The Honda Insight has some great credits to its name. The first hybrid that ever went on sale in the US market, it’s lauded for its smart engineering its excellent fuel efficiency. It might soon have one extra commendation to its name—joining the rarefied club of vehicles to cross the million-mile mark.
A million miles. That’s forty full laps around the Earth we call home. It’s also a really, really long way to drive a car. Vanishingly few vehicles make it half that distance before the odometer turns its last. Most are claimed by rust or collisions long before then, or they’re consigned to the scrapheap as vital parts fail and repairs become uneconomic. It takes true dedication to get a car anywhere near seven figures, both in maintenance and the sheer will to actually drive it that far.
As far as the world knows, no Honda Insight has ever made this vaunted milestone. For one owner, it’s become a personal quest.
Opportunity
David Andrew is a car enthusiast like any other. He appreciates the machinery, appreciates the form, and enjoys a good drive. Only, his predilection drifts a little outside the norm. He’s not out there collecting old Mustangs or wrenching on drift cars in his front yard. His passion lies with the Honda Insight, the hybrid marvel that first hit the market some 25 years ago. He’s owned a small flock over the years, but his latest purchase, he told me, has a richer story than most.
“I ended up finding this car through a Facebook car friend,” David tells me. “He told me a guy was at his dealership with a very high mileage Honda Insight and he was considering selling it to someone but only if they promised to keep it on the road and nurse it back to health.” David already owned an Insight, a manual model that served as his daily driver. And yet, this car was too special to ignore. “I’ve owned a handful of Insights now so I told him to let the owner know I would be up to the challenge,” he told me. A nickname soon came about. “The car’s name is Miles,” David says, fittingly.
The journey to a million miles is a long one, and seldom made alone. Indeed, that was the case here, with the odometer reading a mighty 980,000 miles when it came into David’s possession. He’d instantly seen the opportunity at hand. “I can’t take credit for all the miles,” he says. “The previous owner bought it all the way back in 2002 and put almost every mile on it up until my ownership.”
For the previous owner, most of those miles were racked up on business, he tells me. “He bought it in 2002 with 11,000 miles on it, [and] he drove between dealerships for work, constantly,” says David.
Eventually, though, the strain of keeping the noble machine alive grew too great. “He works so much that he needed to get a different car since this one finally was showing its age and stalling a lot and making him uncomfortable driving it,” David explains. It was a tough call to make for the previous owner, but one that had to be made. “He knew if he kept it that it would sit until he retired,” he says. “So, he passed the baton onto me to let me carry it the rest of the way to a million.”
All those miles have taken quite a toll, but it’s still mostly the same car that came out of the factory. “The vehicle is on its original engine,” David explains. “It’s on the original rear brakes, and it’s on its third automatic transmission and third hybrid battery.” It’s a ringing endorsement of Honda’s 1.1-liter ECA1 inline three, if ever there was one. Even the CVT transmission and battery should still get some credit, given each has lasted over 300,000 miles on average. “I have a special grid charger for the battery, I hope will keep it functional for the rest of its lifetime,” David says. “But swapping the batteries is very easy and I’ve done it before, so if I have to do it again, I will!”
Curve Balls
When David picked up the car a year ago, it was already tantalizingly close to a million, reading 982,474 miles on the dash. Everything seemed straightforward enough: he’d do a little maintenance, drive the car regularly, and soon enough hit his goal. He even got some media coverage for his pending attempt at the milestone, and he couldn’t wait to get started. Unfortunately, though, as often happens, real life got in the way. “My wife got cancer, I had health issues, we lost our pup, had a family drama fallout…” David tells me. “It was a long year.”
Not helping matters was the state of the car when he picked it up. It wasn’t idling right, was low on power, and seemed to be burning oil to boot. “I didn’t drive it for almost a year,” David says. “I was under the impression the engine had low compression on a cylinder and didn’t want to kill it.” Stacked up against more important things going on, the Insight had to fade into the background. “This wasn’t my daily driver, so I was able to just kind of put it on the back burner,” he says. “I felt terrible doing so, but my family had to come first.”
