I'm not selling this car, I just test drove it this morning and am reporting what I found before some guy in Kentucky offers $3k sight unseen comes to take a look and sees it isn't what he or she expected.
2000 Honda Insight 70 mpg
This car is also on Carsoup as well
2000 Insight with about 154k miles
The two front wheels are both non-stock wheels, you can see the drivers side wheel, both are the same. The rears are stock wheels
The tires need to be replaced, they would get you home but I would factor that in your price decision.
Headlights are fogged(easy fix with a $20 headlight polishing kit)
Front bumper has a big chunk of paint missing right above the license plate that goes halfway across the car.
Rear bumper, scratched pretty badly, looks like someone tried to drag something out of the back of the car or was resting something there that was sharp, a bunch of squiggles through to the black plastic.
Drivers door, a little bit of a kink at about the level of the top of the tire.
Cat needs to be replaced, exhaust leak(audible when driving) that the dealer says is because its missing the donut gaskets from the two cat sensors that he put in to try and solve the P0420 Cat check engine light. ...it came on 15 mins into the test drive. I'd personally replace the cat, it was a bit rusty too.
Rust on the fuel lines, passenger side against the firewall.
Engine was shaking a bit, left and right mount seemed fine and didn't seem to be shaking from the bottom, it was more of a forward back shake, not sure what's going on.
Drove relatively smoothly, other than the exhaust noise and a shaky engine, it might be in decent shape.
Has a normal oil plug, not a Fumoto, didn't seem to be a retrofit to a stripped plug.
Transmission 1st and 2nd synchros are in rough shape, if rev matching 1st to within 200rpm, it wouldn't grind, if rev matching 2nd to within about 300rpm it wouldn't grind, outside of that range it does grind and on a few situations where I needed to get out of the way of traffic after the car neg recalibrated(see IMA stuff below) and was in forced charge, I had to drop down to 2nd quickly. No grinds during upshifts, even with a 4000rpm quick upshift. I noticed the clutch wasn't as strong as mine.
Passenger side wheel skirt is screwed in on the rear side(right through the plastic) and has a bolt and nut on the front side where the dzus goes. Both skirts have damage that isn't hard to notice but don't seem too terrible.
Passenger side fender plastic is cracked on the top, about a 3 inch or so crack.
Interior seems decent except for some dash scratching above the glove box and a worn steering wheel. I didn't pay too much attention but didn't notice any smoke burns and didn't smell any cigarette smoke.
The glove box looks like it has a manual and something else that looks like other stuff that originally came with the car, a booklet or something was wrapped in plastic.
Windshield has a crack in the lower left hand corner that is almost as long as a dollar bill.
Radiator is a bit beat up, it was about the condition that I would consider replacing it as soon as I could find a decent junkyard replacement from a car that has an A/C condenser that would have blocked all the damage that this one saw..
Missing aero panels - No missing the plastic wheel well covers above the wheels, I can see the engine and transmission from underneath, missing both of the large plastic covers and the long one that goes under the passenger side bottom.
IMA acted strange, I started and was driving it at 19 bars when I first got it going, it seemed to take quite a lot of charge before it topped out at 20 bars and a little more before it stopped charging. It seemed to allow me to put it through a whole bunch of assist, what would have probably been the entire SOC range but the gauge didn't move until it went through a negative recalibration at 16 bars. I drove it for about 20 minutes trying to feed it charge with brake regen but after getting 1/3 the way up the battery gauge the battery started to show signs that it was hot and it stopped taking full charge current and by almost half way it was only giving me about the amount of regen it would give with coasting and no braking. Seems the BCM is very confused about the condition of the battery and its questionable. He said he had the car parked all winter. Seems to me its going to need a trip to either Hybrid-Battery-Repair for whoever buys it. No IMA light but I'd imagine its probably on its way.
I did give him an offer but he said it was too low for him to take considering he got two phone calls between 10am and 11am while I was looking the car over and he got another one while I was test driving it. The phone number on Craigslist is his cell phone number.
If you are interested in an Insight beater or one to fix, it could be yours. His asking price is lower than the rest of Craigslist because he knows the car isn't perfect. He is nervous about selling it to someone over the phone from out of state since it is a 'sight unseen' situation and the body is in rough shape and it needs work. He said that he never got a response from multiple out of state buyers but he also said that he usually doesn't post cars to Craigslist, usually using Carsoup. He seemed to really take an interest in the fact that I knew a bunch about the car, I explained a bunch of stuff to him about it. He's social and will talk to you and asked me if I knew other Insight owners, that sort of thing.
If you are interested in the car that this dealer is selling and want to get some answers to your questions about my test drive, send me a PM. I'm not connected with this dealer in any way, just trying to provide some disclosure to someone who would otherwise show up to a surprise if traveling a long way to see this car.
Minneapolis Craigslist 2000 Insight 154k MT
