What do you do when you don't like your appliance (Honda Insight)

singleslammer wrote: In reply to Giant Purple Snorklewacker: I think that I would have a LOT more to worry about than my car if that were to happen. I think she may have threatened (in jest, I hope) to remove my manhood if that happened.

That is never said in jest. Take as the all out threat that it is. I think they are all just waiting for the right opportunity to present itself so they can put their evil plan into action. This is clear and present danger my friend.

Fear not citizen! Vigo will be here soon to offer advice!

Im being good today..

Question: What do you do when you don't like your appliance (Honda Insight) Answer: Sell it and buy something you do like Is this really going to be a 2 page thread?

Says the first guy on the 2nd page.

Anyway, Honda Insights, like my opinions, are NOT for everybody. I give you props for being open minded enough to try it, but based on what you don't like about it (some of which i plan to change on mine, some of which just doesnt bother me), i think the effort/return ratio for you trying to 'fix' the car just doesnt add up and you should try something else!

Good news is that Insights resale pretty well so you can probably get out of it without losing a lot of money. Now to go read your follow-up thread where you probably already came to the same conclusion..

I drive it like it's stolen and neglect it daydreaming about replacing it an Ecoboost Ranger, hybrid powered Nash metropolitan or C3 Corvette. It repays me by thriving on neglect and running well out of spite.

Tyler H wrote:

singleslammer wrote: In reply to Bobzilla: The fact that a lot of the tangibles ASIDE from the mpgs SUCK! I will say the SC blows nice and cold, but fully at the expense of what little power there is. The seats are terrible, the rear suspension is really under damped (known issue), it makes no power and is geared so that what little power there is can't be accessed without grueling effort (not rev happy), and the stereo is worthless even though I have upgraded to components and an alpine 4 channel amp. The speakers I think I can fix but have to remount and the seats I can replace. I have new shocks for the rear but the reviews on those are very mixed. The rest I won't think about because that is a dark modding path this car shouldn't tread.

Next time, take an extended test drive before you buy.

I took it on a reasonable test drive and it was fine. This is all stuff that it took me MONTHS to come to realize. The seats are fine for 30 miles on nice road but those don't exist in MO. I thought I could deal with the power but it is grinding on me.

The more I think about it, if I replace the rear shocks and find some better seats, I could probably stand the rest.

OFF TO THE JUNK YARD!

I do 100 miles everyday, I looked at insights, Prius and cr-z('s?) and stuck with what I had. I get 30 mpg or so and have enough power to get out of the way. Once I buy something I kinda suck it up and figure out how to make it liveable.

I've been thinking about your situation a bit and, for me at least, almost any car would eventually get boring if it's driven a minimum of 90 miles per day, every damn day.

I have a 20 mile or so round trip commute and I can only drive my Impreza for about 3 days before the Beige starts setting in. I can do a whole work week but I prefer not to. Then I have to switch to a Lincoln. The white LSC is good for about 3-5 days as well, it's just so... civilized. The blue LSC (Stincoln) keeps me entertained indefinitely. It has no mufflers, it's been converted to coil springs, has a booster/master cylinder brake setup (with no proportioning valve), 3.73 gears and the tires are older than my children.

If I were in your situation, if it's financially feasible, I'd pick up a second car. Something more visceral. Think smiles per gallon, not miles per gallon. On those days when you feel like every other Joe Schmoe suburbanite in your perfectly practical car (Again, speaking from my perspective, not calling you a Schmoe. ) and you're glancing around at all of the other human hamsters stuck in their cages, break out the ol' beast for a little cathartic relief.

A little bit of ludicrous forward thrust does wonders for the psyche.

Well I was called a Lesbian on page two so at this point why not be a Schmoe too.

I have the Galaxie but at 10 MPGs it is hard for me to consider driving. My car collection is fairly big but very little of it is "fun to drive" that I am also willing to drive to work. This is a good suggestion though Jed.

And the appliance problems are exactly why my friends and I have instituted fun car Friday. We all own toys and dishwasher like means of transportation. We get the toys out on Friday. Makes driving the dishwasher suck less.

Unfortunately for me my toy is a stick and we're exploring surgical options to fix my left leg. So I have been stuck in my big screen (appliance thats slightly more fun than others).

singleslammer wrote: Well I was called a Lesbian on page two so at this point why not be a Schmoe too. I have the Galaxie but at 10 MPGs it is hard for me to consider driving. My car collection is fairly big but very little of it is "fun to drive" that I am also willing to drive to work. This is a good suggestion though Jed.

If it helps, I've always considered myself a lesbian trapped in a man's body. Don't know if that helps or not.... what are we talking about?

