[rude]

i am seriously considering buying a 2001 insight with 34k miles. i have heard great things about the insight but overall skepticism about hybrids.

who better to sell me on these cars than the owners themselves? i would like for anyone and everyone to tell me all the great (and maybe not so great) things about their insights. any feedback is appreciated. thanks!

 

[bigtrouble77]

The trick is patience. If you are not concerned about driving really fast and are willing to adjust your driving habits you will get a great deal out of a hybrid. If you can't be bothered with monitoring your gas usage meters and adjusting ineffeciencies in your driving style then you'll never reach the high mileages people are reporting here. Especially with an Insight, you will be sacrificing some luxuries (like a smooth ride) in the name of effeciency.

I personally bought the car because it was the least polluting one I could buy at the time, the great gas mileage is just icing on the cake.

-BT

 

[devin1955]

I bought my Insight 90% because of the fuel mileage and 10% because I was fastinated with the car and the technology. The other 2 vehicles in the household get just shy of 20mpg.

But, as it turns out, I found that I simply love driving the car! I'm at that age where guys go out and buy themselves an expensive sportscar and try to recapture their childhood, well, I'm having the same amount of fun as those guys are at a fraction of the cost.

There are some negatives. Weird repairs on occasion which call for parts that are either expensive, hard to get, or both. The cargo and passenger capacity is limited as well. The Insight is a 3rd car in my 2 person household, and one other car can carry plenty of people, the other is a 4wd truck. So I just opted to keep those vehicles to fill in the gaps created by the Insight. If I *HAD* to rely on the Insight for my daily transportation, I might be a little afraid of the maintanence potential.

My advice is find one for sale that you can drive for at least a couple hours and see if you don't catch the bug. It's one COOL little car.

 

[Rick]

Gripes:

When you do go somewhere with friends/family/co-workers in a group you'll eventually kind of feel bad you always have to ride with someone else. But this is not too big of a deal.

Road noise, hurt my senseative ears. I added noise insulation to the car to quiet it down.

Some Rattles have developed.

Grooved or rough roads. If the streets around here were not so well kept I'd switch to some different, less fuel efficient tires for sure.

Stock Stereo, though I'd have probably replaced it anyways.


Perks:

Cheap fuel costs and long driving range between fill ups.

Gets lots of attention

Hugs the road which makes it *really* fun to drive.

Easy to wash and keep clean because of the size.

Auto Stop!

Awsome AC if your willing to take the mpg hit (it was supposed to be 115 today)

ABS has saved me from several accidents, only one of which would have been my fault.

2.6 quart oil change

It's roomier than it looks

I can go on and on, but one cool thing if your in to modifications there is very very little aftermarket anything made for the Insight so you will have one of a kind stuff.

 

[kurt]

:lol: I would agree the Insight can be as much fun at a fraction of the cost. I drive about 25k miles per year and I have driven 2 Nissan Zs, a Prelude, a Probe, a 240Z and my last car was a PT Cruiser. I enjoy the Insight as much as any of them. I bought mine used about 15 months ago and after 30k miles it is still worth almost what I paid for it. To make it fun for me I installed a great sound system with XM and cruise for my knee. I figure I save close to a $100 a week over driving a sports car, and I use that money to do even more fun stuff.

 

[james]

Not so neat stuff:

1) The dashboard display is just about impossible to read when you have sunglasses on.

2) There's no trashtray - no place to dump candy wrappers and so on.

3) Can't figure out how to kill the stupid key beeper without removing the whole dash.

4) Rear quarter visibility sucks! Be real careful changing lanes until you're used to it.

 

[Resist]

The dashboard display is just about impossible to read when you have sunglasses on.

I've never had any problems seeing my instrument panel with shades on.

There's no trashtray - no place to dump candy wrappers and so on.

You can use the cupholder space for candy wrappers or just go buy an Insight ashtry.[/quote]

 

[chrs]

But, as it turns out, I found that I simply love driving the car!

