After a number of complaints to my Honda dealer, mostly about forced charge while climbing hills, my IMA battery management system got really weird. The battery level indicator didn't accurately show the battery level. I would start up a hill one bar down. Half way up a short hill the car would go into force charge and then the level would drop 2 bars. It did some other strange things too. I can explain them if you are interested.
I went to the dealer and talked to my technician. He said he would check for fault codes on the computer and also look for software updates. This is how my work order read.
Ck IMA operation. Ck. for any fault codes in all syst. No codes. Ck for any updates. Have three. PGMI/CVVT/IMA, Perform all updates. Found car battery low. Charged and perform test. Shows battery is good. Road test W/customer. Veh seems to be operating properly.
What an amazing difference. Transmissions is very smooth, all the time, even when coming out of auto-stop when cold. IMA charge management is completely different. What it does makes sense. It has never gone into force-charge while climbing a hill. It will stop assisting but it won't charge until I ease off the gas. Force charge in other situations is very modest. Slightly charging while driving easy.
Mileage seems to be up also but I have only driven about 75 miles since the updates. An easy drive of 30 miles, county roads, hills, 30-45 MPH returned 63 real MPG, not off the IMA readout, (I use a scanguage also) A 25 mile run on the interstate at 60 MPH returned 52.5 MPG.
I didn't ask if these were new updates, sorry, but this is only the second time they have installed updates in my 2010 EX.
If they are new updates, have them installed. It made a huge difference.
Hi Dave, thanks so much for your update. My 2010 EX does the same thing with the force charge during uphill and it has been annoyed the heck out of me. How is your car running now after a few weeks and what's the mileage on your car? I think I'm going to bring it in for an update like what you did.
Also, Since we got the same year, what tire did you get with the car? I got the dunlop and it wears out so fast that I'll have to replace it with 25K miles.
Never knew there were updates... I never had my car updated as far as i know.. unless they did it within the first 2 oil change (9k (08/03/2011) and 17k (03/28/2012) oil change)...
__________________ DIY - Map Light for LX
~2010 Honda Insight LX Atomic Blue - 2010-04-25~
~1,000 miles - 2010-07-13~
~10,000 miles - 2011-09-05~
~20,000 miles - 2012-05-22~
~30,000 miles - 2013-03-09~
Unfortunately, the technician at the honda dealer i went to could not find anything to update. I explained to him the issue and he said it's normal. I couldn't believe this is normal because going uphill is where the car needs "assist" the most! And with a full charge all of a sudden became a force charge? I don't think so.
We went back and forth but I was unsuccessful in persuading him about the issue. He even teased me about looking at "forums". From that, I just had it and done with the conversation. I think my next step is to video tape the occurrence, post it on youtube and ask for any suggestions.
So you got the update then i suppose? This one is in Pasadena, CA. I guess they are not as updated or they just didn't do the check! I'm so disappointed. I really want to like this car and Honda!
After a number of complaints to my Honda dealer, mostly about forced charge while climbing hills, my IMA battery management system got really weird. The battery level indicator didn't accurately show the battery level. I would start up a hill one bar down. Half way up a short hill the car would go into force charge and then the level would drop 2 bars. It did some other strange things too. I can explain them if you are interested.
I went to the dealer and talked to my technician. He said he would check for fault codes on the computer and also look for software updates. This is how my work order read.
Ck IMA operation. Ck. for any fault codes in all syst. No codes. Ck for any updates. Have three. PGMI/CVVT/IMA, Perform all updates. Found car battery low. Charged and perform test. Shows battery is good. Road test W/customer. Veh seems to be operating properly.
What an amazing difference. Transmissions is very smooth, all the time, even when coming out of auto-stop when cold. IMA charge management is completely different. What it does makes sense. It has never gone into force-charge while climbing a hill. It will stop assisting but it won't charge until I ease off the gas. Force charge in other situations is very modest. Slightly charging while driving easy.
Mileage seems to be up also but I have only driven about 75 miles since the updates. An easy drive of 30 miles, county roads, hills, 30-45 MPH returned 63 real MPG, not off the IMA readout, (I use a scanguage also) A 25 mile run on the interstate at 60 MPH returned 52.5 MPG.
I didn't ask if these were new updates, sorry, but this is only the second time they have installed updates in my 2010 EX.
If they are new updates, have them installed. It made a huge difference.
Based on your post we had the dealer search for software updates for our 2010 I2. The dealer in Southern Oregon found only 2: PGMI and CVT. They could not find an IMA update for our car. Perhaps this was done at an earlier service and we were never told. However, I doubt this as the software updates are not free from Honda. The dealer charged us $65 for the install for both updates, which I think is fair.
I wonder how we could check what version of the IMA software is installed? Is it possible that the IMA version installed by your dealer was in fact for a later model I2, and it just happened to work in the older model? It is strange that our dealer could not find the IMA update.
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Software update installed in my 2010 EX
