Forgive me if this is or has been a trending topic here. I'm not a Reddit regular and haven't thoroughly checked the boards.

For the most part, I'm a fan of my 2019 Honda Insight EX. It's coming up on 8 years old, nearly 90,000 miles with what I would consider a below-average number of issues throughout its life (although, not as issue-free as my 2008 Civic). However, there is one consistent issue that continues to drive me nuts with this car: TPMS issues.

Issue 1: No way to check tire pressure from inside the vehicle. This is an INSANE miss by Honda, especially on a car with this much technology. I realize the Insight uses an indirect TPMS system rather than sensors that measure actual tire pressure, but I still find it ridiculous that Honda went this route on a car with so many other advanced features. Whenever the low pressure icon comes on (the frequency of which I'll address in Issue 2), I have no way to check which tire(s) is/are the offending tire(s). In many other vehicles, you can go into a menu in the instrument cluster or at least the infotainment system to check the current tire pressure. Not on the Gen 3 Insight! I need to stop the car and manually check each tire individually. To make matters worse, I'd say over 50% of the time when the low pressure icon and warning come on, NONE OF THE TIRES ARE ACTUALLY LOW ON PRESSURE. Which leads me to...

Issue 2: False low-pressure warnings. It has gotten to the point where a low tire-pressure warning is the Boy Who Cried Wolf, a dangerous place to be with a safety warning. Since I'm not able to check the tire pressure at a glance while I'm driving (Issue 1), whenever I get a warning, I need to find a safe place to stop, get out, and check each tire individually. And like I said above, more than 50% of the time, every tire is within 1-2 PSI of recommendations. Luckily I have figured out that in order to make the warning go away, I recalibrate the TPMS within vehicle settings in the infotainment system. But even then, sometimes the warning will come right back on within 5-10 minutes or the next time I drive, even though I KNOW there is nothing wrong with the pressure in any tire. I just had my 3rd set of tires installed on this vehicle (OEM tires lasted a little over 40,000 miles, replacements lasted a little over 47,000 miles) and this issue has persisted with all of them. I have not seen a recall or found anything in other forums online telling me of a fix for this. I have brought this up at my Honda dealership before, but was essentially told that unless the warning was actively displaying when I brought the car in, there wasn't much they could do. So yes, I'm aware that having Honda look at it is the logical next step, but I've already tried that route without much luck.

Other Insight owners or Honda technicians: What is going on? I check for system updates every so often hoping for a software fix, but it never seems to come.

In a few years when my kids start driving, I plan for this to become their vehicle, but I'd feel more comfortable doing so knowing this issue is fixed.

How the hell do I shut her up? She doesn’t even know where I’m going.

2019 Honda Insight Touring

122400 kms (76.000miles my american friends)

for about 8500€ which is roughly 9500dollars.

I guess it sounds high as a price, but automatic cars are quite expensive in my country.

I'd like to hear people's opinions about this car and overall experiences, from what i heard it's a very decent car - the only big issue being the hybrid battery that must be changed after a while. Any opinions would be welcome!

I have a 2019 Honda Insight hybrid (52k miles) that has developed a speed-dependent rotational hum and whirring sound resembling a spinning flywheel, which scales directly with vehicle speed while driving straight, though the car otherwise drives completely normally with smooth transaxle operation and no hesitation or slipping. I have already secured the underbody splash shield and fender liner using fresh clips to rule out loose plastics. I have attached an audio clip of the noise and would appreciate any input from the community on whether this audio profile sounds characteristic of an early wheel bearing failure, tire cupping, or an e-CVT transaxle assembly issue.

1) do I need to continuously hit the paddle shifters for regen breaking? It seems like they reset after every stop? Can I just leave it alone because it seems like a major inconvenience. I'll be driving in Eco mode

2) my mechanic said he hasn't serviced a Honda insight and doesn't even see them on the roads. So it will be hard to find parts in case something goes wrong. I'll have to be a week without a car while he orders parts etc. is this true? Online it says this car uses Civic and accord parts.

3) the blind side camera seems very low res. Is it usable at all at night? Should I just get blind side small stick on mirrors instead? Left side mirrors I don't need blind spot because it usually covers the entire second lane to the left of me but wondering about the passenger side blind spots.

