Storage or little use issues?

[madapple]

Hello,
If you don't use these cars often, or store them over the winter, what are going to be the issuse that will arise? I have heard that if I intent to store the car, I need to get a grid charger,,, can some one please tell me more, like where to buy one and how does it hook up?
Thanks
Darrell

[aisbell]

Originally Posted by madapple

If you don't use these cars often, or store them over the winter, what are going to be the issuse that will arise?

Varying rates of self-discharge of the 120 NiMH cells in your battery pack while your car is in storage will result in the charge levels of the individual cells differing considerably. The IMA system cannot fix this imbalance. When the imbalance becomes too great, the IMA system will consider the battery pack as failed and will set a diagnostic code which will illuminate the IMA warning light and the IMA system will no longer function normally. Before the community fully understood this problem and had developed a solution, Honda replaced my IMA battery twice within 22,000 miles of driving.

Originally Posted by madapple

I have heard that if I intent to store the car, I need to get a grid charger,,, can some one please tell me more, like where to buy one and how does it hook up?

Yes, that's the solution. I've been using a grid charger since just after having my third battery installed. It performs better than the first two batteries despite my storing my car each winter. A grid charger can be ordered from a member of this forum, Mike Dabrowski. Mike's Website shows the installation procedure for the charger harness.