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Here's the text of the service bulletin:
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DATE: July 22, 2010
TO: All Honda Sales, Service & Parts Managers
FROM: American Honda Service Division
RE: 2006~08 Civic Hybrid Battery Software Product Update Campaign
Basic Problem
Some driving conditions can cause the IMA battery charge capacity to become low. When the battery remains in this low state of charge condition the charge capacity of the battery can be reduced and eventually require replacement. The software revision will help prevent the low state of charge condition.
Campaign Information
American Honda will issue a Service Bulletin to the dealer network tomorrow, 7/23/10. A customer notification will be mailed on 7/30/10. Units in dealer inventory should be updated using Service Bulletin 10-034.
ALL unsold units should have the updated software installed prior to customer delivery. The update will reduce the likelihood of a MIL code being set and extend the life of the IMA battery.
Note: This Product Update campaign will be limited to 3 years and will expire 7/23/13.
Parts Information
No parts are required for the update. The HDS tester will require version 2.022.101 (July 2010) or later to perform the update. Check the current version prior to any repair and update the HDS software version as needed. Also check that the Control Module update is Database Update 02-Jul-2010 or later.
Warranty Information
Warranty information specific to this campaign is included in Service Bulletin 10-034. All campaign repairs should be coded using the Warranty Information in Service Bulletin 10-034. This will insure the VIN is counted as repaired for this campaign and avoid confusion at a later service visit.
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I get about one second of assist when I accelerate from a dead stop and that is it.
My plan is to sell this car. Why did I pay $5000 more for a hybrid when I am getting non-hybrid mpg performance?
I did get the state tax credit however.
After leaving my car parked for 3 days @ the airport, when I started it, the charge displayed dropped from 6 bars to ZERO and I lost all acceleration. I was almost in an accident, because my acceleration disappeared in the middle of a right hand turn. I have filed a complaint with the NHSTA.
This morning, I dropped my car off for its second software update. I told the service manager I had no confidence this would fix the issues, but I would give it a shot.
From the service bulletin description below, it sounds like the software update will just further retard the hybrid capabilities of the car, so Honda can avoid paying warrenty claims. However, I firmly believe that my battery is already permenately damaged, so where does this leave me?
The BBB and a note to my congressman will be my next steps. After all the crap that happened with Toyota, I cannot believe that Honda is not honoring their warrenty and replacing batteries that are not functioning properly.
Just today I got notice (in my case, a robocall) on my ansewring machine about the software "update" for all 2006-2008 HCHs. I assume they didn't bother to check to see that my car has already been pretty much stripped of its hybrid power, and assume they are simply contacting ALL owners of the 2006-2008 HCHs.
Sadly, only a small number of people (probably under 1%) will bother to investigate, and simply go in to get the fix done, thinking it's an important safety issue. As we all know, IT IS NOT.
As Honda themselves stated so simply, the purpose is simply to extend the battery life (by stripping away most of the hybrid's power via the software) so they won't have to replace their defective batteries by the thousands:
"ALL unsold units should have the updated software installed prior to customer delivery. The update will reduce the likelihood of a MIL code being set and extend the life of the IMA battery."
This has NOTHING to do with safety, but with their bottom line and screwing the buyers who will now have nothing like the car they bought as it was represented.
I posted at length the hassle I had to go through to get my deteriorated batteries replaced (search my previous posts)... but am I to assume this is simply the same software "update" that was forced upon me a couple months ago (that basically immasculates the car's hybrid power). Even if it's a "new" one, I'm assuming it does the same thing?
I saw two posts here recently from people who got notified earlier than me, and I'm wondering... did you take it in? Did you see any difference? I don't want to waste my time unless there will be an improvement. Like so many people here, I had all the updates done (was there 3 or 4?) half a year ago, or whenever it was. Is there any benefit for me going in this time? (Or will they turn it down even MORE than it is after the final update from a few months ago?)
I can tell you this. I won't be buying Honda again. Every car company has their trials, but even with all the stuff Toyota is going through, at least their owners still have, fundamentally, the cars that they bought. It's clear Honda will do nothing to redress this issue the proper and honorable way. I'm not trading in my Civic, I'll keep it a couple more years. But they've lost a customer for life. NO one at Honda, giving their doublespeak excuses, would themselves personally patronize a company again that did this to them. As I said before, if head of Honda Customer Service were to buy a 60" LED TV where the speakers blew after a week, and the TV company's "fix" was to limit the volume control to a max of 3 (instead of 10) and say "it's perfectly normal", do you think that Honda Cust Service Rep would buy a TV from a company like that, like what Honda's done? I'm not ever going to forget this.
