I Bought a Car on eBay: Replacing 1st Gen Honda Insight Battery

There is a reason I bought a 2002 Honda Insight with 144,000 miles in good condition for only $2,400, I knew I was going to have to replace the hybrid battery. Replacing the battery is a $2,000 to $3000 adventure. When the IMA light came on initially, I didn't think it was a huge deal, and I continued to drive for a few weeks normally. Then came a day when the battery drained to zero, and didn't immediately recharge. At that point it was like the computer was commanding electric assist, and thinking it was happening, but there was no electric assist. I basically had to floor the accelerator pedal at every stop sign and red light to start moving again. Needless to say, this wasn't going to work forever.

I took my 2002 Honda Insight into the local Honda dealership in mid September to have an oil change, my first while I have owned it, although I did only put about 5000 miles on it in the last year, and also to have them look at the IMA battery light. They confirmed that the battery was bad and needed to be replaced and told me it was in the neighborhood of $3000 for parts and labor. I knew that going in, actually, I was surprised that their estimate wasn't higher. In fact, getting a little mechanical and electrical experience by personally replacing the hybrid battery was part of the reason I bought this old car. I told the service manager that I would like to do the replacement myself and he seemed surprised, I think it was the first independent hybrid battery replacement he had heard of. All told I made it out of the dealership with a bill for $155 for the oil change and labor time inspecting the battery and controller, which they confirmed was working correctly. Which is a reason I typically don't go to bar dealerships for service, it's expensive. It is worth mentioning, in ten months of ownership this is the first service bill I had on my Honda. Other than this I have only paid for gas, and a $30 or so kit to clean the headlights which were clouded from 12 year old plastic.

The next step was to purchase a battery. I bought mine from Bumblebee Batteries out of Portland, OR in early October. They advertised more battery capacity (8 amp hours versus 6.5), a 20 minute video above on how to remove and install the battery, and they had positive reviews. The cost came to $2,770, which is more than I paid for the entire vehicle, that that also included $500 which would be refunded when I return the old hybrid battery core, or rather enticement module. I sent the module back before Thanksgiving. There was a delay because I wanted to tear down the actually battery before I sent it back. I also had to buy some tools, about $40 worth of sockets and wrenches.

An 80 pound package beside a car!

To be honest, following Bumblebee's video, the extrication went really smoothly. The worst part was the big 12 mm socket bolts behind the passenger seat. I just could not quire reach it and get more than 15 degrees of wrench movement with my three inch socket extension, and had to go back to the store and get a 6 inch socket extension, which I then used a cheater bar on to get a little more leverage.

Under the Carpet

I don't like getting dirty. The concept of digging into a bunch of oil and grease for fun isn't that fun for me. However, I really like turning wrenches and seeing how things work, and doing physical work. In other words, electrical and structural work, which is relatively clean, like the work to replace the hybrid battery, was great fun for me. Sure I can have a good time working on an engine or hydraulics system, and I like the physical experience of working on things that I sit behind a computer all day starting at, but I am just not a fan of getting covered in oil.

Under the Cover

The battery went in very smoothly. I think it took me around three hours of work in the back of my car, plus another hour going to the store to buy tools. The battery took maybe 1:45 to get out, and the new one went back in the car in just over an hour. Like any other project, the first time you do it is the hardest because you have no idea what you are doing.

Disconnecting the Battery Control Units

Two hybrid batteries beside a car.

Before I sent the old battery back I wanted to tear it down too. I heard that it was made with basically D cell batteries, planning that future third party after market companies could service the battery pack. I wanted to take it apart because if I could in deed just replace the batteries the next time the battery goes out in 2022, that would probably cost a whole lot less, maybe several hundred dollars. Typically, the more work you can do yourself, the more money you will save. Well I took it apart in this order:

Disassembling a Honda Insight 1st Gen Hybrid Battery

The Battery Pack

Removed white plastic cover and several bolts.

Remove Three Bolts

Removing More Bolts

Remove the Bolts Behind these Rubber Plugs

Don't loose these spacers!

Remove these six screws, I think...

Remove the bolts and screws on both orange plates, the screws are very small.

Pull out a battery. I bolted small plate to it and pulled it out with a wire.

