[lethostigma]

Ok, I'm quickly approaching 80K and am hoping to get a new battery on Honda's tab. I have noticed a considerable weaking of the battery in that it doesn't hold a full charge very often and takes a lot of nursing to get back to a full charge. My guess is that atleast some of the cells are near death. Do you think that I could bring it into a dealership and have them replace under warranty prior to total failure? I mean they are not doing as advertised anymore by being sluggish in charging and it is affecting my mileage.

 

[bfivelover]

How much is it affecting your mileage? What was it, what is it now? Unless the batteries completely die, or are having a near death experience, I seriously doubt Honda will replace them, after all, you say they still get back to a full charge, be it with a lot of nursing, but by all means go to Honda and give it a try. However, I wouldn't go with a full charge.

 

[Insightful Trekker]

FWIW,

Unless you get the battery code of death _and_ its reproducible on a road test at the dealership I personally wouldn't waste the gas on the trip (even as stingy as the Insight is on gas). A truly dead pack will readily reproduce the death code during a standardized road test.

Battery performance deterioration is simply going to happen.

Have you tried the lights on trick yet? Running the headlights during the day increases the standard "trickle" charge of the IMA pack and will limit forced charge events if you anticipate the need and turn'em on.

John K. Bullock
aka. Insightful Trekker

 

[lethostigma]

It hasn't affected my mileage that much, perhaps 3-5mpg, though I have been working harder to stay within my normal range of 65-70mpg. I guess the bottom line is; I know my batteries are going to die at just over 80k and I want to avoid the big bill.

 

[lethostigma]

It hasn't affected my mileage that much, perhaps 3-5mpg, though I have been working harder to stay within my normal range of 65-70mpg. I guess the bottom line is; I know my batteries are going to die at just over 80k and I want to avoid the big bill. Perhaps I'll look into an extended warranty.

 

[Aaron Cake]

Have you cycled the pack a few times? The exercise will probably be good for it, assuming it is just tired and doesn't actually have any dead cells.

 

[lethostigma]

by cycling the pack you mean let it drain and recharge?

 

[Aaron Cake]

Yes.

 

[Rick]

You might want to check out the yahoo Honda-hybrids group (http://www.groups.yahoo.com). A bunch of the guys who have 2000 Insight's are having battery problems to the point of daily recalibrations. They are all ganging up and trying to talk to Honda in force. A class action law suit has even been mentioned if worse comes to worse. I hate to see this happen, but Honda messed something up. And I'm afraid what my car is going to do in the next few years here.

 

[jangoldstein]

I have a 2000 (33,000 mi) that is having trouble recharging the same way you're describing. The dealer replaced all batteries. It didn't help, but it wasn't hard to get them to replace them. Also, I think the 2001-3 batteries come with a 7 yr, 70,000 warranty, so go soon.

Ricky, Thanks for direction to the yahoo site. Jan

 

[Guest]

Ok, I'm quickly approaching 80K and am hoping to get a new battery on Honda's tab. I have noticed a considerable weaking of the battery in that it doesn't hold a full charge very often and takes a lot of nursing to get back to a full charge. My guess is that atleast some of the cells are near death. Do you think that I could bring it into a dealership and have them replace under warranty prior to total failure? I mean they are not doing as advertised anymore by being sluggish in charging and it is affecting my mileage.

The consensus from the honda-hybrid list is that your dealer will tell you if there's no IMA fault light, there is no problem.

I spent at least 3 hours reading all the batery degradation/recalibration posts since June on the honda-hybrid group this morning. The recal problem seems to be effecting 2000 models much more significantly than later models, though I have experienced maybe 3 or 4 recals in my '03 since I bought it last October. We will likely ALL start having this problem as our battery packs age.

 

[monolith]

I was getting 4 recalibrations , in a typical Texas summer, a day. I just had my insight (2000 5spd) in the shop for the ECM/Emergency brake recall, and they found my itty bitty ghetto 12 volt battery would hold no charge, no matter what they did. I had it replaced with a civic battery (fits perfectly, fills the entire battery compartment) - and either the ECM update, or the new battery has stopped my recalibrations for at least the last 500 miles. We'll see how the car does over the next couple thousand, but even in the stop and go traffic here in Dallas I rarely drop below 90% SOC now, and I used to always be @ 30%. Go have your backup battery tested free at some autozone or something, it's always worth a shot since it won't cost you anything. If you have a 2000 and haven't done the ECM recal, they do it free at the Honda dealership, along with your emergency brake. Just make sure to call a few days in advance, and tell them to order the parts they will need to do the recalls, and have your VIN handy. That way your car is only gone for a bit of the day, not the 3 day period I had to wait.

 

[lethostigma]

That's interesting that your little battery had an effect on recalibrations.

I was going to take my car into the dealership last weekend to see if they could spot a problem but then didn't as with all pet tricks it stopped performing the frequent recalibrations. My driving habits have recently changed to more city driving and my battery has been staying charged. I don't know what to make of it but for now I have to wait till a problem reappears before I can work at getting a new battery under the warranty.