At any rate, I was posting here mostly to notify you all of the new, across-the-board mandate to get ALL HCH owners in to have their hybrids stripped down.
But I'm very interested in those who already had the software "updates" -- are you going to go in to get the latest one? Is it any different than the final one from a few months ago? What was the outcome? As my car is now, I want to say "it can't get any worse", but then hey, there's nothing to stop Honda from even completely turning off the hybrid system if they want, claiming (rightly so) that doing so would, hey, save the battery from failing even more! And you know what? If you remove the entire engine and drivetrain, THAT'D help conserve the battery even more too...
From your post, I wonder if you have a connection with Honda, either directly by employment or through relations, friends, and so on. You certainly have a right to express your opinion, but frankly your post sounds very similar to the evasions and soothing words we're hearing from Honda's dealers and Honda corporate.
I'm sure that they'd like nothing better than for your attitude ("calm down and put this in perspective; it's a small issue; you just dont' understand/drive correctly, etc.") to be widely accepted, so they can avoid what may be a very extensive problem, caused by inadequate design.
Your suggestion that "Honda has a problem with a number of drivers" soiunds very much like "blaming the victim," and you further (without data to back it up) suggest that this problem is limited to a few hundred drivers among hundreds of thousands. That is irrelevant, by the way, but is also a very ineffective way to get redress of grievances.
I suggest that you stop whistling in the dark, playing the Pollyanna role, and otherwise ignoring or refusing to recognize this problem, and respect the experiences and reports of others on this list.
If you're an owner of an HCH, and have had no problems with it, I totally congratulate you and hope nothing but the best for you. But I suggest that in that case, you have no standing to give soothing advice to those of us who invested considerable sums of money, and may now be facing the possibility of owning cars that cannot be resold and that will be much more expensive to operate than we were led to believe at the time of purchase.
For the record, my '07 has 27,000 miles on it, has been gently driven and well-maintained, and appears to have had a meltdown with respect to the IMA system. You can certainly report on your (lack of) experience with complete knowledge. But please don't advise me and others what to do when our personal experiences are radically different than yours, and when we perceive a very significant and growing problem that needs the direct, candid, and responsive attention from Honda USA.
The fact that such candor and directness hasn't been forthcoming from Honda is very worrisome and troubling to those of us with the problem, and has for the first time placed me (a very long and very loyal Honda fan) in the position of questioning the good will and intentions of this company to do the right thing.
If you
Find the NHTSA safety reporting form at:
http://www-odi.nhtsa.dot.gov/ivoq/index.cfm
Not a spy, no association with Honda, nothing to gain either way from expressing my opinions either way. I have been a Honda owner since 1981. I am simply stating that some of you are just screaming at this point, and nothing will come of that.
For the record:
If you read my earlier posts, you will see that I did own an '09 HCH. We went through TWO battery failures, with one upgrade in between. So, yes, I do have some experience with this. Yes, our dealer's service people seemed clueless at times. I did not interpret it as malicious, so much as incompetent in dealing with this level of technology. No, we did not see a huge change in mileage after the upgrade, although it was only a month or so in cold weather before the second battery went bad. Yes, our dealer went to bat for us and got Honda to take the car back, so we were very lucky. It is clear that not every Honda dealer is as good.
So, I do agree that there is a problem, and I agree that we should file reports and complaints; get as many people as possible to document their problems carefully and get the "facts" out there (there have been some very good posts of people telling their stories). I agree that Honda appears to be dragging it's feet on this, hoping it will go away. And, yes, some people seem to have a real problem with the IMA system. But I can tell you from my years of troubleshooting complex scientific instruments, that these kinds of problem are very difficult to solve if you can't easily reproduce the problem. Some people are trying to do that on this forum, and we need to give them more room to figure out the problem.
I do not agree that screaming about "everybody is corrupt," "everybody is covering it up," and "everybody is out to get me" will get you anywhere. Take all that emotion and creative energy and figure out a way to legally and ethically get Honda's attention. Then we will all be better off.