One six cell "Battery"

When I finally pulled out the actually batteries they had a plastic shrink wrap over them, and the only way I was getting in there was with a knife, and frankly, I wasn't ready to do that. My concern was that the shrinkwrap probably keeps the six batteries together and I might have trouble keeping them together if I go at it with a knife. Six 1.5 volt cells in each "battery" and 20 "batteries" in each module connected in series is 180 volts, most much higher than the 144 volts rating of the battery pack. In other words, if two cells within a "battery" are not touching, the whole thing might not work. Of course, once bolted into the battery frame there is pressure on the batteries so it probably would not be an issue, especially I returned this to a guy that is probably going to tear them apart and replace them anyway.

The end connection has a threaded hole and thin electrical tab.

Looking Inside the "Battery" tube, notice the four rubber flaps to help stabilize the "battery".

Be careful aligning the electrical tab on each "battery" with the slots in the orange plates, it took me several tries, because I had to straiten them all before putting the orange plates back on, then bend them all to screw them back into the orange plates.

The 20 "batteries" shown with their electrical tabs bent down, and the hardware I took off to get that far. All the battery pack required for this much disassembly was a 10 mm hex socket and a phillips screw driver.

When you put it back together, watch out for the four bolts that go from the control panel into the batteries, the ones hidden behind the rubber plugs, I shocked myself by holding the lower left bolt and then the bolt closest to the middle. It was definitely more than a standard 9V battery shock, but way less than sticking a knife in a 110V 15 Amp outlet. Honestly the dead battery pack might only have like 3-4 amps at this point at 144 volts, assuming that I got the full brunt of the battery pack, not some subset. Remember, it's the amps that kill not the volts.

Showing the recessed bolts that might shock you.

The process to replace the battery itself was very strait forward, it followed the Bumblebee video exactly, there were no design changes that were different between the video and my car. Would I do it again? Well, my parents recently bought a 2014 Prius C and I would be interested down the line to try and replace that hybrid battery. In other words, yes I would do it again.

I Bought a Car on eBay: Week 1

Well, my high enthusiasm is a little tempered this week after having spent more time in the little car driving about 600 miles. Oh, it's still awesome, but it's not prefect.

No cruise control is not fun. I knew that none of these cars came with cruise control, however, it has been years, 2006 to be exact, since I did any sort of mileage in a car without cruise control. However the software is configured there does not seem to be immediate response when I step on the pedals. Since this is a CVT, continuously variable transmission, there are basically two levers to pull when it comes to vehicle performance, the gear ratio on the CVT and the RPMs on the engine. Plus, there is the third level of the electric assist motor, and you definitely feel those 10 kW when they turn on. With most transmissions you have the option of RPMS on the engine and four to seven gears in a transmission, although with an automatic you really don't get the choice of which gear. One method is to keep the engine RPMs constant and simply vary the CVT. This typically results in the best fuel mileage, and I think that Honda's software goes this route, at least most of the time when I am not in sport mode. The challenge is when accelerating on the highway to pass a vehicle or after a slowdown for traffic, there is no increase in engine RPMs, and I have to keep pressing the pedal to get some response of increase in speed. In short, this is one area that either I have to learn how to drive better, or perhaps there is a software update to make the whole system more responsive in real time.

Speaking of software. There is a nifty feature called autostop. Other manufactures like BMW and Ford have a similar start-stop feature. It's just under the tachometer, and blinks when the engine is not running. Unfortunately, this only happens when the brake pedal is mostly depressed and I am going under four miles per hour or less. Comparing this to my parents 2014 Prius C whose engine doesn't even turn on until a certain speed when you start, and routinely turns off at higher speeds while slowing down, it feels like I am in the stone age. However, I suppose that because this is older technology, and it has a smaller battery

The Gasoline - Electric Spectrum

The chart describes the various categories. It's not the 100 year ago battle of electric vs. gas. Gas clearly won, but electric is slowly taking market share with a diversity of options.

As for the rest of the car, there are actually little tears on the seats. The car is not the most clean in the world, although my own van would rate even more dirty on the inside. There may be an issue with the valves or timing on the engine. Probably not, it's probably just not having much cabin insulation and having a little three cylinder engine that goes up to 5000 RPMs sometimes, that leads to some unexpected noises.