Dusterbd13 wrote: And the appliance problems are exactly why my friends and I have instituted fun car Friday. We all own toys and dishwasher like means of transportation. We get the toys out on Friday. Makes driving the dishwasher suck less. Unfortunately for me my toy is a stick and we're exploring surgical options to fix my left leg. So I have been stuck in my big screen (appliance thats slightly more fun than others).

I really like this idea. Maybe arrive early and swap stories about the latest repair/upgrade and have a mini car show in the parking lot.

Sorry to hear about the leg. The wife has a potential labrum (sp.) tear in her right hip, it must be whingey leg week!

Looks like I am driving the big ford in on Friday then.

Good to hear. Lot easier than a new aooliance

At a relatively miserly 34 cents per mile cost of commuting (before protesting, make sure to include purchase price of car / depreciation, wear on the car, gas, oil, tires, etc.) you spend $170/year per mile of commute. 75 miles a day is a $12,750/year in actual costs, not counting the value of the time - which I value heavily.

What that means is if you chose to live very close to work, such that your commute was negligible, you could spend $216,000 more on the house and come out even in money spent. I can almost guarantee you would not have to settle for a cookie cutter house in an HOA if you took your current house value and added $216k to the budget.

I'm currently 6 miles from work and hope to cut that to 3 in the next year or so.

Just a point of interest. I would not spend 3 hours a day in the car, commuting, for anything. Nothing in the world would convince me to do that. And I'll drive 10 hours each way to go do endurance racing.

Siiiigh....

Singleslammer, just face the facts. You, like many of us, are stricken by automotive ADD. No matter what you buy, if you drive it for longer than a couple of months, the irritating aspects will grow in your head until they outweigh the merits of the car.

Having automotive ADD myself, and having worked a job for two years where I drove 55,000 miles a year for work, I can relate. (FWIW, during that windshield time I spent a lot of time thinking about what I SHOULD drive...and came to the conclusion that the Insight was the winner). It's a lot of time to think and to fixate on what you don't like about what you're driving. However, if you can suck it up for two years, the car will pay for itself in the amount of gas you save over something getting 30 mpg. Seriously, I did the math. Put some different seats in it (easy), upgrade the stereo (super-easy), and find some stock Miata springs (not like anyone ever gets rid of those for cheap!. Suck it up and laugh all the way to the gas pump.

Alternatively, I'll trade you a nice E39.

dculberson wrote: At a relatively miserly 34 cents per mile cost of commuting (before protesting, make sure to include purchase price of car / depreciation, wear on the car, gas, oil, tires, etc.) you spend $170/year per mile of commute. 75 miles a day is a $12,750/year in actual costs, not counting the value of the time - which I value heavily. What that means is if you chose to live very close to work, such that your commute was negligible, you could spend $216,000 more on the house and *come out even* in money spent. I can almost guarantee you would not have to settle for a cookie cutter house in an HOA if you took your current house value and added $216k to the budget. I'm currently 6 miles from work and hope to cut that to 3 in the next year or so. Just a point of interest. I would not spend 3 hours a day in the car, commuting, for anything. Nothing in the world would convince me to do that. And I'll drive 10 hours each way to go do endurance racing.

100% agree with all of this.

Its why I drive a car that costs ~$0.18/mile and have a 9 mile commute.

Well, I am not moving. End of story. My wife works the opposite direction and I hope to be self employed in 5 years. This isn't exactly an area teaming with jobs so take what you can get.

Ive done it both ways (my longest commute was 110+ miles round trip and shortest was about 13) and i think there is a middle ground that is worth the time/money if you really enjoy driving. I have NOWHERE near the amount of fun i used to have when i had a longer commute fooling around with fellow enthusiasts id come across and hitting high speeds EVERY day.

Now my commutes are both (2 jobs) relatively short and boring. It opens up the option of driving less efficient cars without blowing too much money on fuel, but the opportunity to have fun during your commute is a lot less as well.

Granted, if i DIDNT own 50mpg cars and had a 100 mi/day commute, i would do what i DID do and get a 50 mpg car. But we both did that already so we are kind of past that.

ProDarwin wrote:

dculberson wrote: At a relatively miserly 34 cents per mile cost of commuting (before protesting, make sure to include purchase price of car / depreciation, wear on the car, gas, oil, tires, etc.) you spend $170/year per mile of commute. 75 miles a day is a $12,750/year in actual costs, not counting the value of the time - which I value heavily. What that means is if you chose to live very close to work, such that your commute was negligible, you could spend $216,000 more on the house and *come out even* in money spent. I can almost guarantee you would not have to settle for a cookie cutter house in an HOA if you took your current house value and added $216k to the budget. I'm currently 6 miles from work and hope to cut that to 3 in the next year or so. Just a point of interest. I would not spend 3 hours a day in the car, commuting, for anything. Nothing in the world would convince me to do that. And I'll drive 10 hours each way to go do endurance racing.