As the teenagers would say, "chill."
I'll say again, that's precisely what Honda would like troubled owners to do.
And I'll also say, that's insulting to those who are legitimately aggrieved, and who now need to speak up loudly, persistently, and perhaps even rudely, to get relief.
It may be a lot easier for you to tell people to quiet down; your personal problem has been solved by a Honda buy-back.
Just because you're off the hook, don't tell the rest of us to shut up and be reasonable.
Those instruments couldn't talk. They couldn't personally tell you of their experiences, and it's very unlikely that you have "black box" recording devices or continuously-recorded computer records that monitored and recorded key parameters of those systems' performance.
Honda owners can talk. They can tell you what they've experienced. And while some of them may be a bit fuzzy in their recollections, and ALL will in some sense prove fallible, each corroborating report makes it less and less likely that their reports are simply random anomalies.
Statistically, I'd say that it's not a case of P<.05, or P<.01, but P<<.0.01 that these are purely random incidents.
--------------------------
What is the problem?
Your vehicle's IMA battery may deteriorate and eventually fail before its normal usable life is reached. Frequent stop-and-go driving during warm weather speeds up the IMA battery deterioration. To help prevent early IMA battery deterioration, a software update is needed for the IMA battery.
AFTER YOUR VEHICLE IS UPDATED, you may notice one or more of the following changes to the IMA system. All of them are normal, and will greatly improve the life of the IMA battery (comment: and will turn your car into practically a normal all-gas Civic so that Honda can save money from having to replace their faulty batteries):
* When the vehicle is in auto idle stop, the engine restarts sooner. It also now restarts with only two bars displayed on the IMA battery level gauge.
* EVEN WITH UP TO FOUR BARS DISPLAYED ON THE IMA BATTERY LEVEL GAUGE, AUTO IDLE STOP MAY NOT OCCUR.
* To ensure there's plenty of power for engine starting and accelerating from a stop, the IMA system reserves more battery power. THIS REDUCES THE IMA ASSIST AS THE VEHICLE SPEED INCREASES.
* The IMA battery level gauge more accurantely indicates the battery's state-of-charge. You will also notice that the level bars stay in the middle of the gauge more.
------------------------
So from what I'm able to surmise, it seems quite possible that this update now goes even FURTHER in stripping away the hybrid functions of the car than the last of the previous updates. As you'll see in point #2 above, Honda states that with this latest update, your car's auto-stop will be disabled even if there's 4 bars on the battery meter.
I guess I'm never going to the dealership again. I'm certainly not going in for this update, and I don't trust a Honda dealer NOT to install the update even if I specifically tell them not to. Good thing I have a good independent mechanic I go to. Thanks to Honda now, I only have about 1/3rd of the hybrid I bought. I'm not going to let them strip even more away and leave me with 1/10th of the hybrid I bought. This is not a safety issue (tellingly, no where in the letter or notice does it mention anything about safety). It is simply a way for Honda to almost completely disable the main reasons why people bought this car in the first place over the normal Civic -- just so that they don't have to be responsible to replace their defective parts.
I would still be curious though, for anyone who went in/will go in, to report on it.
I have it documented and even had a techinician drive my car and it had the issues I was complaining about. Still Honda did nothing. I asked them to send someone and drive my car and figure out why there is something wrong when all there tests show nothing. They refused. I took this as a cover up. They don't want to know or already know. So when someone says they can't reproduce the problem, BS. Honda still wouldn't do anything. I could reproduce power loss, battery loss, battery charging, all these issues at the drop of a hat. I had only 48K miles on mine. I work with someone with a 2005 HCH and they have no issues. We drive the same amount in the same heat. Honda better ne listening. If they dont do something major, there will be a class action lawsuit and we will win. They are already losing arbitration with the lemon laws. :lemon:
I am not telling you to shut up or stop complaining. I am just saying stop doing it on this forum if you don't have something new to add, besides an emotional rant. Post more YouTube videos like the more recent post. Put more data out there, along with documentation. Go scream at Honda headquarters and invite the TV cameras. Write letters to the major car magazines and other forums. Start a letter writing campaign and give us all the address. Go scream to a class action lawyer specialist.
There are lots of useful things you could do with your energy and sarcasm (which I do appreciate, by the way). But screaming here just gets more people worked up in an unproductive way. Let's find a way to get this thing fixed. It won't be easy, and won't be fast, but it can happen.