The gas mileage is not 60+ mpg in normal driving. At least not in the winter. On the 208 mile drive from my apartment to my parents I averaged 52.1 mpg on the drive there, and 46.9 mpg on the drive back, going into a 10-20 mph wind. The car has averaged 50.7 mpg over it's lifetime, and I do hear that mileage is better in the summer than the winter due to heating and not using the auto-stop feature very often in cold weather. I think because the mileage is there for you to view we simply notice the effects of driving with the wind or into the wind more than without a computer on the car tracking our mileage. The funny side is, the 10 gallon tank on the Insight can go about 500 miles, but the 17 gallon tank on my Previa can only get about 400 miles.

It's interesting, we shall continue to see how it progresses. As a side note, I did get collision insurance, and I just realized that for the last four years I have been driving my van with only liability, had an accident happened, the van would be totaled.

I Bought a Car on eBay: Day 1

Well, I did it, I bought a car on eBay. A used car with 144,400 miles on it from 2002.

New 2002 Honda Insight at Swiss Valley near Dubuque

It's crazy right? Buying a car sight unseen, no test drive, totally depending on the seller to give an accurate description and not sell a lemon. Well, first of all, eBay has buyer purchase protection, which is a simple thing that basically says, while it may not be what you thought it was, it's not going to be a disaster. 

Well, first of all some background. When it comes to cars, or really anything, I go all the way, or I usually don't bother. I run… I run so much and well enough that I will probably be going to the world championships in April in Italy. It's a blessing, a gift, that I have, yet I also work at it hours per day in serious training. I climb mountains… 8000 meter peaks, at least I try. I engineer… and I'm pretty good at it. Similarly, cars to me are these engineered things, one of the most engineered things out there with lots of moving parts, lots of functionality, a curiosity. The more unusual and specialized the better. Now that I work on heavy off-road vehicles I have even more appreciation for vehicles of all sorts. Why? I realized that any vehicle, any, is so complicated that any one person cannot possibly understand everything that goes into it. There are companies that specialize in transmissions, with tens of thousands of people, I'm thinking of ZF. That complexity is part of the interest. It is all within human understanding, just not all one person. In other words, I have a basic interest in cars.

Next, I consider myself a tree hugger. Technically, I am a conservationist leaning toward the preservation side with enough knowledge to know that toilet paper comes from trees and cell phones come from big mines. Energy and efficiency are big interests for me. For several reasons, energy costs money, and using less energy costs less money on a recurring basis. My parents, grandparents, my travels to Asia and Africa, and then my unemployment all reinforced the idea that just about everything is finite, some may be finite beyond our comprehension, like the Internet or water in the oceans, but other things like income and expenses and food are all very finite, and we are very fortunate in the USA to have them, and so much more, in spades. In other words, I really try hard not to be a wasteful person. 

In other words, the most fuel efficient mass production car ever made is the 1st generation Honda Insight made from 1999-2006. The covered rear wheels and tapered design scream, "No compromises! This thing is out to get the best mileage we possibly can (without using carbon fiber)!" Every time I have seen one of the old Honda Insights out on the road I think, that's a cool car. It's something that has lingered in the back of my mind for some time that I would like to have one. 

Well, my van, which I fully intend to keep driving, is having trouble starting, has a number of problems, and the rust is accelerating. I just don't feel it is as reliable now as it was the last seven years I have been driving it. For example, it has an electrical problem on the engine, exposed to the road underneath the front seats, so that if I drive through more than two inches of water, it usually dies, and has to dry out for 10-15 minutes on the side of the road before it will run again. That could be a problem with snow this coming the winter. As I thought of how it might finally fail I considered that it would probably be an expensive repair, maybe something with the alternator or transmission, not to mention my exhaust needs work, and I would likely be faced with $1000+ in repair bills, maybe the value of the vehicle. At which point the financial part of me would determine I need to just send it to the junk yard, or sell as is and buy something more reliable that is newer, and during that time I would probably rent a car for a week or two or three. Not a terrible expense, if I have to rent a car for a month once every eight years when my old one falls apart that's not a huge problem. However, being at the mercy of the seller when I don't have a functioning car is not a bargaining position I desire to have. The proactive approach is to buy a car ahead of the old one falling apart.