Eventually, though, clouds parted and things improved. With David’s wife now cancer-free and the world looking brighter, he’s been able to turn his eyes back to the Insight. His first order of business? Trying to figure out what was up with the engine.
A compression test was the first order of business, with worn rings perhaps the most obvious suspect for poor performance and oil loss. “It tested 180, 181, 179 on all three cylinders,” says David, a remarkably good result that seemed to suggest the problem lies elsewhere.
He kept hunting, but to no avail. “I checked the valves a couple weeks ago and they’re all in spec,” he notes. “I ordered an oxygen sensor, if that doesn’t help I’ll grab some injectors, and if that doesn’t help, I’ll slowly swap parts from my other insight until the problem goes away.”
The car isn’t undrivable, but it’s obviously struggling, David explains. “It’s just slower than it should be and can’t idle on its own,” he says. “It’s also just slow from a stop, especially on hills … it feels great on back roads and the highway… I’m kinda stumped, but it’s a drivable project.”
Unfortunately, despite the engine’s woes, it’s throwing no codes that might help guide his diagnosis. “I tried a new PCV and EGR, and it didn’t make any difference,” he says. “Timing is good, fuel trims look good, all ECU readings seem normal … [but] I’m sadly only getting a terrible 40 miles per gallon.” That’s a long way off the EPA rating of 53 mpg combined. “I fear it may just be worn out, and it has lots of blow by,” he muses. “It’s so difficult diagnosing an issue like this cause every single issue could be ‘Well, it has a million miles on it, maybe it’s just that.’”
However, he has a sneaky plan that should get him to his goal. “I installed an oil catch can now because it’s burning through oil quite quickly, but not enough that I can’t keep an eye on it and keep it topped off,” he chuckles. “Its condition has not changed in the last 1200 miles I’ve put on these last couple weeks, so I think it can make another 16,000 miles or so.” The mechanical issues remain unclear, but he’s not phased. “Miles could simply just be tired,” he laughs. “He deserves a nice nap, as soon as he hits a million!”
The Big Push
At the time of writing, the odometer sits at 983,724 miles. David’s plan is to simply use Miles as much as possible to rack up the final distance necessary. “I do delivery and courier work and use my personal vehicles, so I’ll be adding this to the fleet as often as I can to try and rack up the miles as quick as possible,” he says. “Now I’m driving this car every day, 100 to 200 miles a day, so I hope I make it up there quick.”
Despite the challenges, he’s confident he’ll go all the way. “It’s slow, it burns oil, the valves are begging for forgiveness… but it keeps going,” he says. “It doesn’t overheat, every single thing still works, and it even has ice cold AC, which is all original as well.” That should help provide some comfort on the long drive to the finish line.
The question remains: what happens at a million? “I’ve heard the odometer will stay at all nines, and I’ve also heard it will roll back to zero, but this is the first Insight to ever hit a million so we actually don’t know!” David says. Short of raiding Honda for the ECU’s source code, driving the car the rest of the way is perhaps the easiest way to find out.
David looks forward to celebrating once he’s completed this grand achievement. “We plan on having a party for the car once it hits that milestone,” he says. “Maybe an Insight-shaped cake with ‘999999’ in birthday candles on top or something.” He’s also eager to share the moment. “I’ll be inviting the last owner back to wherever I am so we can both be in the car when it hits the million mark,” he says. “I update him about his ‘son’ all the time … it’s the first one in the world that’s ever gone this far!”
For now, there’s still 16,000 miles to go before all that. “I’m hoping to hit a million before 2026 if the car doesn’t suffer any major breakdowns and I can stay busy with work,” David says. “But those variables can all change!”
Ultimately, David has a great opportunity here. He gets to be one of the first to help push a Honda Insight beyond the mythical million-mile mark. It might be an arbitrary figure, and perhaps it doesn’t have a lot of deeper meaning. That doesn’t mean it’s not worthy. In this world, you set your own goals, and you make your own fun. As an enthusiast, David’s found a car that he loves, and something he really wants to do with it. He’s certainly going to have one hell of a party when he finally pulls it off.
Image credits: David Andrew
980k miles with an unreliable timing belt equipped engine???
Whaaaa???