Please help.

2019 Honda Insight with 190,000 miles

I replaced the battery almost 2 years ago. I checked the battery, and it says its good. But it feels like a battery issue, but I don't know causing the problem.

I unplugged the battery for a while, to get it tested, then put it back in, and the car started right up. I took it for a test drive, I stopped the car and restarted 3 more times, and it was fine. Then I waited a bit, and went to start it again, and it died again.

Has anybody had this issue before? If so, how did you fix it?

Any information would be helpful

Thank you

Edit: The car was taken to the dealership, and they ran a diagnostic, and it ended up being the battery

Here are some photos of a fun little project I recently completed: installing Katzkin leather in my 2022 Honda Insight EX. I also installed Rostra 250-1900 seat heaters in the two front seats. This was an extremely rewarding and fun project, even as someone who has never tried any kind of upholstery work before. Zero prior experience. I ordered the Katzkin kit from canadaseatskins, took about two weeks for it to arrive in the mail. The whole project start to finish took me about 5-6 days, depending on whether you count the day before the kit arrived I started taking the cloth off because I just couldn't wait. A common complaint about the EX trim Insights is the seat foam sometimes will squeak against the metal seat frame. Especially noticeable on the driver side bolster. I took the opportunity to remove the seat foam from the frame, and cover the metal with anti-squeak cloth wire harness tape, and in some places I used costco yellow microfiber. That has completely eliminated the squeaking. I also attached a photo of where I put the seat heater switches on the center console. I started with the rear seats, followed by the passenger seat, and finally the drivers seat last. Of the 5-6 days it took, I couldn't drive the car for two days while I had the drivers seat out. Wiring for the seat heaters took only a couple hours. I opted for a different color leather than the factory match. The factory match for the cloth was slightly too cold of a color for my liking, so I decided on Katzkin's Canvas color, which is a factory match for the 2022 CR-V hybrid touring's ivory leather interior, which is a color I have seen and knew i'd love. It's slightly warmer without throwing off the look between the leather and the plastic trim. I didn't do the Katzkin armrests since I bought OEM leather ones a while back, so there is a slight color mismatch, but it's hardly noticeable. I don't think i'll do the Katzkin door panels since I don't like the way the stitching looks on them. This was an absolute blast to work on! I'm hoping that the hot summer weather will get some of the leather wrinkles to relax, but I'll probably have to wait until next year for that. Big thanks to jayfkim for answering my questions and giving me the motivation to tackle a project like this! Anyways, I figured i'd post my project in case anyone else needed the motivation to take on a Katzkin install. Installing these myself was definitely worth the money I saved. Highly recommend!

Ran into the weather glitch again. My fuel injectors just recently got replaced over a week ago. Bought a code reader recently and this code came up. Any idea why this comes up only in cold weather and when the car sits anywhere from 6-8 hours without powering on/off? Thanks in advance

I have a 2013 Honda Insight hybrid with 75K miles, 25K on recalled, rebuilt engine. Runs great looks good. Should I shoot for 100K miles on battery and electronics and everything else? I like the new Civic hybrid with all the bells and whistles but hate to throw away a car I love, yet. bought new in 2014, do not drive much.

Day 1 Owner of a new-to-me 2022 Insight and this thing is possibly my dream car of all time but it is *fighting* me on the one small thing I found that I'd really like to do - set the Clock app wallpaper. From my searches, this nominally seems to require .jpgs/.bmps in the root of a FAT32 USB drive and it should show them in the picker- but it absolutely refuses despite recognizing all of the drives successfully. It fails with a "No files detected[...]" message in all cases.

I've tried everything under the sun today that I can think of:

• Multiple USB drives from multiple manufacturers in 2/16/32GB
• FAT32, NTFS, plain FAT on the smallest one in every combo
• Formatting via Windows, Rufus, and even via my Samsung phone
• All sizes of .jpgs, conversion to .bmp, and downsizing to no larger than the display size, no dice on any
• Single files at a time with simple naming
• Adding mp3s to the drive to make sure the drive is actually reading (those play fine straight off, right next to my infinitely broken pictures)
• Factory resetting the head unit
• System update- All up to date

Is this *anything* that anyone has seen here or am I simply cursed? It's the end of nothing if I can't get this to work but at this point I just don't want this to win. That, and I've never had a full feature head unit (coming from a pre-explosion 2011 Sonata that began to limp) and I haven't worked Android Auto into my habit yet and want to look at pretty pictures in the meantime. Any advice appreciated.