Well, you don't know scientific instruments then, and their operators (who can talk), and the situation is not that much different. Operator error is always a possibility that must be considered, whether you like to admit it or not. I have no idea whether any of this would be driver related; my gut instinct says no, but it must be considered.
I also don't dispute that there is a problem with some cars. The problem is we don't know why some cars are affected and some are not. Think about it. If every HCH ended up having this problem, you probably wouldn't be able to get into the dealership because of the problem. So, what is the difference with some of these cars. If we can figure that out, then the problem can be solved.
But, again, screaming here won't help solve that. Use this forum to organize a better response to Honda that they can't ignore. It won't be easy, and you will probably get another warning from the moderator, but you need to find other ways to turn up the heat.
Good luck. I am tuning out.
>To help prevent early IMA battery deterioration, a software update is needed for the IMA battery.
Notice that they are addressing "early deterioration" not "failure". They are trying to catch it before the problems set in.
>--------------------------
What is the problem?
Your vehicle's IMA battery may deteriorate and eventually fail before its normal usable life is reached. Frequent stop-and-go driving during warm weather speeds up the IMA battery deterioration.
Translation: running the battery down in the heat will harm the battery. Stop and go traffic frequently results in the battery charge being depleted. I know for a fact that leaving it depleted will cause damage especially in the heat. If you deplete the battery and then park the car, the cell balance will take a hit.
>To help prevent early IMA battery deterioration, a software update is needed for the IMA battery.
AFTER YOUR VEHICLE IS UPDATED, you may notice one or more of the following changes to the IMA system. All of them are normal, and will greatly improve the life of the IMA battery:
* When the vehicle is in auto idle stop, the engine restarts sooner. It also now restarts with only two bars displayed on the IMA battery level gauge.
* EVEN WITH UP TO FOUR BARS DISPLAYED ON THE IMA BATTERY LEVEL GAUGE, AUTO IDLE STOP MAY NOT OCCUR.
* To ensure there's plenty of power for engine starting and accelerating from a stop, the IMA system reserves more battery power. THIS REDUCES THE IMA ASSIST AS THE VEHICLE SPEED INCREASES.
Note that all of these relate to stop and go. Presumably the battery will allow you to deplete it when underway. Each of these relate to when the battery is low. When it has an adequate charge, these rules don't come into play (ie it will act like normal).
>* The IMA battery level gauge more accurantely indicates the battery's state-of-charge. You will also notice that the level bars stay in the middle of the gauge more.
I'm not sure if this is technically true. From the late Insight updates, owners have found that the car tries to keep the battery half full (which is better for the battery). So this may be a case of more accurately showing the charge or it might be the car forcing the charge to that level.
Unfortunately, this is a clue that sufferers of this specific problem are, to put it bluntly, leadfoots. Those that are light on the gas don't tend to deplete their batteries in stop and go traffic. This also explains why some see no mpg loss and others see significant loss.
Perhaps some of the people here that are experiencing poor assist performance and decreased mpg would take notice of their battery gauge when it happens to see if it relates to the problems. We all bought hybrids to get better gas mileage, but some driving styles are incompatible with hybrids. 2010 Insight owners get great mileage because the car teaches them how to drive economically. It may be the case that some of you can get your car's performance back by changing your driving styles. Does anyone want to try?
And no, I'll repeat again: I do not work for Honda. I'm a 2001 Insight owner that among other thing enjoys competing in mpg races.
I know you weren't talking about me specifically, but you might want to think twice before you make blanket statements based on personal assumptions. What you wrote.....
>>Unfortunately, this is a clue that sufferers of this specific problem are, to put it bluntly, leadfoots
simply is NOT TRUE.
I certainly suffered from this problem, and if I was a leadfoot, I would have been posting here from the very beginning complaining that I was only getting 32mpg (or whatever) as I've seen other people having done. Nope. I was constantly getting 55-56 MPG REGULARLY from Day One. I even managed to eek out 60+ MPG on an entire tank of gas (though that was rare). But I regularly was getting 53, 55, 56 MPG for the entire life of the car (my "A TRIP" odometer) until the battery problem began occurring and the software "updates" were installed.