I had one and loved it. It was a 2000 5mt. It was the only car where you are really engaged the whole time you’re driving it. You’re trying to squeeze every last mpg your can. The way the gauges are set up it’s like playing a game.
I’ve always had a thing for the 1st gen insights. I think there is a real place for them historically and really like the styling. Part of me would love a minty fresh one, the other part wants a k swapped monster.
i had a 2004 5MT in red that i positively adored. when i was an IBMer, i drove 60k miles a year. bought with 208k and sold at 320k for what i paid for it. in that time, i did rear wheel bearings, tires and oil changes.. and thats it. i did the current mod, which really helped pep it up. not the most comfortable place to be, but i averaged 70MPG while dodging detroit’s potholes and and keeping up with traffic. it didnt make the cut when i moved to colorado, i had 5 cars and realistically could only bring two. Man i miss that car.
This story is making me want another. Owned one in the same colour as this car (Silver Stone Metallic) about a decade ago. Only put about 14k miles on it over two years (the first year was a higher proportion of that, since I bought an MX-5 too and ended up driving that a lot more) but over that distance it did 71.6mpg imperial/59.7mpg US without much effort.
While it being aluminium was obviously good for weight/strength originally, the biggest benefit now (in the UK at least, and I imagine snowbelt US states) is that the body will never be the thing to let it down (also why the Audi A2 makes so much sense here).
I always wanted just a little more performance, so if I found one with a tired engine these days I think I’d struggle to resist the devil on my shoulder telling me to K-swap it (it’d really move even with one of the non-spicy 150hp-ish Ks), but a million miles on this 1-litre shows the benefits of the hybrid tech really taking the strain off the engine – leaning on the motor for low-revs torque and bigger throttle openings certainly gives a tiny engine less work to do.
Fyi its a 1.0 (closer to 0.9 actually) engine.
997cc
It is indeed a 1.0, though at 995cc, it’s closer to 1.0 than 0.9.
Million Miles Insight
Is that a goal or a sentence imposed by Lemongrab
I met this guy at a local Car gathering here in da ‘burgh. Super nice guy, really sold me on the 1st gen Insight truly being one of the best cars Honda has ever made, a real feat of engineering might.
If they still made them I would take a manual. Would be perfect for my daily needs most of the time.
Sadly they can’t make such a thing again.
I don’t doubt “Miles” can go the distance. I owned two that were nearing the 300k miles mark and running strong.
These were Honda’s fuel-economy supercar, and they had the tech to go with it:
* The body and many components are aluminum, which means the body stays rust free and solid (though bimetallic corrosion of attached steel parts is a pain).
* The cars were built alongside the NSX and the S2000 in Japan, so quality was excellent.
* The engines employed VTEC and lean burn technologies (American CVT models did not have lean burn). The cylinders were offset from the crankshaft so the power stroke pushed straight down in the crank, leading to lower friction and wear.
* One of the first uses of stop-start trechnology.
* The integrated motor assist (IMA) replaced the flywheel and boosted low end grunt, which meant the engine rarely lugged in normal driving.
* The IMA battery and control system are relatively simple and serviceable. The car can run without the IMA if necessary.
* Coefficient of drag was super low to assist with efficiency as well.
* The cars are surprisingly simple and serviceable.
Godspeed, David Andrews!
While there wasn’t huge parts commonality with other Hondas, I did like that it had a plastic-fantastic version of the S2000’s steering wheel too. Since S2000 people can’t keep their car on the road there’s a ready supply of nice leather wheels to swap into the Insight…
Do other inline engines do that?
Offset to crank?
Dunno. Only ever heard of it on the Insight, but seems like a smart trick. Could work on a V engine too, though the block would look a little funny with one bank higher than the other.
I heard of a modification like this talking to the stroker guys radically modifying heads and blocks.
I thought I must be misunderstanding at the time, but that has to be what they were talking about.
VW Rabbit diesels had start-stop in the early ’80s. And they weren’t the first either.
That’s impressive for a diesel! Was the reason fuel saving, or something else?
Fuel savings. Was part of an extra economy savings package including a double-overdrive 5spd gearbox. I actually put one of those gearboxes in my ’84 Jetta GLI. Silly low revs at highway speed.