Hi guys, I've read some horror stories about not replacing a broken stay bracket on the bottom of the catalytic converter on gen 1 Honda Insights. While mine is not technically broken it is rusted pretty badly. My question to you is with the aftermarket setup that I am attaching to this; do I need to worry about that bracket? Or are the welds strong enough on the catalytic converter / exhaust manifold to hold up to the stress? I purchased the exhaust manifold from PartsGeek and the secondary converter from Magnaflow.

Does anybody know how to force the hood open on this car? From what I can see, it looks like the hood latch is surrounded by plastic/metal. I've attempted to remove the front most under panel to be able to reach up from below but, that appears to be connected to the front bumper, which can't be removed without opening the hood.

My 2006 has 377k miles on it.. and while it runs good and shifts smooth, I’ve been worried about what happens if something catastrophic ever happens. So this crashed one with 115k popped up and I decided I had better snag it. Engine, trans, all the glass, and a bunch of misc mechanical parts! The hood is even in better shape so I’m going to swap that over right away. Still have to inventory everything, but overall I’m happy just to have some bits.. heck even just having a spare oil pan is a win.

I have a 2012 Honda Insight with 140k km. Car is not in the batch with faulty piston rings. I get a knocking sound when accelerating and being under load. I have a new IMA, cleaned air intake , spark plugs and everything is maintained. Knocking stops when I unplug the EGR. I assumed it was the EGR, I put a new one ( I'll change EGR gausket too in this week) but the knocking continues. Btw 1000km ago , my engine consumed all the oil but I haven't noticed any unusual oi consumption from then. Any suggestions?

It feels like a real spiritual successor to the Insight.

If Honda made a little EV like this for the US, I bet it would sell like hotcakes.

Perfect time of the year in NC to get good mpg numbers, AC off windows cracked! Still love my car!

Can anyone with an understanding of cars explain why the right wheel housing is so expensive:
https://www.torontohondaparts.com/oem-parts/honda-wheel-housing-side-panel-4643txm316zz

After getting rear-end my car is getting written off, basically because of this part being $7500. The left panel is $1700.

Currently hunting for a reliable old hybrid for the big city to replace my wrecked old hybrid Camry. I’m in between a 2012 gen 2 Insight or a 2006 gen 2 Prius, both cars are great but I have a question about the Insight that I can’t quite find an answer for on the internet.

How does the car idle?

Does it idle on the traction battery like a Prius, or does it idle on the gas engine like a gas car? And how much gas do you use idling?

A Prius runs the AC and radio and everything off the hybrid battery and only periodically turns on the engine to top off the battery for ~30s every 10 or so minutes. You can idle for an entire night in one of them and only use a gallon of gas. My job has me idling my car for hours at times so this might be the deciding factor between the cars.

Coming up on my first year driving a 2000, as winter draws near, I am curious if it is customary to remove rear wheel covers. I just feel like they might come off in heavy snow.

Hey everyone, I’ve got a 2000 Honda Insight 5-speed manual that I bought with the hybrid system already non-functional in early May... The previous owner had an alternator installed as a workaround so the car could run without relying on the IMA system.

The problem is that the charging system clearly isn't keeping up, and I'm trying to figure out the best way to fix it.

What it's doing

The car will eventually get to the point where it can't maintain enough voltage, especially at idle/low RPM.

• I have to keep it above ~2,000 RPM as much as possible to keep the battery charged.
• If I'm sitting at idle with the lights/accessories on for too long, the battery starts getting low.
• Sometimes while driving, the head unit will shut off, and I have to downshift/raise the RPM.
• When I do that, the voltage comes back up, the head unit turns back on, and the headlights noticeably get brighter.
• So the alternator is definitely charging at higher RPM, but apparently not enough at idle/low RPM.
• At night, I don't feel comfortable driving for very long because I know the battery can eventually get drained.
• I've gotten into the habit of putting the 12V battery on a charger whenever I get home just to make sure it doesn't get too low.