As convenient as might be to think otherwise, this battery problem has affected EVERYONE across the board -- not just leadfoots as you might want to assume. In fact, I'm sure a good portion of those who are the angriest are the ones that take the time and effort to drive lightly, and in the most fuel-sipping way -- and have their effort paid back by a car company basically stripping away their hybrid functions because their batteries wouldn't hold up properly the way Toyota's or other brands do.
One last note: For those in California, don't forget that our MPG would have dropped anyway even without the "updates" over the last year or so, as new state laws went into effect requiring ALL gas in the state now to be oxyginated (such as with ethanol). In Calif, up until Jan 1st 2010, it was a gas company's choice whether to add ethanol or not (and in fact, as most started doing so, Arco was one of the last holdouts, not changing their mix until the last minute near the end of 2009 -- one of the reasons I switched to Arco after the other brands started oxyginating early -- though now all brands by law are pretty much the same in this regard. And if you're wondering, the law does NOT require them to post labels mentioning this on their pumps, even though some stations do and others don't).
That said, I would notice immediately when oxyginated gas was used (with the real-time MPG meter) and could tell immediately when a station or brand changed their mix (as all now have in Calif). I'm taking that and all other factors into account, believe me. But my car was "updated" while I was still using non-oxyginated gas, and immediately saw the MPG drop as soon as the update was done (literally). Not only did it drop substantially after the update, but then once Arco (the last holdout for not oxyginating gas) finally changed, it dropped yet even more (that last one not Honda's fault). But the biggest drop was from the software "updates" -- and you need only use your eyes to see how little (barely a bar or two) the assist now comes on -- if anything at all.
We're not stupid, we're not all leadfoots or any other catagory someone may want to put us in because that's the only solution that makes sense to them. This problem affects EVERYONE who has this car.
This isn't something that's consuming me or my time (I didn't post for almost a year after my posts on my car getting altered, until I got the notice from Honda and thought I'd alert others about it), but at the same time, a buyer never forgets something like this. I'll use my HCH until it's time to get another car. But you can be sure that I won't even consider a Honda anymore after this. And I'm certainly not going in and get what little is left of my hybrid function stripped away even more.
Then you are not suffering from this specific problem. Please don't misread what I wrote. The specific problem that I wrote about was one of running the battery down in stop and go traffic. Your self-described driving style most likely doesn't use the battery very much. More likely, you've been bitten by the "keep it half full" change earlier which would have you regen-ing a lot more than before.
We are talking about the newest update. Presumably it is not the same one you had earlier.
That's right, attack the only person here that's trying to help.
Your battery is a part that is going to wear out. How you use it will determine if it lasts 90,000 miles or 190,000. Honda only cares that you make it past the 80,000 mark because after that, they have no obligation. You might be surprised to find that they don't make much money on the $3000 battery packs that they sell. That means that they are out over $2500 every time they replace a battery under warranty.
I've noticed that Insight owners as a group tend to pay more attention to their battery and assist and regen gauges than most Civic owners. Most of them know exactly how many bars they have to get down to before forced charging begins, etc. This is probably because a different type of driver is more likely to buy the Insight with it's shortcomings than those that buy Civics. Maybe we can use some of the techniques they've developed to improve the situation here or at least to understand what is actually going on (what the car is doing specifically that is causing this behavior).
What I challenged people here was to do the same thing and see if there was a correlation to the mpg and assist problem that was related to low states of battery charge. If there is, then you CAN alter your driving behavior and make your car perform better - because Honda sure isn't going to do anything about it - not if it's going to cost them more warranty batteries.
That should be proof that I'm not getting paid by Honda, because if I was, they'd fire me for saying it.
As for gas mileage, I used to get 55 mpg overall, which is horrible in an Insight. I learned how to drive it and now get about 65. Driving a 2003 Civic Hybrid, I usually average about 52 on the highway in a CVT and 58 in a MT. The same highway driving gives about 70 in a MT Insight.
You might want to try a test. When the gauge is low, try accelerating and take note of how many bars of assist you get. Then try the same thing when the gauge is more full. I doubt the heat is causing much of the behavior, because if it was that severe, I think you'd throw an IMA light.
Also note what the assist bars drop to when they fall off and how soon they do it.
Please let us know what you find out. It may be helpful for others here.
