[tom.gabriele]

hello all. these forums have been great, but until now i havent needed to post anything.

my family has a condo in miami with our insight that we keep down there. i know that sitting for months isnt good for the insight at all, but so far my dad hasnt swayed in his opinion that the insight wont be any good up north (connecticut).

last time i went down, the car had been sitting for about 2 months and the battery showed a half charge. after driving carefully for three days, the battery finally go back up to normal (~3 bars from top).

my question is, would it be advisable to disconnect the battery for a minute then reconnect it, so that when the car starts next, it force charges the battery right away?

 

[Fl_Fyr_Fytr]

No matter what you do, the sitting will kill the battery unless you use a special trickle charger to charge the battery before starting it. There are two people on this forum working on such a charger. I too live in Florida and my car sat for a week at a time between trips. After a few months of this, the IMA started throwing codes. See my whole story here:

http://www.insightcentral.net/forums/problems-troubleshooting/15045-ima-woes.html#post143065

 

[Fl_Fyr_Fytr]

Pulled from the original IMA woes thread and quoted from Hybrid Battery Repair:

I've recommended that he get a grid charger for later. Parking for a week at a time won't kill the battery immediately, but it will eventually. (refering to the new battery)

It really doesn't matter how much you let the batteries self-discharge as long as they are at the same state of charge when you want to start using them.

So, it is just as good to simply charge the battery at the end of the summer season before you use it for the 1st time. The grid charger should do it.

 

[tom.gabriele]

so as far as battery health goes, it doesnt sound like charging the battery matters? that the damage is already done from sitting? i dont know that i would trust a grid charger with us being 1600 miles away from it if anything were to go wrong.

how about as far as fuel economy goes? will the mileage be better if the battery does the force regen and the battery is back to full after a couple miles as opposed to charging in normal mode over the course of a couple days or vice versa?

 

[satchel]

I'm not sure but I think you misread. I believe he's saying if you grid charge it after it's been sitting and before you start it up, then you may be ok. Otherwise the battery will fail within nine months.

 

[tom.gabriele]

ok thank you for the clarification.

also, if i read the faq correctly, this 2003 insight has a warranty on the batteries til 2013? it only has 30k miles on it. if damage results from the batteries sitting for so long, that is still covered, right?

 

[satchel]

Indeed, you are warrantied 10 years from when the car was put in service or 150,000 miles, provided it is not a salvage title.

 

[tom.gabriele]

haha well i kind of wish the battery pack would go bad so i can get a new one, then start treating it right

 

[satchel]

Actually you're still covered under the 8/80 for a lot of the other components on the car too! Cats and batts are really the biggest problems. The HV batteries have become much less of a worry with a member here now refurbishing them for around $1000, no worse than a timing belt change on some vehicles!

 

[Fl_Fyr_Fytr]

My gf says she will exercise it for ya while you are gone...

Wow, '03 with 30k... I'd kill for such an animal. Wana trade? lol

 

[red1dr]

i know that sitting for months isnt good for the insight at all, but so far my dad hasnt swayed in his opinion that the insight wont be any good up north (connecticut).

Maybe it will help if you tell him that my Insight-I has lived in CT all its life and it does just fine. Driving between FL and CT would be good for it and you would probably pull some great mpg's on a trip like that.

 

[tom.gabriele]

my car now is a 2003 jetta with 180k miles on it. put a bunch on it going from ct to college in daytona for two years, and now back and forth to school in pennsylvania. the insight would be great for all that driving!

i have come across a thread about modifications that one insight owner had to make because of ice getting on the underbody. have you came across any problem driving in the cold/snow/ice?

 

[tom.gabriele]

also, would it be necessarily bad to disconnect the 12v battery to get the car to force charge up the ima batteries? it would be nice just for peace of mind having that battery meter full after a couple minutes as opposed to a couple days.

 

[tadpole]

For one thing, a hot climate is hard on the IMA battery, so don't worry about keeping it in Connecticut.

I run 3 Insights, one 12 months a year, and the other 2 for 6 months each (one in the summer and one in winter, as we have only 2 seasons in Maine). The one in storage gets fired up for about 20 min every few weeks. One year I was disabled from an injury and 2 Insights sat caked in ice and snow for about 3 months without being started. Each one started immediately and have been problem free ever since.

 

[Hybrid-Battery-Repair]

also, would it be necessarily bad to disconnect the 12v battery to get the car to force charge up the ima batteries? it would be nice just for peace of mind having that battery meter full after a couple minutes as opposed to a couple days.

Drive with alight foot, and the battery will charge completely in about 30 minutes of driving. What you are suggeting above will not work, as the 12V is charged as an afterthought. When the hybrid battery wants a charge, it sucks up many times what the 12V battery can.

 

[tom.gabriele]

i thought i read that if you disconnect the 12v battery for like a minute, the memory of the battery charge status or something gets reset, so the next time the car is started, it charges the 144v batteries up to full immediately. did i misunderstand?

 

[joecvt]

i thought i read that if you disconnect the 12v battery for like a minute, the memory of the battery charge status or something gets reset, so the next time the car is started, it charges the 144v batteries up to full immediately. did i misunderstand?

You are partially correct ....Disconnecting the 12V battery for a few seconds will make the IMA controllers "forget" the State of Charge (SOC) that appears on the IMA dash display. Upon startup from what is really an IMA reset, the IMA will force charge the battery for a certain period of time, determine the previous SOC and adjust the IMA meter on the dash as appropriate. But if you did this procedure when the IMA meter was only 1/4 full, it will not charge it all the way up to full before it determines the SOC (although it may continue to charge while driving afterwards). If you did this procedure when your battery was only one bar down before the reset, the force charge during the determination period will likely be enough time to include that one last bar (being a full charge).

There is a difference....

JoeCVT = Just your average CVT owner

 

[tom.gabriele]

ok. thanks joe.

p.s. mine's a cvt too

 

[Hybrid-Battery-Repair]

If you did this procedure when your battery was only one bar down before the reset, the force charge during the determination period will likely be enough time to include that one last bar (being a full charge).

Joe,

Is there a 20th bar? I put 100% charged batteries into cars (way past what the car can charge them up to) and do relearns and I never get the 20th bar. It shoots up to 19 and stops there. This is on Insights and Civics both MT and CVT (including MT Civics).

Ron

 

[Varak]

Joe,

Is there a 20th bar? I put 100% charged batteries into cars (way past what the car can charge them up to) and do relearns and I never get the 20th bar. It shoots up to 19 and stops there. This is on Insights and Civics both MT and CVT (including MT Civics).

Ron

On my car, my normal max is the 18th bar. During normal operations, it never lights the last two bars.

However, when my car does a positive recal, it DOES fill all 20 bars, but once it drops down to 18, it won't gove above 18 until the next positive recal.

I'm not sure if it is normal or not, but I get positive recals fairly often. On the 'stop-and-go-city-driving' part of my route, I"ll slowly use SOC until it is down to 4-5 bars. If I then hop on the freeway, it will go into the 4 bars of forced recharge and slowly fill up the SOC. After 10-20 miles on the freeway, the SOC will be at 60% and then suddenly fill all the way up to 100% (I'm assuming that is a positive recal) whereupon the battery acts normally.