Any manual transmission insight owners in the Chicago area?

pitviper33 · 09-02-2010, 06:32 PM

Hi all. I'm new around here... I'm not an owner yet, but I've been reading and learning about the first generation Insight. It seems like a pretty great car that suits my needs really well. The only problem -- I've never driven one. It's hard to really know whether it's the right car for me when I haven't been in one or even seen one up close. Since it was a relatively low production car, the ones available for sale are spread out all over the place. Before I go driving a long way to look at a for sale one, I'd really like to find an owner close to home that would consider letting me drive his/hers or at least giving me a ride. Is there anyone near Chicago that would be so kind? In return, I could trade you a drive in another rather unique car that's almost as rare as your Insight...

jkbrushaber · 09-02-2010, 09:46 PM

I don't know if I'm much help, but if your willing to drive a bit, I'd be happy to show you mine. I live a bit west of Madison, WI. I actually purchased mine from a guy in Chicago 2.5 yrs ago. If I'm too far for you, hopefully someone from Chicago will help you out. Otherwise, you should try to find one at a car dealer. Their are a lot of car dealers in your area, some of them have to have an Insight.

pitviper33 · 09-03-2010, 04:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jkbrushaber

I don't know if I'm much help, but if your willing to drive a bit, I'd be happy to show you mine. I live a bit west of Madison, WI. I actually purchased mine from a guy in Chicago 2.5 yrs ago. If I'm too far for you, hopefully someone from Chicago will help you out. Otherwise, you should try to find one at a car dealer. Their are a lot of car dealers in your area, some of them have to have an Insight.

Thank you very much for the offer. I have some family and friends up in that direction, so maybe in another month or so I'll have an opportunity to be near Madison. In the mean time I'll keep watching autotrader and craigslist for something closer to pop up. I think most dealers put a lot of their inventory one or both of those sites, and right now there's nothing listed close.

Any other owners closer to Chicago than Madison? Even if you weren't comfortable letting a stranger drive (which I can understand), I'd love to at least have a better look at one of these things up close.

jkbrushaber · 09-05-2010, 07:05 AM

I had great difficulty finding mine, and just remembered my two best websites for finding used cars. The first is oodle.com. This site will search most major car sites (cars.com autotrader ebay etc. ) so you only have to look one place. I also recall that I set up a search that would send me any new listings right to my email. Saved me a lot of time and searching. The second site is craigslist tips which allows you to search the entire craigslist network with one search. You can easily find any Insight's listed on Craigslist anywhere in the country.

I know that you are looking for a 2000-03 Silver will low miles. I'm sure you have been reading a lot about these cars on this site. I wanted to make sure you were aware of potential battery issues of an older Insight with very low miles. One of the best ways to kill the battery is from lack of use. Letting the car sit for extended periods (much more than a week) is another. A car that is 7-10 yrs old and has less than 40k miles is somewhat likely to have experience these issues. I recall reading about people who have only 30-40k and are on their 3rd or 4th battery. So, hopefully you can find on that meets your criteria that was maybe driven very short distances every couple of days or something. Or you may find one that has just had the battery replaced. Keep in mind you warranty is good for 10yrs (or 150k) from the cars inservice date. Of course, worst case scenario, out of warranty, dead battery.... hybrid-battery-repair.com can fix for about $1000.

Best of luck with your searching. Be patient, I looked a long time myself.

pitviper33 · 09-05-2010, 11:44 AM

I'll definitely check out oodle. I've never heard of it before, but it sounds really handy. I use searchtempest.com to search craigslist, but I'll give craigslist tips a look too. Thanks for the pointers.

I have no color or year preference. I saw somebody else in another thread that was really specific on color, so you may be thinking of him. I would like to find one with low miles (wouldn't every used car buyer?), but I'm really not picky on that. As long as I find one that is in good shape and has been well cared for, I'm not worried about a few miles on the odometer. Though I would be interested in knowing what kind of life people have seen out of these things. I expect it to be pretty high. Thanks for pointing out the possibly low mileage issue. I had read that lack of use caused problems, but I hadn't really made the connection to low mileage used cars. That's a very good point to keep in mind. Is there any way to judge the condition of the battery on a test drive?

jkbrushaber · 09-05-2010, 10:14 PM

I'm not sure how to evaluate a battery during a test drive. If I compared the assist I get from mine versus another, and how fast the charge decreases, I could tell a little. I think a month or so may be needed to really compare, which most of us can't do.

You don't want to see the "IMA" light on the dashboard lit up, and you don't want to experience a "recal" during your test drive. As a battery gets close to needing replacement, I believe they normally cause ever increasingly frequent "recals" before the IMA light comes on. At that point, Honda will likely replace the battery pack. You can always ask the seller, but a test drive will probably not tell you much (even if you were an experienced Insighter). As with any used car, you are always rolling the dice a bit. I would try and make sure that a year or so and 20k+ miles are left on the warranty so you don't get stuck for the cost of repairing the battery immediately after purchase. If you can find a few to test drive a couple before your purchase, you will at least have something to compare to.

pitviper33 · 09-09-2010, 02:50 PM

Bump.

Anybody closer to Chi-town? I'm going to look at an Insight this weekend, and it'd be really nice to have been in a known-healthy example once before deciding to purchase the first one I've ever seen.