My wife and I are moving to Davis, CA this Monday. My little insight is going to make the 2,223 mile trek from Indiana to California. We've gone ahead and changed the oil, checked the filters and we're getting new tires Thursday. Are we missing anything else? I just want to make sure this little guy won't have any problems driving across the country.
Have a safe trip! Your Insight will be just fine, but if you are truly paranoid, you might want to check the belts and coolant levels, and throw in a small tool kit and a fix-a-flat can in the car. Your biggest shock will be the Indiana to California change, Davis is quite the circus if you're not used to it...
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Driving on down the road in my 2001 CVT, going "Boogety Boogety" ...and until avatars are provided, my car looks just like the original silver Insight on the header, above... =)
We've gone out there already to get our key already. I'm not that paranoid about my insight doing well on the trip. I've just never planned a trip like this. So I just wanted to be sure that I wasn't overlooking something obvious. I have been known to do that when I'm excited about something. :P Thanks for replying and for the good wishes.
Oh yeah, something I just remembered. Does anyone know where I can get a front license plate holder or whatever they're called? Having lived in Indiana all my life, I've never needed one. But I'm going to need one soon and I have no clue what happened to mine.
I just moved to Oregon and so needed a front plate holder. I don't like the looks of the stock unit, so I bent up a piece of aluminum into an "L" bracket. I attached it using the bolt in the center top area of the radiator intake area with a large washer to make sure it won't move around under wind load. I bent the vertical part with a bit of rake to it so it just clears the nose of the insight. A couple of small silicon bumpers on the back side of the bracket help stabilize the whole thing. The plate bolts to the bracket with a couple of machine screws and nylock nuts using the bottom holes in the plate. I had to put the nuts on the front of the plate since the clearance is limited on the back. Bolted the plate to the bracket, then the bracket to the car. Voila! No holes in the bumper, no big plate mount. Plus, my bracket weighs less than the stock mount. You could reverse the bracket which would put the plate roughly centered in the air intake opening, but I worried about mounting the plate lower than required. Now it is roughly in the center of the bumper with the top 1.5" or so of the plate above the top of the bumper.
I can take a couple of pictures if there is interest.
Apparently, many cops in CA don't even bother with no-front-plate stops, they only tack on the violation if they have stopped you for something else. Some use it as PC if they have nothing else going, but it's such a low priority for them, I wouldn't sweat it (at least right away). See:
I like rmnelson's solution, I've always hated that our Insight has [admittedly invisible] holes drilled in the front bumper forever... if I had a chance to do it all again, tell we, would we... could we...
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Driving on down the road in my 2001 CVT, going "Boogety Boogety" ...and until avatars are provided, my car looks just like the original silver Insight on the header, above... =)
Location: Colorful Colorado pre-MIMA LMPG=65.5 U.S. post-MIMA LMPG=71+ U.S.
Posts: 299
Re: Driving to California
Quote:
Originally Posted by soley
Oh yeah, something I just remembered. Does anyone know where I can get a front license plate holder or whatever they're called? Having lived in Indiana all my life, I've never needed one. But I'm going to need one soon and I have no clue what happened to mine.
Why bother with the bracket? I had a plastic one from the dealer and I took it off.
The plastic dealer one weighed almost nothing... so I don't see how a home-made braket could weigh any less...
I bent my front plate to the same contour as the front bumper, and screwed the plate directy to the holes already in the plastic bumper. So it has about the same wind drag as a thick coat of paint.
#1 This cost me nothing
#2 It is way more aerodynamic
#3 It covers a decent amount of the radiator, so the car will get warm slightly faster, and it keeps some bugs out
A 2K+ mi trek is an excellent chance to bump up that LMPG! I'll be you your first double mocha half caf latte that you don't see more than 2 insights the entire trip... Good luck on the trip and smooth sailing wishes- I hope to make my own cross country journey soon
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2001 Monte Carlo blue insight
1999 Dinan M3- Estoril Blue
I'll be you your first double mocha half caf latte that you don't see more than 2 insights the entire trip...
You sure did call it. I saw the first Insight, other than mine, on I-80 about 50 miles into California. My wife and I got some lunch and we saw another Insight getting on I-80 west toward San Francisco.
Every time we stopped we got comments on the car, though.
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Driving to California