The car looks surprisingly good for a million miles
That’s awesome, I’m trying to calculate if I’ve even cumulatively driven a million miles in my 30+ years of driving, I’m not sure I’ve even done half that, dang that’s a lot of seat time.
Yeah, 30 years for me and I think I’m around 200k in all cars, combined. I have to estimate because I never solely drove a single vehicle more than 50k without at least sharing it or passing it along.
I’ll never know because I drove company cars for more than 15 years and rental cars on vacations and for work for 40+ years. My own personal cars have accumulated (doing the approximate math) about 660K miles over roughly 52 years and 12 vehicles, which is not exceptional by any means. I’ve done about 30K on motorcycles over the same period. The top four marathoners have been a ’71 Perugeot 504 (90K I put on it after it already had 60K on the clock and was still going strong when it was rear-ended and totaled), an ’86 Honda Accord (125K), a 2001 VW Jetta TDI (167K) and my current 2017 Accord (65K). The second and third were driving fine when I sold them. The miles listed were just the ones I put on them and not their final numbers.
I know what will happen at 1M miles. The Autopian will buy it for some ridiculously low price, back it into a fixed object, and then try to drive it across the country in a widespread snowstorm.
Torch, get some “field expedient” repairs ready.
can’t forget the part where it falls off the delivery truck sponsored by Copart
It’ll wrap it in lime green xpel and make Adrian drive it.
If the odometer does roll over I’d love to see the listing on BAT. “Ultra low mileage Insight, some wear.”
I came here to up the comment clock by *one* because these headlines copy, man what a constant treat. in-sight….
Do an EV conversion of it after 1 million miles, and it is liable to go another 1 million miles, with even less drama.
The wildly underrated Insight proves battery cars are a deadend drive-in.
Friend has a couple with hundreds of thousands of miles on both.
He was deliberately hit by a semi so hard he couldn’t find his phone or gun.
He managed to out drive the truck and get behind a barrier.
The astonishing thing is how little damage the car suffered from this.
The Honda Insight makes most cars look like they were engineered by monkeys handed cadcam software.
Wow. That’s a story that needs to be told.
I’ve on a couple of occasions had to make a crash avoidance maneuver that managed to generate enough of a G to fling my phone somewhere, but I don’t shoot and drive, and carry no open heat in my car.
I’m wondering what kind of road rage incident incited a deliberate attack by a semi driver.
I’m not sure I understand what you were trying to say with your first sentence, but I’m glad your friend survived without further complications.
Deadend Drive-In is an Australian post apocalyptic science fiction film about the government’s response to economic collapse, by detaining unemployed young people in camps converted from movie venues.
You enter, but don’t exit.
I have been aware that battery cars based on current technology is a technical deadend compared to hyper efficient light vehicles exploiting current fuel technology, like the Insight, and others.
Kinda Hotel California?
“You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave,”
Exactly!
It’s very dystopian political science fiction.
One of the best from Australia.
The truck driver was never caught so there is only guessing.
The Insight can be slow to accelerate in freeway transitions, so that can cause annoyance, but that doesn’t explain this.
Possible it was mistaken for a battery car and the driver was upset about the Biden administration attempts to shut down the trucking industry? Or just wrong place?
He couldn’t accelerate away from the truck, so had to put maneuver it.
He was probably wearing his gun on his waist in a high retention snap holster, so it takes some force just to draw it.
A Lotus Elise driver mounted a retention holster to the center console, which got a lot of attention in Europe, but seems quite sensible after this event.
It’s worth noting that a lot of people have died after going off the road, and being unable to locate their mobile.
Both of us have the highest level carry permit offered here, which is reciprocated in most free states in USA.
It also covers long guns in vehicles here.
I have hundreds of hours of firearms training, but he has a skill level beyond what most believe is even possible.
Oh, he also has military plates on the Insight, maybe an issue there?
His car has no visible damage after this, and the fragile rear hatch glass even survived, though latching is now problematic.
But has he checked the blinker fluid??
Honda should buy this car back after it hits one million miles. I don’t know what exactly they would do with it, but I still think they should.
I think Volvo used to do that.
Almost like the steakhouses that comp your meal if you finish a 4 pound steak.