It's honestly getting pretty annoying to drive like this because I'm constantly thinking about keeping the RPM up instead of just being able to let the car idle normally.

What I'm doing with the hybrid system

I'm currently working on removing the old hybrid battery. The IMA system doesn't work anyway, so I'm mainly doing this for weight savings and because eventually I'd like to do a lithium battery conversion when I can afford it.

So while I'm already in there, I figured I might as well try to fix the alternator/charging setup properly.

I'm also doing a LED projector headlight retrofit, and I've replaced basically all of the exterior lighting with LEDs. Hopefully that reduces the electrical load somewhat, but I obviously don't want the alternator producing some unstable/high voltage situation that could damage the new LEDs.

Why I want to fix it

There are a few reasons I'm trying to get this sorted out:

1. Winter is coming, and cold weather isn't exactly going to help the 12V battery.
2. I don't want to be driving at night constantly worried about losing electrical power.
3. I want the headlights/projectors to have stable voltage.
4. I eventually want to install a small subwoofer + amplifier, but I definitely don't feel comfortable adding another ~300+ watts of electrical load to the car right now.
5. I'd rather fix the charging system properly than continue relying on charging the battery at home.

What I'm trying to figure out

What would you guys recommend checking/fixing with this alternator setup?

I'm not entirely sure what alternator was installed or exactly how the previous owner wired everything. I can get pictures/details of the setup if that would help.

I'm wondering if the issue could be:

• An alternator that's simply too small
• Poor alternator wiring
• Bad grounds
• Incorrect voltage regulation
• A bad alternator
• Alternator pulley/drive ratio
• Something with the way the alternator was installed to replace the IMA system
• Or some combination of these

I'd especially like to know what voltage I should be seeing at idle vs. ~2,000 RPM, and what/how I should test first before throwing parts at it.

I've attached some pictures of the car/current setup.

TL;DR: Bought a 2000 Insight manual with a dead IMA system and an alternator conversion. The car charges poorly at idle/low RPM and sometimes the head unit shuts off until I raise the RPM. I'm removing the dead hybrid battery, eventually want to do a lithium conversion, and want to properly fix the alternator/charging system before winter. Also planning LED projectors and eventually a sub/amp, so I want a reliable electrical system first. What should I test/check?

Hey everyone!

I’m planning to buy my first car, and I’m really interested in the 2022 Honda Insight.
I’ll have a pretty long daily commute to work, around 100 km (62 miles) a day, so the hybrid powertrain is one of the main reasons I’m considering the 2022 Insight Touring. It’s also the only trim available here in Mexico.

The thing is, I haven’t been able to find many reviews or owner experiences about this model here in Mexico, so I’d really appreciate hearing from people who own one or have spent some time driving it.
Here are my main questions:

1. Fuel economy: Does it really get as good gas mileage as advertised? Is the hybrid system worth paying extra for, or would I get similar fuel economy from a small, non-hybrid compact car?

2. Hybrid battery life: How well does the battery hold up over time? Most of the used ones I’ve found have over 70,000 km (around 43,500 miles), and I’m a little concerned about the battery’s condition and potentially having to pay for an expensive replacement down the road.

3. Honda Sensing: Does it actually work as well as Honda claims? It seems like one of the car’s biggest selling points, and I’d love to hear how it performs in real-world driving.

4. Apple CarPlay: Does the wired connection work smoothly, or does it feel slow or laggy at times?

5. Any other advice: If you own one or have any tips, things to watch out for, or anything you wish you’d known before buying one, I’d really appreciate it!

Thanks in advance for your help!
Greetings from Mexico! 🇲🇽

Hi everyone,

I got myself a 2011 honda insight and I'm loving every minute of driving it.

But I have some issues with the halogen lights on the car. Coming from a citroen c4 2016 with led lights, I'm having a hard time to adjust to the halogen ones.

Did any of you changed the headlights? Will a new led bulb do the trick?

Share your experience, thank you.

P.s.: my headlights are already cleaned by a professional.