that's at a dealer, but they offer no warranty on it. I'm not really familiar with hybrids.

Realistically, I'm just looking for a reliable car that gets excellent MPG like my VX. I currently get 40 MPG basically all the time.


Thanks in advance for your opinions!

[Daox]

The Insight is nice, but you'll have a lot less room. Also, the Insight will need work as well. So, neither car will be jump in and go without any issues. Personally, I'd drive yours for a while whilst looking for a killer deal on an Insight. Enjoy your work before you ditch the car!

[GearHead]

Originally Posted by Daox

The Insight is nice, but you'll have a lot less room. Also, the Insight will need work as well. So, neither car will be jump in and go without any issues. Personally, I'd drive yours for a while whilst looking for a killer deal on an Insight. Enjoy your work before you ditch the car!

Yes, that's kind of what I am feeling now. Although I'm nervous about my paint job, I still think it's worth keeping the car until the paint really starts to literally fall apart.

I'm just so close to finishing the car and it seems like every time I go a few steps forward, something happens and holds up the progress.

[Natalya]

The Civic VX is an excellent car. I'm sorry about your paint woes, but for hypermiling they are still incredible. And they have more utility than an Insight. If I didn't have an Insight I'd probably get a VX.

When I got my Insight it needed a LOT of work, and it was only at 130k miles.
- Re-welded upper cat
- New lower cat
- New brake lines
- New clutch master cylinder
- New spark plugs
- New tires (finally ordered)
- New IMA battery (got a good condition used one)
- New instrument cluster (only 2001s have a problem with this)
- New ground straps
- New rear spoiler (from a junkyard Insight)
- Still trying to fix A/C
- New carpet
- New underbody panels (some custom, some replace missing OEM ones)
- Built my own grid charger
- Lots of ecomods

By "New" I don't necessarily mean OEM depending on the item. Also, the batteries on our cars are really a problem, it's doubtful you'll end up with a good one when you buy the car. I guess have a look at the one you found and tell us what's wrong with it. But yeah, lots of work either way. It sounds like you already did a lot of work on the VX.

I will say though, with lots of the wrong equipment (wrong tires, bad spark plugs, wrong wheels, no hybrid battery functionality) and driving at like 80mph on the highway my WORST tank (since I started keeping a log) came out to 49 mpg. http://ecomodder.com/forum/em-fuel-l...vehicleid=9582

But there's absolutely stuff you can do to a VX to push it up into the 70's and 80's.

[GearHead]

Originally Posted by Natalya

The Civic VX is an excellent car. I'm sorry about your paint woes, but for hypermiling they are still incredible. And they have more utility than an Insight. If I didn't have an Insight I'd probably get a VX.

When I got my Insight it needed a LOT of work, and it was only at 130k miles.
- Re-welded upper cat
- New lower cat
- New brake lines
- New clutch master cylinder
- New spark plugs
- New tires (finally ordered)
- New IMA battery (got a good condition used one)
- New instrument cluster (only 2001s have a problem with this)
- New ground straps
- New rear spoiler (from a junkyard Insight)
- Still trying to fix A/C
- New carpet
- New underbody panels (some custom, some replace missing OEM ones)
- Built my own grid charger
- Lots of ecomods

By "New" I don't necessarily mean OEM depending on the item. Also, the batteries on our cars are really a problem, it's doubtful you'll end up with a good one when you buy the car. I guess have a look at the one you found and tell us what's wrong with it. But yeah, lots of work either way. It sounds like you already did a lot of work on the VX.

I will say though, with lots of the wrong equipment (wrong tires, bad spark plugs, wrong wheels, no hybrid battery functionality) and driving at like 80mph on the highway my WORST tank (since I started keeping a log) came out to 49 mpg. 2001 Honda Insight 5MT Gas Mileage (Silver Insight) - EcoModder.com

But there's absolutely stuff you can do to a VX to push it up into the 70's and 80's.

What mods do you think can push my VX in the 70's and 80's? Without adding like an air dam, etc. I don't see what else I could do to improve my car. I've refreshed practically every mechanical part on the vehicle. The last thing I haven't done was to service my injectors. That's the last thing I can think of.

[oil pan 4]

Don't trade it. A 95 civic you are almost going to have to pay the dealer to take it because they are going to act like they don't want it. I am sure the dealer will sell it on ebay or put it on some other car auction site and make a killing.
A 95 should be old enough to where you can sell in a privet sale for cash on the spot.
A few years ago I had a friend trade a old CRX for a much newer civic. She insisted she trade it to the dealer. The stealer only gave her $300 or $400 trade in value for it. I offered to sell it on ebay for her, at that time the old Honda CRX cars like she had were going for at least $2500 on a bad day.
I guess some people just like being broke all the time.

I say learn as much as you can about the insight go to the dealer act like you are some kind of insight coinsure interested in their insight, test drive it and say there is something wrong with the battery and act like you want to buy it but not at $3,900 since the battery is going bad (hopefully its not really going bad). Chances are they only gave some sucker $1000 on it for trade in and they want to get rid of it.

[vskid3]

And a great thing about Insights is that even if the battery really is bad, you can still drive it! I won't be happy if my Prius leaves me stranded one day because the battery decides a road trip is a good time to die.

[GearHead]

What do you guys think of this Insight? It's local to me, so I think I'll go down tomorrow and test drive it.

They want $3500 including processing fee. $3570 with temp tag. The battery was recently serviced at the dealer.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/2000-Honda-I...19.m1438.l2649


I'm starting to have huge buyers remorse on my VX. I just fixed my AC for the 2nd time after I did a complete overhaul on the entire system. The expansion valve got stuck on it. Anyway, it's pathetic at how cold the air blows from the vents. At even 80 F outside, it's blowing mildly cold. I know it's an old car, but the little things are starting to frustrate me. I figured at least with a brand new AC system, the air would blow extremely cold.

After all this time of fixing things, I'm still only getting about in the 30's for MPG city. My highest MPG was 38 so far. I do have maybe an extra 100-150 lbs in the car for accessories, but that's all I get. Maybe that can account for some of the low MPG.

For the most part, I've fixed all the electrical issues in the car. Now the window switch for the passenger side is acting up. Luckily, I found another one on eBay. Now don't even get me started on the paint. On top of all this, my friends keep telling me my car is going to get stolen eventually because it's a rare clean Civic EG and that's what hot to steal

This car project is becoming a 2 year plus adventure with a lot of stress and a boat load of money. I'm literally at the point where I just want to go back to a stock simple car that gets good MPG, and doesn't have all the issues my car has. I mean seriously, I've replaced the valve cover gasket twice (once under warranty) and I'm still smelling burning oil when I use the HVAC controls. I'm really getting annoyed.

[cowmeat]

As the former owner of several G1 Insights it seems pricey for the year and miles to me. The dealer has been sitting on it for months and it's only been driven a couple of hundred miles since a new ECU was added. During that time it averaged 30 mpg and the IMA has sat for extended periods of time.

I would bid 1000 bucks on eBay and see what happens, or maybe offer the dealer 1500 bucks, but expect to put some money in the car if you get it

That being said, they're fun little cars!

[GearHead]

I offered the dealer $2,500 cash and he declined it. This was earlier today.

I'll take your advice and bid 1000.

I thought these cars went for between 1500 - 4000 at this kind of mileage.


I also found this one for $1500 dollars at 235000 miles.

https://newjersey.craigslist.org/cto/6176639046.html