Mercedes just sends you a badge, because they expect the car to continue running indefinitely.
Of course this only applies to pre-1995 vehicles.
Cummins has longevity badges too.
There’s nothing on that plate but gristle and fat!
Ha! 6 pounds! And I have never seen that movie. Very Canadian.
I’m 1/4 Canadian, but I don’t think that’s enough to let me move up to BC if I wanted to.
Thanks for sharing the link.
I sat in one of these in a showroom when new and really wanted it. The body/chassis is aluminum, the track of the rear wheels is narrower than the front, and the engine displaces 995cc so it’s just one liter, not 1.1 liter.
I’m curious to know how the rest of the car has held up. Is the body tight, any persistent interior rattles or squeaks? How about the other consumables; shocks, rubber, CV joints, bearings, etc. Did the previous owner keep maintain ends records? How much has it cost to hit a million miles in this thing?
I would imagine shockingly little. I have a 00 Insight that I bought with 180k miles and it’s getting close to 300k. In the past 100k I’ve had to do front lower control arms, a wheel bearing, and a temp sender.
Is my suspension worn? Sure, but it’s not bad. The benefit of an 1800lb car is that the stress on bushings and shocks is a lot less than a heavier car; I have a feeling the wheel bearing that went out was due to an improperly balanced tire, not actual wear and tear.
I don’t have any rattles or annoying squeaks. This thing was designed in the 90s so it’s still a golden era honda imho. If you drive a lot, the 5spd insight is a fantastic 3rd vehicle or commuter. Mine has paid for itself several times over in fuel savings.
Also just to keep spreading the gospel, IMA batteries rarely go bad, they typically just become unbalanced because the factory battery management system was not very good. Luckily, you can rebalance them yourself pretty easily with a grid charger and about $3 in materials from a hardware store. I did a video on reviving my ‘dead’ IMA battery here, and I’ve been using it for 10 years now.
If you’re a fan of Honda CRXs, I suggest picking up a G1 Insight 5spd. It’s very similar.
A 5MT gen1 Insight has been on my short list of 3rd cars for a while. I do see them crop up sometimes. My only hesitation is I don’t drive very much so the hassle of the driveway shuffle and extra costs and labor aren’t worth the very small fuel savings over my already somewhat fuel efficient other cars. I could only justify it as a pricey toy (my other toys are vintage 80’s bicycles which as you’d expect are a LOT cheaper, often times free).
There’s also the 5MT gen1 Civic Hybrid. Its not as interesting or unique as the Insight but it is interesting in that its as far as I can tell a Gen1 Insight with an extra cylinder, a steel body and a back seat with its own doors. So a more practical toy but not a less than exciting toy.
My buddy owned a 5MT Civic Hybrid. Fuel economy was honestly 75-85% as good as insight, but with a back seat. The best part was all the typical civic aftermarket, he had it slammed on coilovers with a bodykit and was looking rad while getting 50mpg.
Which makes sense since the Insight had 75% of the engine of the Civic hybrid.
The 1st Gen Civic Hybrid is the car that convinced me that hybrids were the real deal. I had a 03 TDI wagon at the time and bought into the hype that hybrids couldn’t do the advertised mileage. I rented a Civic Hybrid and drove it from SFO to Yosemite and back in a day and got exactly the 50 mpg highway rating. Started shopping for one when I got back from that trip
Ended up with an 05′ Prius as I couldn’t find a used Civic local. It was the most reliable gasoline car I have every owned. The downside vs the Civic is that there wasn’t much aftermarket support for Prius. Upside – it didn’t turn the AC off like the Civic when the engine turned off.
It was replaced by a 16′ Spark EV and a $99 a month lease. Then the Spark was replaced with my current Bolt.
Electric A/C is a big selling point for me. Not only because it can keep going with the engine off but because it can run at whatever RPM the compressor finds most effective and most economical rather than whatever the engine is at. Its also nice to have no belt to worry about and to have the flexibility to put the compressor wherever it fits best.
Electric A/C wasn’t a big selling point when we bought the Prius. a year later when we moved to Birmingham, AL went everywhere in gridlock traffic it became a huge win.