mcaltinsoy

Im a technician at an independent shop. Customer was complaining about heat coming on and off when driving..It would blow cold all of a sudden and then blow hot again.. I saw the heater core leak and the radiator seemed to be clugged. I replaced them and also the thermostat. Before all that, i did cylinder leak down test and everything checked good. No leakage and didnt hear anything from the radiator. So i replaced those components(heater core,radiator and the thermostat) and now I have consistent heat and no overheating issue at all. However i noticed something i thought was very strange.. After all these components replaced, i took the car for a test drive to see if no heat/heat issue would happen again. So i drove the car around on the highway and around 45mph range streets and whatnot. I tried to duplicate the problem for about 20-30min by driving., everything was working perfectly fine. i came back from test drive and led the car idle on the parking lot and checked the radiator hoses. So the upper hose was nice and hot and lower hose was cold! I mean it was like no coolant passed thru there, it literally was cold. and the lower hose also felt like over pressurized. Again I did not see any issue with the car after all. Heat is good and consistent and No Overheating issue at all. Im just thinking maybe the thermostat opens a little later than normal non hybrid cars even though the TEMP GAUGE on the dash was showing perfectly where it was supposed to be (normal operating temp) which i also thought it was strange. I took the car for another drive after 5 minutes of idle and came back..This time lower hose was nice and warm... I really dont get this.. Why the car didn't over heat at the first test drive and why the lower hose was cold and felt over pressurized after 20-30min drive?? I would greatly appreciate if you could help me with this. Especially technician, please share your thoughts with me on this... Thank you

fleabag

My guess is, the radiator hoses and some sediment buildup and you didn't thoroughly clean the cooling system. Just because the car runs fine and isn't overheating, it doesn't mean you cleaned the cooling system correctly. Did you try hooking up a hose to the cooling hoses and just running fresh water through the system? A clog that got unclogged by running it would explain this issue. Easily could have builtup sediment inside of various hoses or cooling passages in the engine. That's the only thing it can be. That or maybe you kinked/pinched one of the cooling hoses.

philhampton

Dont know if this is the right place to ask but I have a 2000 Honda Insight. Have had it since new. It has a little over 170,000 on it, including a 3600 mile trip to Oklahoma and back about a month ago. Have replaced two IMA batteries, both under warranty. At about 150000 miles the IMA battery has again stayed on. I have found out that when the IMA light is on the under the hood battery never gets charged... which means very limited night driving. I discovered if I removed a fuse under the dash that everytime I turn the ignition off and wait 20 seconds it resets the IMA. I can usually get about 30 miles after a reset. However if I am really careful and avoid the battery strain that causes the battery assist lights to come on I can get up to several hundred miles before it comes on. I have a new problem that started a few weeks ago. One day I got in the car, started it up and shortly noticed some additional problems. 1: Odometer stopped moving. 2: Speedometer stopped working. Right side of dashboard lights never come on (gas gauge, motor assist lights). I've checked all the fuses, all good. I just want to keep the car running a few more years. I can live without the IMA motor. But I would like to have the speedometer and odometer working. I've averaged 59.2 mpg over the life of the car. (I was 62mpg before the last IMA failure.) Any suggestions where to look to solve problems with my problem... and thanks for being there for all of us diehard Insight drivers.

Blue-Civic-Hybrid

iTrader: (1)

Glad to see more Insight owners, please go to this site just in case this site does not answer any of your questions..

http://www.insightcentral.net/forums/

PagetHamington

Well this is a comprehensive list of articles listed here that mostly answers all the questions. On the side note I am recently having lots of speedometer problems with my insight. Still can't figure out what the problem is.

philhampton

My main problem right now is that a week or two ago I went out to my car and the following new issues turned u p...

On the instrument panel the main odometer stopped working and the speedometer is stuck on zero. The three trip odometers all stopped registering any mileage. The gas gauge stopped registering and the gas empty light came on. The charge and discharge meters are always blank. The meter that shows error codes showed P1647 and P0134. After resetting them the P0134 went out but the P1647 comes on immediately after taking a new reading. I've also checked every fuse both under the dash and under the hood with an ohm meter and they all seem to be good.

I have had my motor assist battery replaced around 70,000 miles. The new battery went out at around 140,000 miles but I have been getting around fine and have driven almost another 40,000 miles without it and have never found a problem I couldn't deal with including an over-3500 round trip from near Los Angeles to Durant Oklahoma and it drove like a charm.

My biggest problem is that my under-the-hood battery never gets charged anymore which makes it hard to use lights at night and I never know my gas situation because I neither know the number of miles I've driven along with having no gas gauge.

I've not seen any of the forums talk about these problems but maybe I just don't know where to look.

Any help out there? and thanks to anyone who has bothered to read this... Phil

Blue-Civic-Hybrid

iTrader: (1)

Phil,

Go to the site I linked above, all your questions will be answered there...