Likewise. I used to hate driving. I simply got horribly bored. Then I got my Insight and I'm looking for excuses to drive somewhere because driving it is fun and interesting.

Charlie

 

[james]

"You can use the cupholder space for candy wrappers..."

Not when it has cups in it! Besides, if you put trash in the cup holder, you have to dig it out later, instead of just dumping the whole thing.

 

[The Citrus Smoothie]

Rude - As you can see, if people can argue the toss about where to put sweet wrappers then there can't be much wrong with the Insight!

 

[rude]

great stuff, everyone. thanks.

i guess my main concern now is that these things sound really complicated. i read over the forum, and there's all kinds of stuff about recals and this and that...and i don't understand any of it. i suppose it comes with a bit of driving, but i'm still a little iffy on the prospect...

 

[commuter]

Not so neat stuff:

1) The dashboard display is just about impossible to read when you have sunglasses on.

James,

Do you wear Polarized sunglasses? If so that may be your problem. Polariized sunglasses don't work very well with LCD displays.

I absoulutly love my Insight. I traded in a Infiniti G35 to get this great little car. I drive 70 miles one way to work. I also do some racing in this car. Not so much because it is fast, because it handles like most high end sports cars. The two passenger thing is a plus, you can only take one whinny passenger along for lunch.

BUY ONE!!! YOU"LL LOVE IT!!

 

[chrs]

i guess my main concern now is that these things sound really complicated.

I think it's like this. If you just buy it and drive it like any other car, you can get 55 to 60 mpg. It's complicated inside, yes, but you can ignore it all. On the other hand, if you pay attention, you can get 70 to 80 mpg. Or if you become an all-out hypermiler, you can get 80-100 mpg. The folks in the first category never bothered to join this board, since they don't need it. Those of us who enjoy trying to understand all the fine points (and enjoy talking about them) are the ones you see posts from here. So you get a pretty skewed impression.

Charlie

 

[jack9994]

The other wonderful thing about it is the attention you get. I feel sometimes like someone who has a Ferrari because nearly everyone looks at the car. I was driving out of the supermarket the other evening and this guy just stood and watched me as I drove away. I passed a new Ferrari a few weeks ago (in a traffic jam!) and the girl in the passenger seat was more interested in my car. Given the number of Insights sold in the UK there are probably more Ferraris than Insights

John

 

[b1shmu63]

Hey! Nobody mentioned the corrosion resistant aluminum body. I guess that's not a driving characteristic, but every time I open up the hood and see all that aluminum in there I feel like a king. Well, perhaps like someone who got an exotic 100K car for 20K. I drive a CRX on occasion and when I get back into the Insight I can really feel the solidity and torsional strenght of the aluminum body. The roads around here are not exactly pristine, so perhaps that is why I notice it more.

The rear suspension has soft springs. Good for the ride but........if you carry a lot of bricks in the hatch you will hit the rubber end stops. Most of the time I'm alone in the car and I'm less than 200 pounds so it doesn't matter. I'm going to put some spacers in like Yves described, especially if I put an auxilliary battery back there.

 

[james]

"Nobody mentioned the corrosion resistant aluminum body."

Maybe that's because some of us live in places where they don't dump tons of corrosive salt on the roads every winter, and thus even steel-bodied cars don't rust all that much.

I've sometimes wondered why the conspiracy theorists don't pick up on that one - the highway department and the big automakers conspiring to dissolve your car!

 

[rude]

went today to pick up the car. thanks for all the advice, and i managed 69.5 mpg on a 40 mile trip back home. i'm happy to have joined the club.

 

[b1shmu63]

So you got almost 70 MPG on your first drive. Not to shabby. Welcome to the club.

 

[Insightful Trekker]

69.5 with your first trip :!: Fantastic :!: Looks like your trying for the hyper-miler club.

 

[rude]

yes!! and i should be more specific per the forum etiquette -- 59-65 MPH and light drizzle. it was also mostly interstate driving.