Oh yes I do. My car was in a small accident, but it set off the airbags, so the insurance company totaled it. After I fixed it up, I had my battery go bad with three years and 70,000 miles left on the warranty. I was denied because the title had once been stamped "salvage". On an Insight, they have to change two computers as well as the battery which brings the cost to $4800, on a car worth $5000 at the time.
There are multiple things here that people are complaining about.
Pack degradation with accompanying recals
Loss of functionality due to software updates
Loss of mpg due to software updates
Your issue is that your pack is degrading. I am intimately familiar with what you are experiencing and what is going on internally. I am familiar with what the car does during a recal, why it does it and what it feels like to the driver. I understand what you have gone through because I went through the exact same problems. I had up to 5 recals each day in a 30 mile drive going to work and the same going home.
Like you, my battery slowly died and it made the car hard to live with. Unlike you, I had no warranty when it finally lit up the IMA light, and there was nobody anywhere in the world repairing these batteries.
However, your degrading battery is not related to the changes that Honda has pushed out except that in some cases the changes can actually recondition the battery to the point that it returns to health. I don't know if yours will, because there are more than one reason for a battery to act like that and I don't know which one is the cause here. Some will improve, some will not.
The underlying problem here is that the batteries are (in your case) 144 cells in series. When you charge that many cells in series, there will be problems if any of the cells don't match each other. The problem is that external influences can change cells (overheating until they vent, "memory effect" dendrite build up, etc) or by failure of individual cells. Once they are changed, their performance is altered. They may have more internal resistance to charging or discharging, they may self-discharge (go dead) more rapidly than their neighbors. Once this happens, an imbalance sets in that is made worse every time the car sits for even a few days until normal use results in some cells being discharged past empty and thus cell death.
Once a few cells have died, the whole mess of a battery goes into a death spiral until it finally performs so poorly that the car gives up and pronounces the battery "degraded" or "deteriorated" (depending on how it responds to charging attempts).
Now here is the scary part: every single battery that any of us owns is doing this. How far along it is depends on the cells and how they are treated (aka how we drive). Every single battery will get to that final state or other states like it eventually. The question is when. On average, a pack that is not significantly affected by driving style will last about 7 years. That's an average. Some will fail early due to simple defects, some will last longer. It sounds like yours may have had some premature failures, but they haven't cascaded out of control yet, just halfway.
Now the things that can negatively impact the cells are temperature, maintaining a low charge (and possibly a high charge, but we're not sure yet), and heavy discharge loads when almost depleted. This is at the cell level not the pack level.
These tie directly into user behavior such as parking the car for a month, punching the assist when you're down to only a couple bars, parking the car overnight with only a couple bars, etc. None of these will kill the battery, but they will add a stroke to the death of a thousand cuts that the battery goes through.
One thing I can definitely tell you is that parking the car for 90 days will start a chain reaction that will cause a P1447 or in your case P0A7F error in six to nine months. I have documented more than 30 cases of this happening including my own car.
The problem is that it is impossible to keep 144 cells balanced without individually manipulating them, and it is prohibitively expensive to design a system that can manipulate that many.
There are ways to lengthen the life of the cells. Honda has added a half-cycle to the Insights. Every 500 or 1000 miles, the car completely fills the batteries. It's very annoying to suddenly start regenning hard while you're going up a hill. Owners don't like it. Honda is trying to keep you from hitting a depleted battery with a large current draw, so they cut back on assist when battery levels are low. People in this forum are screaming about it.
They try to keep the battery from being parked very empty or very full because either causes problems. The car doesn't know when you are going to stop driving, so it regens much more and let's you burn off the charge with lots more assist than you wanted. This results in mileage drops because you use more gas when you regen and what you've slowly banked gets squandered. People here are unhappy about that as well.
Unfortunately, the changes that they are introducing to help save the cars are unpalatable.
I'm trying to offer some information that might get around some of these side-effects. According to that bulletin, the assist reduction is only at low battery levels. If you can keep the levels higher, you won't see a reduction in assist. How do you keep it higher? By reducing how much assist you use - by driving more gently.
This won't help you, because (I believe) that your car is constantly doing a parasitic background charge on the battery to test it. This would not be shown on the gauge (the gauge often lies). That will give you a 10 mpg loss in fuel economy.