100% agree with all of this. Its why I drive a car that costs ~$0.18/mile and have a 9 mile commute.

And for people that like city/suburbia life, that's great. But guess what? You're opinion is just that. It's YOUR opinion. Us rural dwellers, we'd spend 3 hours EACH WAY in our cars to keep our way of life. There's nothing in the world that could get us to move back into the city. F that.

I did the numbers some time back on the Accent the wife put a bajillion miles on driving for work, grad classes etc. It worked out to ~$.03 per mile of ownership spread out over 6 years in cluding maintenance, repairs, purchase, license and insurance. She put over 130k miles on that car in 6 years.

That's just under $4k for 6 years of ownership allowing us to live in a nice quiet, rural setting. You'll drag me into another sub-division/town about the time my heart stops beating.

What's funny, this didn't even count the money we made back when we sold it. That would only drive the CoO even lower.

EDIT: OK, to be fair, adding in fuel bumps that total to $.11 a mile, the selling price recouped brings it back down to $.09/mile (total expenditure ~$11,700). So I'm not sure how one gets from 9 CENTS per mile to $170 per mile. Sounds like some funky math to me. Is this the math that they used to figure the ACA wouldn't cost us anything?

I am willing to bet that is driving the same XX mile commute for the entire year. Which by that standard is still some ungodly amount of $15K a year.

dculberson wrote: At a relatively miserly 34 cents per mile cost of commuting (before protesting, make sure to include purchase price of car / depreciation, wear on the car, gas, oil, tires, etc.) you spend $170/year per mile of commute. 75 miles a day is a $12,750/year in actual costs, not counting the value of the time - which I value heavily. What that means is if you chose to live very close to work, such that your commute was negligible, you could spend $216,000 more on the house and *come out even* in money spent. I can almost guarantee you would not have to settle for a cookie cutter house in an HOA if you took your current house value and added $216k to the budget. I'm currently 6 miles from work and hope to cut that to 3 in the next year or so. Just a point of interest. I would not spend 3 hours a day in the car, commuting, for anything. Nothing in the world would convince me to do that. And I'll drive 10 hours each way to go do endurance racing.

I've lived in the city, more than once, and it isn't for me. Regardless I don't think we could get what we have in town for a million, so an additional 200k isn't going to get it in a good area.

My commute generally takes 35 to 45minutes each way because I generally don't have to deal will bad traffic, plus like I said I do it on a 175hp bike that averages 44mpg. A lot of times the commute is the highlight of my workday.

Your bike has 3x the power that my car does...sigh.

My commute is 45 miles but it is also only 45 minutes, consistently. I will probably do some minor upgrades to Lux up the insight and just drive fun stuff on Fridays.

This. A good stereo and a comfy seat and drive it till the wheels fsll off mon-thurs. Fun car on Friday. And Saturday. Sunday the wifes car so you can keep an eye on it. Been working well for me for the lsst five years.

Hey, this is basically a miata forum, right? I read on Insightcentral that someone was able to use miata springs to stiffen up the rear of their insight, so i got one of my local friends who has a modded miata to give me a set of stock springs, which gives you the option of going stiffer (miata rear) or much stiffer (miata fronts).

I havent installed them yet because i wanted to do the rear shocks at the same time, but they are sitting there...

Since you planned to do something about rear shocks anyway, why not pick up some miata springs while you're at it?

Another thing i did that made my Insight more fun to drive at the speeds it can actually achieve is put sporty 195s on front and non-sporty 165s on back.

Bobzilla wrote: EDIT: OK, to be fair, adding in fuel bumps that total to $.11 a mile, the selling price recouped brings it back down to $.09/mile (total expenditure ~$11,700). So I'm not sure how one gets from 9 CENTS per mile to $170 per mile. Sounds like some funky math to me. Is this the math that they used to figure the ACA wouldn't cost us anything?

I think the math is like so:

.09 cents per mile x approx 240 workdays x 2 (round trip) = $43.5 cents/mile (one-way) per year. I.E. 50 miles to work = $2160/year

No going to get deep into the rural vs. suburbia thing. If you are doing it for that reason great, but I think often people make crazy commutes without weighing the consequences. I don't know where I would find any time to enjoy my house/lifestyle if I spent 3 hours a day in the car, and I sure as berkeley don't enjoy sitting in my car for commuting purposes.