I recently bought a 00 Honda Insight and have been commuting for the last 4 months in it. It can be a reasonably fun clover leaf car but other than that it is slow to the point on not making it up hills on the highway without a ton of help, the seats are not comfortable, and the thing is pretty loud at Highway speeds. I SHOULD keep it because I commute 90 miles a day and it does get good mileage.
www.lhtperformance.net/documents/lht_k-sight.html
Define "ton of help"? What do you mean, with regard to hills?
Swapping a drivers seat seems reasonably simple. Adding some dynamat, likewise pretty straightforward weekend project.
It should be essentially silent at highway speeds. What's wrong with it?
Traded it for a Charger RT.
I believe no one on this forum should own an appliance. Why give in to the societal urgings to conform and aspire to blandness. Bland house, bland car, bland clothing...
Buy an old piece of E36 M3 for a few hundred dollars, preferably rear wheel drive, fix what ails it and drive the piss out of it.
Make every day a Street Safari. 
How much fun have you ever had being 100% safe and controlled?
Embrace your inner Raoul Duke/Tyler Durden.
Although I'm not quite as far off the deep end as Jed up there, I do agree that life is too short to drive cars that suck, especially when you're spending 10+ hours a week in them.
Is it getting close to the 50 mpg it apparently is supposed to get?
Oh, and to answer your question, you get one that is more fun.
check the tires too. Some tires make a lot of noise on the highway. +1 for a good seat. Browse the JY's for the Lincoln/ Caddy/ BMW seat of your choice, worth every penny.
My opinion is that you suck it up.
Fear not citizen! Vigo will be here soon to offer advice!
clutchsmoke wrote: Fear not citizen! Vigo will be here soon to offer advice!
And pinchvalve will be here to suggest the Kia Rondo...
I drove one on the highway once. It had snow tires on so naturally it was pretty quiet on the highway. As for slowness you should probably throw a cheap turbo setup on it. That will fix the boring and (sorta fix) the slow right away.
JFX - I have seen the K-sight but while that is awesome(!) it defeats the purpose of this car fully. It would still get killer mileage but I would end up with a ton of money in a front wheel drive penalty box.
Numerous people - I have talked about a junk yard seat swap for a while and if I keep this thing much longer, it is gonna happen.
OHS - I mean that I have to power down one hill to at least 10 mph over the speed limit to have any hope of getting up the next hill doing 5 under. This isn't something I am cool with. It isn't so much the lack of power as the stupid gear ratios. I had a Mazda2 before this and it did everything I wanted with easy and it was still slow as dirt.
MotoMoron - The tires are certainly part of the noise issue but there is ZERO sound deadening in this car. I have some deck flashing that is basically thin dynomat that I need to install.
Sperlo - I will admit, even on my River run (lots of hills) to and from work I am getting a pretty consistent 47 mpg.
I have thought about trying to do some surgery on the front shocks and install Koni Yellow inserts (the short ones that the VW guys use) to make it handle better. The rear has some E36 M3ty monroes heading its way (only thing available really). Ground Control makes a coilover kit, amazingly. The problem with all of this is I still have an uncomfortable commuter that now rides harder and has lost resale at the tune of a grand+ out of my pocket.
I just am at a loss and my wife says that I should just keep it because there is nothing that gets this mileage. However, she hates driving it too!
A turbo setup has also been contemplated and others have done it. There are easy increases there but that falls into the category of the shocks.
Isn't the hill climbing problem indicative of a weak battery pack?
How much would you want to spend to replace it?
Sell it:
And buy a better appliance:
In reply to foxtrapper:
The batteries appear solid and I have paperwork from the previous owner about a new pack being installed in 2012. I am sure that for someone with less Hoon in their blood if would be passable but it makes me cringe.
I was pulling away from a stop light yesterday with the AC going and with 85% throttle it was still not making a reasonable (to me) effort to move its ass. AC off helps quite a bit but it still isn't providing me ANYTHING. I have never owned a car with this little soul. I figured it couldn't be that bad to drive, it is the same weight as an Elise, for crying out loud!
In reply to Klayfish:
Ha ha, my estimate or SWMBO? Reasonably, the misses is expecting which makes me think that the sale price of the Insight plus 2K might be about it. The little Honda came with great records and lots of maintenance completed. It is pretty clean inside and out and only has 85K miles. I suspect $6500 out of it would be easy.
In reply to Toyman01:
I would LOVE an LS3 appliance but I am fairly certain that the gas bill and initial buy in ruins any chances of me getting one.
I have been talking to Jakeb about building a 4.8/5.3 E39 wagon but that is outside of what I can currently get away with.
90 miles a day? berkeley. Figure out what is wrong with the Insight. Fix and/or deal with it.
Dump it and get a TDi or Chevy Cruze Diesel (not likely in your $$$ range).
Don't put harder suspension on this, hard suspension is bad for MPG! It causes the car to slow down more when it runs over a rough road. Hypermilers run soft springs and hard sway bars. This means that rough roads don't slow the vehicle down but the car still corners level enough that they don't have to slow down for corners too much.
Much easier to mod than a FIT and they get pretty good mpg. Ask Andy Hollis what upgrades he would recommend for long commutes.
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