You can try an experiment. Reset your trip counter and drive a 5-10 mile circular route, then unplug your 12v battery for about 20 seconds and then reconnect it. Repeat the same route. I'll bet you see a 5-10 mpg improvement. This is because you made the car forget the battery is going bad and will stop charging it.
Try it and post your results here.
You can try an experiment. Reset your trip counter and drive a 5-10 mile circular route, then unplug your 12v battery for about 20 seconds and then reconnect it.
Hold the your foot on the gas in park so the car is revving at 3500 rpm. You will see 4 bars of charge. After about a minute, you will start seeing battery bars appear and shortly after that the regen bars may go out. Let go of the gas when either the bars go out or the gauge reaches half full. Then reset your counter and repeat the same route. I'll bet you see a 5-10 mpg improvement. This is because you made the car forget the battery is going bad and will stop charging it.
However, it will figure out the battery is bad later that day.
Actually, acceleration is so difficult, it is dangerous. Prior to the updates, accelerating would not pull battery power if the charge gauge was down to two bars. Now even with a charge at 5 bars, the battery is not kicking in.
My driving habits have not changes at all but suddenly this summer, I am having repeated difficulty. 2008 Civic Hybrid with 53000 miles in Cleveland, Ohio
What should I do?
And does the car have more pickup if the battery gauge is half-full before you try to accelerate?
The question is, how does it act at 10 bars? Can you try and let us know?
If it doesn't work well, then I'd like to take you through a battery relearn procedure to recalibrate the battery gauge with the battery. It's possible that the gauge doesn't match the battery either due to the dealer skipping the step or due to the battery performance changing under the new software (the battery improving in this case). The procedure is harmless and will only take 2-3 minutes of your time.
There is no way to tell, and anyone who tells you different is guessing or lieing. If you aren't having problems now, then the update will not make any happen any sooner and should make them happen later - if ever.
So basically I'm saying: it won't make it worse. It may or may not make it better.
Oh, that's right! I forgot that you guys had electric AC compressors. The Gen 1 cars don't. When we auto-stop the AC shuts off.
That's why they are taking the car back out of auto-stop more quickly in this update - to keep the drain of the AC compressor away off the hybrid battery when it is depleted.
Okay. I no longer think that they're trying to keep the charge from getting that low with the heat, I think they're trying to keep it from getting that low when you might have the AC on. I don't think the heat is part of this problem, just the drain of the AC.
I believe the battery is defective and Honda is not taking responsibility and masking the problem with a software change.
Has anyone had a similar experience?
And to those who say "but it gets great MPG overall & is good for the environment. Well consider the harm being done just from the high volume of batteries being used to attain that MPG. Not to mention, how much money are you really saving on gas if you have to spend $3k to replace a battery pack every 60k-120k? The answer is you haven't saved yourself a dime nor helped the environment a lick.
HCH Alternatives = 2011 Hyundai Sonata gets 35MPG with almost 200HP! Or a VW Jetta TDi that has the power of sports cars but still gets over 30MPG in the city & over 40MPG on the Highway. And you'll still get those same MPG's when it's 40 or 110 degrees outside! WOW!! I love products that actually work in real life & not just on a closed circuit track in optimal conditions!
Dealer no charge invoice shows RECALL update to PGM-FI, IMA Battery, and A/T software. What are the the PGM-FI and A/T - what do they do? My 2008 Civic has 23000 miles and has never had any software updates before.
I will get some more miles and report more on performance with new June 2010 software. Initial impressions are POSITIVE - fuel mileage may be (???) improving by 2 MPH or so - but I need more miles and a hand calculation to confirm. However, I first want to let the software do its thing on my battery - I'm no expert but seems like it may be being recycled or rejuvenated or something??? So far, I like what I see vs. pre-software update.
Dealer also steam cleaned engine compartment without charge.
That's called a "negative recal". Overnight, one or more cells self-discharged a larger amount than normal. As you took off, they plunged to the point that the car detected that those sticks (a group of six cells) were empty. It then initiated a recalibration to determine what the new performance curve of the battery is. This is a classic case of an imbalance that is initially caused by a single defective cell. With time, it will probably get worse, as part of your battery is full and part empty. The likely failure code is P0A7F unless it drops very low after being parked for a few days. If the IMA light comes on, take it straight in and you'll get a new battery.
>However, after the software update, the charge indicator drops to 2 bars, instead of 1. Is anyone else seeing this? Is it possible for the charge indicator to reach 1 bar after the software update?