So as I'm on eBay and Cargurus looking at various cars for sale across the country, I stumbled upon a 2002 Honda Insight about two hours west of Dubuque for sale at a price that I thought was very fair. The big catch was that the seller warned of the IMA (Integrated Motor Assist) battery needing some care. I thought that meant it would have to be replaced, and likely today. So I figured I would have to spend $2000 on a new 76 pound 1.1-4 kWhr battery to be able to use the thing regularly. So I bid, and asked the seller if it would make it back to Dubuque. He said no problem. Now I start to get a little excited, this car might be in better shape then I thought. 

I bid on the first auction, pretty low to see how badly he wanted to sell, he came back with a higher counter offer, and I made a second offer close to his counter offer. Unfortunately the auction ended without him selecting my bid, or any other bid. So he reposted it 20 minutes later between his counter offer and my second offer, and I bought it. In that time I looked at other Insights and decided that to me, the price he had offered was fair and I wanted it. Who knows when I might have another chance like this? Only about 17,000 of these things ever existed, and they have not been made since 2006, so they are getting rarer by the month, and this one is only two hours away. If I want one, that I can pick up in person, this was my chance, this was my unicorn.

Saturday my dad was gracious enough to drive all the way down from Sheboygan, pick me up in my parents new Prius C and then drive two hours to a small town in central Iowa. It was nice to spend a couple hours talking. The older I get the more I appreciate my parents. We pull into town and call the seller, R. He was getting rid of this car because he had just bought a Nissan Leaf. Talk about out of place, small towns in Iowa don't have Nissan Leafs sitting on main street, they have every variety of US made pickup. In other words, he's a tech guy, as an engineer, that's a good sign. It means to me he probably understands the system better than most. We did a quick walk around then took a short test drive. At the first stop after driving 200 feet the brakes squeaked, and I thought, 'great… I have to replace the brakes, he didn't mention anything about that.' So I'm starting to get a little nervous. However, as we drive around the country block (one mile by one mile) I notice that the IMA light is not on, signaling the battery is not in terrible shape, and it charges and discharges, that's a really good sign. He didn't have any pictures of the seats on eBay, so when I see no major stains and no rips or tears, I'm pretty excited, this thing is in better condition than I thought. Then he shows me the home made stereo system he put in with a subwoofer, and I realize, while I am not a big sound system guy, that he's put some money into this thing, in a good way. He goes through the list of everything he's replaced from brakes a year and a half ago (which sound fine now that I've had a few more stops), to headlights, tires, and a number of other things. During the short ten minute test drive I'm starting to get more excited, R undersold. 

You see, in Iowa, and the midwest in general, and small towns especially, honesty is a big deal. We trade on our reputation. You won't make it far in a small town by cheating people and dealing dishonest, people talk. I realized that everything he discussed in a modest way about the car, that scared other buyers away, were not as bad as we feared. He was simply being honest, and comparing his 12 year old car with 144,000 miles to his new Nissan Leaf. A difficult comparison to be sure, clearly the new car is better, but also worth 10 times as much. 

I count this as a huge eBay buying success! Having driven about 175 miles on it so far it is in great condition, compared to my 1993 Toyota Previa of course. I plan to write another post after one week, one month, one season, and one year, and maybe after unusual incidents like the first repair or letting someone else drive it. Two things about this, yes it only has two seats, and it does not have cruise control. I will probably have cruise control installed so that it is easier to take on longer drives. I plan to take better care of this car than I took of my Previa, like wash it, have some maintenance done at the dealer, garage park it as much as I can. I see this as an iconic historic car. I want it to last a long time. Even longer than my Toyota Previa. Also, yes, I want YOU to drive it! So when the weather is half decent, I'll be offering free test drives. If I don't offer, just ask. This is inspired by Doug DeMuro who let all his friends drive his Ferrari, because let's face it, it you have something cool, it's way better to share that with your friends than hoard it to yourself. I blog because I want to share my life with my family and friends, and even strangers. I'm far too blessed and wealthy to be more selfish than I already am. Thanks for reading this super long article! Merry Christmas!