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My 2001 Hybrid has always been serviced per, the maintenance manual, since I bought it in 2001. It has just over 70,000 miles, has never seen salt/snow as it has been in storage the end of October through mid April each and every year. For 9 years this car has come out of storage with almost a full battery. I have never had any concerns about the battery pack whatsoever until a Safelite Auto Glass technician decided to let my Insight run for over an hour with the A/C on trying to cool the windshield on a hot summer's day last July. He left the scene giving my keys to my son, not even having the decency to speak to me about him cracking my windshield or about the batteries that started at full charge but after his visit, ended at half charge. In all of the years I had this Honda, the battery pack was never below 3 lines less than full charge. I immediately took it to the Honda shop, explained the situation, explained that I was concerned about the charging unit and battery pack since when I was actively driving, there were three charge bars displaying and those should only display when I take my foot off the gas or when I brake. They did a process, put it in neutral or park don't know which, and revved the engine for approx 4 minutes. Over the summer and fall, I made several trips to the Honda shop because my car would straighten out for a day or two then start charging at the wrong time again. I asked if they could diagnose why it thought it needed to charge when I was driving -- instead of breaking as it had never done that before the Safelite incident. I was told to charge the small battery when needed and drive the car on the thruway, at a good speed, for an extended period of time. I did, it did not help. A couple days after that, the battery pack was depleted again. I did drive it until October, periodically charging the small front battery, knowing something was not right and Safelight believed they had no part if damaging anything having to do with the charging controls. They did, however, pay for a replacement small battery since my one-year-old battery was drained so low that day they worked on the windshield that it would not recharge. The car comes went into storage and back out of storage April 13th and immediately I find the battery pack has two bars for a charge. I drove it to try to charge it and the two bars turned into one. Again, I had to charge the front battery in order to make it to the Honda shop where it continues to sit. This time they said there were codes they had not seen before, and all of the charging system and batteries were in need of replacement. Over $5,500 in parts alone. I stand solid in my thought that since I had no problems with the charging mechanism prior to that hot July day when the car was left in idle with A/C running full boar, that this must have been pushed over the edge by Safelite. Does anyone have any good advice or previous experience with a hybrid of this vintage sitting idle and causing damage? There was a service bulletin for those Insights that had problems with the electrical system -- 8 years, 80,000 miles but it was just a bulletin and not a recall. As my Honda customer service manager explained to me, unless the car is presenting codes stating the mechanism was faulty, it would not be replaced under the bulletin. I had no issues with the car prior to Safelite's visit and they have absolutely no record of any instances when I brought the car in stating charging problems before the day Safelite worked on my car. Of course, Safelite has washed their hands of the entire situation telling me the battery was installed improperly and that was the cause of the damage. That is a bunch of bogus crap because the battery was NOT installed improperly and it ran from July to October fine ... except when I had to not drive it because the windshield had multiple cracks in it and it was not replaced until SEPTEMBER! Talk about good service from Safelite, NOT. I would truly appreciate any and all help people can offer. Thanks for your time.
) and they did a little research themselves. They knew of the first one resulting from the class action suit (I read about on the web) listing the 7 states involved. They did not know there was another one issued the same day grandfathering in the rest of the 43 states. Now they do and have verified that no only will the parts and labor be covered under the warranty, the IMA Pack gives more parts than they had originally said I needed. Effectively, the d(st)ealership told me I would have essentially a brand new car with regard to all of the important expensive pieces. Now, if anyone has any interested in offering advice further about how to safeguard the vehicle with having it sit 5+ consecutive months a year without being driven, I am all ears. Please keep it simple so I can understand. Take care all and to all who posted, a Very Sincere Thank You!
