2005 Honda Insight

Honda lost money on every one of the early Insight models it sold but that was the price to pay for cutting your teeth on the new technology that wouldn?t pay off for years to come. Some have speculated that it cost Honda upwards of $50,000 to build each Insight, while Honda insiders put that figure at under $30K. Regardless, the price new of this Honda Insight was over $20,000! Good fully sorted used ones now sell for a quarter that. When gas prices go up, so will the price of these cars. They can easily go 400,000 miles with out major repairs and with an aluminum body, it's not subject to rust issues that most older cars have.

Great car,not a lot of car,but good for what it is made for. High road noise,is only minus for the insight.

I just bought my used 2005 Insight a couple of days ago, from an out-of-state dealership. I spent the next two days driving it 1030 miles to get it home. What a pleasure! Pluses: Way better acceleration than the 73 HP would lead you to believe - my other car has 175 HP, so I expected a bit less out of the Insight, but I was really happy. I tend to have a heavy foot on the gas when driving on the freeway, and the Insight and I got along VERY well. Even with that, I got 45 mpg. I expect my daily commutes will give me 50+ mpg with no problem. I don't have any real expectations of getting 60+ mpg, but I will change this review or create a new one if I see high 50's or low 60's on a consistent basis. Nimble steering and braking - I appreciated it! I am over 6 ft tall and 210#, and there was plenty of comfortable legroom, head room and shoulder room. Minuses: Highe level of road and exterior noise on poorer quality road surfaces. Tires tend to pick up vibration from older chewed up road surfaces and send it into the cabin space. This is NOT a problem on the average or better freeway or street. Small tires tend to get grabbed by seams in the road, like where some truck gouged out a groove in the asphalt by driving a flat tire, or where the road crews are gouging out lane markers with their road grinders. Avoid those, and you're ok. I am used to a slightly better standard sound system. The one in the Insight is ok, but you might want to upgrade it if you are really picky about your tunes. I am not sure what I will do about this yet. No center console/arm rest for the driver's right arm. I will have to come up with something to fulfill this function. Finally, the sun visors could stand to be another 6 inches longer, or on extension-type mountings, so you can effectively shield your eyes from sun coming in your side window. As they are short, I will have to fabricate some kind of a homemade extension for them.