If you are seeing a negative recal (the charge dropping suddenly for no apparent reason, then 4 bars of regen followed by the gauge going back up a couple minutes later, then it really doesn't matter what number of bars it goes to. It's showing "minimum" whether it shows you one bar or two or zero bars like the 2003-2005 Civics. I wouldn't worry about it because the bar or bars you see during a recal don't really mean anything. They are done that way (the slow drop and slower climb) to make you not worry. In reality, it goes from whatever charge to nothing instantly and from nothing to whatever new charge it has calculated instantly. If you saw it shoot up and down you would be concerned that it was broken, so they gave it animation to make it gradually change.
Okay, the standard repair steps for some of the battery failures is to update the computer and see if the problem goes away. So far so good. The dealer is trying to save you from an out-of warranty battery replacement. (Wow! a good dealer!)
>My IMA light went off.
Because they reset it and it takes time for the car to test the battery and determine that it's bad (for some types of failures).
>I drove the car home. Unusual things were happening with my charging and horsepower. The following morning going to work, I pulled up to the first light. Auto-stop engaged, I noticed I had 3/4 charged notches (almost fully charged). Suddenly, it came out of auto-stop. The light changed and when I pressed on the gas, it dropped to 2 charged notches (almost completely discharged)
That is a recal. The car detected that the battery didn't match the measurements that it had saved, so it decided to throw away the old settings and re-evaluate the battery.
> and I had no IMA. I continued to have no IMA.
Because it had not yet determined what capacity the battery had and had shut down your access to it (by disabling assist).
> Then while I was driving, it started "displaying" charging without braking!.
The way it tests the battery is by applying a charge (4 bars of regen) and measuring how the battery reacts to that. It can't do it under acceleration, because you are putting too many demands on the electrical system. It waited until you had reached your traveling speed and had let off the gas. Then it activated the test program and you saw bars of regen when you were not braking.
> I too it back to the dealer and they said everything is as the new software is designed.
They're right. It is designed to do that. The recal procedure only takes 2-3 minutes. During that time, you have no assist or regen or autostop (because it is testing the battery and won't let you use it and mess up the test).
The software they installed may have caused much higher charging rates on your way home, so the recal may have been a "good" recal (where it detects that the battery is actually better than it thought and recalibrates to use the entire battery capacity). The question is, how has it been acting since then. Have you gotten more recals or have you seen an IMA light?
>I believe the battery is defective and Honda is not taking responsibility and masking the problem with a software change.
Your battery is borderline, but the software change may actually be fixing it. Otherwise you should have gotten another IMA light fairly quickly (like the next day). If you are not getting an IMA light, then your battery is not malfunctioning any longer, and that would make you one of the success stories - especially because you have more than 100K miles.
I'm not addressing anything else in your argument, but this one point is not an issue.
NiMH batteries are almost 100% recycleable, and close to 100% of them eventually get recycled, so there is no significant damage to the environment.
Class action lawsuit time!
After calling back the service dept.,the guy said it needed a software update and it will be covered under the warranty. My car has 74,900. I live in California so I do hope the 105K miles, does apply for any future IMA problems..... However, after reading the IMA post, looks like it is a stalling tactic "sad but true". I currently have a loner and will persist and but the heck out of the dealer if I keep getting any malfuctions. I hope the update works, and will keep posted.... :sick:
1) My battery is not functioning within reason. Honda will not replace it because their computer does not register it as "bad enough." I believe the warrenty dictates the battery be replaced when the car NEVER functions as it did during the first 3 years of ownership. I don't car about Honda's policies. I only know that my battery is not functioning correctly, and that is covered by the warrenty.
2) It appears that Honda has retarded the functionality of the Hybrid technology to avoid costly warrently repairs. The problem with this is that when I gave them X amount of money they agreed to give me a specific car with a specific warrenty. They did not agree to give me a car that they would later alter to avoid honoring the warrenty. If the fine print said, "In 3 years, we will update the software to reduce your MPGs and the hybrid functionality." I would not have bought this vehicle.
When I purchased this 2007, the US government was providing tax rebates for us to buy these special cars with great MPGs. Because most of the people on this forum are finding they do not receive significantly elevated MPGs after 2 to 4 years; Honda not only screwed the owners, but the entire American public.