Car won't start IMA issues

[asmallsol]

For the past couple of months, the IMA light has been on, but overall hasn't effected the car that much. Once the weather turned a little cooler, the light went away until last week when going into a head wind, the SoC took a nose dive (which has been happening quite a bit lately) then the car started to charge again. When it neared the top, both the IMA and CEL turned on. After that, the IMA system has not been working. The car no longer goes into charge/assit modes nor does the stop/start work anymore. However, the car was still getting okay mileage, and still worked like a normal car. The only remnants of the IMA system is the car still starts using the IMA, however, it sometimes feels a little rough

Fast forward a week. I've put about 200 miles on it, and have actually been getting good mileage (55-60). Today I get in the car and try to start it up, and it sounds as if maybe the IMA was energized very momentary, but not enough to start the car. After a couple tries, it eventually fires up and I head on my way. Later in the day, I jump in the car to go to the store, try to fire it up and same thing. After a couple tries, it starts, and I'm on my way. Its dark out, so I have my headlights on, and I notice that at stop signs, my lights are a bit dim, but if I rev the engine, they perk up a bit.

In a normal car, I would say alternator. On this, I have no clue. Oh well, get out, run into the store, get back and try and start it. Nothing. Same symptoms, couple of halfhearted attempts by the IMA to kick on, but eventually, I am forced to call for help. First we try to just do a normal jump, an hook the jumpercables to the standard 12V. No go. Eventually we give up, and decide to try and just push start it. Turns out it works.

Now the question is, what do you think is causing this? Will a dead 12V cause this. Completely dead IMA battery? If I just take out the IMA fuse, would that cause the car to go purely ICE and then use the actual traditional starter?

*edit, its a 2000 MT

Thanks in advance for the help.

[Eli]

The IMA symptoms are caused by a P1449 error.

So you're saying the car is starting with the regular 12V starter? What do you mean by after a couple of "tries" it starts?

The dimming and brightening of the dash lights sounds fairly normal. As long as the red 12V battery light on the dash doesn't come on, the DC-DC converter is still operating and you should be able to keep driving the car.

My guess as to what is happening here.. Now that your IMA is dead, you're seeing just how weak your 12V battery is. The Insight is unique in that the 12V battery can be on it's last legs and you would never know it because of the IMA starting the engine.

The IMA doesn't "half heartedly attempt" to start the engine, it either does or it doesn't.

[gilbertguy]

My first thought would be to say that at first you had a 1447 code, this will give you an IMA code but everything will seem to work correctly with IMA regen and assist. Over time your battery continued to deteriorate and eventually turned to a 1449 code, at this point your IMA system has stopped working so no regen and no assist. At this point as long as there is a bit of charge in your IMA battery it will still use that power to spin the motor when starting it, once your IMA battery gets to low on voltage it will no longer start the motor. Now your 12V has to start the motor, this is when you find out how healthy your 12v is, the IMA battery is a master at hiding a week 12v battery because it provides most of the power and the 12v weekness isn't revealed until it fails completely or the IMA goes bad.

So, the reason your lights went dim at the light is that the IMA is acting like a generator keeping power going to the car, at the light the RPM's are low so it isn't putting out as much voltage. As you rev the engine the RPM's go up and the voltage output goes up. Also, with the IMA now dead if you rev the engine up to 4k RPM you might get the red Battery light, it is an over volt protection cut off to keep you from damaging the electrical system on the car since the IMA motor/generator is putting out a lot of voltage at that higher RPM. This should reset itself after a short period.

So, I'd have your 12v battery checked and replace it if they say it is bad. Be careful not to use to many things that draw lots of power if you can help it. Go to an Autozone and have the codes read so we know what they are, you can also check them yourself using the blink code method.
Reading Vehicle Error blink codes

Also, please post your location on your signiture, many times there are people located near you that can help.