I Bought the 05 in TN
I want to thank Terry for letting me know about this one. I haven't found a MT anywhere else in the SE US. The only other one I found was in Washington state, but I was hesitant to drive back that far.
My wife and I flew to Nashville Saturday and the dealer sent someone to drive us to the dealership. We purchased the Insight, and drove home that afternoon. We stopped only to eat. It was a pretty nice ride; good weather and moderate trafic. Was fun experimenting with the mpg and battery use. We averaged 54 mpg for the trip home to Cumming GA, but the battery didn't charge much above 1/4.
The noise level was fine on interstate and rural roads except one road that was really noisy. Got pretty quiet again after the road changed though. I'm good with the sound system, except I wish it would play MP3s. The A/C manages to keep up most of the time in Economy mode, but on a hot summer Georgia day, I'll occassionally need to switch it to automatic for better cooling. I did notice quite a drop on the mpg when the compressor kicks on.
Prior to our trip, I read some place that I should get up to speed as soon as you can, then cruise for the best mpg. That is how I drove home. At home, I read in the owner's manual to not do that until 600 miles. Too late now. Hope I didn't shorten the engine life. I wish the dealer had told me that before I left.
I drove it 51 miles to work for the first time today. Was raining very hard and trafic was pretty good. Averaged 64mpg and the battery fully charged itself by the time I arrived at work. I think I learned a lesson - just take it easy and the battery won't drain and I'll get good mpg.
Anyway, I have a lot to learn about driving technique. Learned a lot already by reading this forum. Thanks to everyone for sharing your experiences and ideas.
