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IMA Light Code P1449-78. Honda Inisght 2000

7K views 19 replies 11 participants last post by  Mountain driver 
#1 ·
Hi there, I bought this 1st Gen Honda Insight about 9 months ago from an out of state Honda Dealership. When I bought the car, it had only 38,000 miles. I ran it up past 50,000 miles and thought it was running great. Battery was holding a nice charge and I was getting 75+ MPG average.

Since early November, when the cold weather hit, I noticed the battery meter was jumpy. It would say I had a full charge, then it would drop down to half a charge suddenly. After about 3 weeks of this, the IMA light came on. I pulled the 4th fuse to recal, and ran the car as "normal" again. The battery meter was reading so extremely (full charge to no charge in 3 accelerations) I knew it would trip the IMA light again. The IMA light did come on, and only after 1 week. I just did a blink count and code check. It is the P1449-78.

My questions: Should I try a grid charger? Or is the battery most likely shot?
If the battery is shot, are there any more guys on this site or anywhere that do refurbishing of the batteries anymore?

Honda wants 2800 to fix, which may be worth it because of the low miles on the car, but that is my last option. Any help would be appreciated :)
 
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#2 ·
The battery gauge behavior you describe is recalibrations - A sign of an imbalanced battery. I would certainly encourage a grid charger. I have had very positive experiences with grid charging and discharge cycling with my homemade stuff.

The quality replacements from Bumblebee and Hybrid ReVolt are a significant savings, yet a much better solution than the dealership.
 
#3 ·
Yes, get a grid charger for sure. Where are you located? Please put your location on your profile. Don't let Honda fix your battery, Bumblebee batteries makes a much, much better battery that lasts longer, has a 3 year warranty, and is 800$ cheaper.

Bumblebee batteries: http://bumblebeebatteries.com/?PhoneScript=cpc&gclid=CJf557r5vsICFUZbfgoduJ4AUg

Hybrid autotmotive. I personally own one of these chargers and it saved my battery when it got a P1449 battery code: http://hybridautomotive.com/gc/
 
#4 ·
The vast majority of our customers report significant improvements when using a charger. With regular grid charging, the IMA light can normally be eliminated and battery life significantly extended. Most of my customers have already gotten the IMA light before buying a charger. Some have extended their battery life well over a year or two by regularly using the grid charger.

Unfortunately, in any one specific case, it is not possible to say for sure how much the charger will help. The amount of improvement depends entirely on the condition of the underlying battery pack itself. If a few charge only sessions do not help the battery, performing a few deep discharge/charge cycles will often shock the battery back into proper performance. Even if you were to have to eventually replace your IMA battery, the grid charger is still a good investment as it will prevent the new IMA battery from returning to the deteriorated state of your current pack. There are many people that are buying brand new IMA battery packs (such as the MaxIMA from Bumblebee Batteries) and adding a grid charger to the new pack on day one to virtually eliminate the imbalance problem that is so common in our cars.
 
#5 ·
Canadian: welcome and congrats on your G1 ownership. Sorry to hear of troubles.

With a 78 P1449, there may be hope of nursing your battery along for awhile. My old pack used to code 1447 (the lesser of imbalanced packs), I was able to nurse it for 2 years while using fuel savings for a pack replacement.

Agreed with SK and Balto, a grid charger would be helpful. You can diy build one fairly cheap, or purchase one from one the highly respected vendors here on IC.

As for pack replacement, should you go that route, again use one of the highly respected vendors here on IC. Their products are superior and less costly than anything Honda can offer.

You mentioned cold weather. When the pack temp is below 40 deg F., it does weird stuff on the soc. Full, low , full, charge, assist ect. Parking in a warm garage is beneficial, but if it's unheated like mine, you'll have a cold pack. I use the OBDIIC&C (offered by Peter Perkins in UK- retepsnikrep here on IC) to control my pack cooling fan as a pack heating fan. I get cabin heat going, and turn on the pack fan to draw warm air into the pack. Once the pack temp is in the 40's, it settles down and behaves normally.

Your IMA light is your primary indication you DO have issues with the pack. Get a grid charger soon.

Afterthought: should you get an IMA light and charge/assist no longer functions, your pack has become much worse, and you are running only on the 12v battery up front. You could become stranded. Good to park the car if this happens and get the grid charger.

Good luck,
 
#9 ·
Afterthought: should you get an IMA light and charge/assist no longer functions, your pack has become much worse, and you are running only on the 12v battery up front. You could become stranded. Good to park the car if this happens and get the grid charger.

Good luck,

Mountain Driver,

Are you sure of this? I hope this is not the case. I've done a little searching around, because I just got the dreaded 1449 code yesterday after about two weeks of having the 1447. It sounds like people are getting away with driving it with a 1449 for months with the car operating reliably short of the lack of charge/assist.

Please enlighten me.
 
#6 ·
Wow thank you guys so much for all that insight-ful information! I have ordered the discharge ready battery pack from hybridautomotive and am going to have it installed by my mechanic. I will try nursing my battery back to good and if that doesn't work, I will look into the IMA batteries from the companies you mentioned.

I thought the cold weather may have some impact on the cells. Luckily, I just moved into a 3 car garage house instead of an apartment. It will be staying inside now. The garage is not heated, but it still stays much warmer in there.

I will post back results when I have some. It could be a month before I have any results as Christmas is right around the corner. I am banking on the issue being an unbalanced battery though :)

Thanks again!
 
#7 ·
Make your first charge a nice long 32 hours or peak voltage + 4-8 hours OR whatever Hybrid Automotive tells you. :)

IMHO, try to avoid grid charging any more frequently than the sooner of 1 recal per trip or quarterly.
 
#8 ·
Another afterthought: when the pack is cold enough (can't remember the exact temp, I think in the 20's F) my pack fan comes on automatically and stays on 'till the pack warms up to near 40 deg.
 
#11 ·
Bypassing the 144V pack on a CVT Insight

I've been up against the same problem with my 03 CVT Insight. The 144V battery pack is weak and has become tempermental and unstable due to cell deterioration. I reviewed the instructions on hybridautomotive.com on how to bypass the 144V pack, with or without removing the pack from the car, but the BCM and the MCM appear to be different on the CVT models. I did find that unplugging the front connector (towards the front of the car) on the BCM and turning the pack switch Off appears to have successfully bypassed the 144V pack, while still allowing the motor/alternator to keep the 12V battery charged via the DC to DC converter. A voltmeter indicates that the DC to DC converter provides a steady 13.5V of charging voltage to the 12V battery when the engine speed is above 1200 RPM and higher, with the charging voltage falling off at engine speeds below 1200 RPM. The IMA and the MIL lights are lit due to DTC P1648 resulting from unplugging the BCM connector, but all seems to be okay otherwise, with the engine starting with the conventional starter and the 12V battery maintaining a full charge. The IMA and MIL lights are annoying, but I can live with that until I have the time to overhaul the 144V pack.

Has anyone else encountered this scenario with their CVT Insight?
 
#12 ·
Eli (of Bumblebee Batteries) offered the following steps (in another thread) to revive a battery (edited to remove the date specific statements):

1) Make sure SoC is 18 bars or lower
2) Wait two weeks more.
3) Then in the morning, disconnect your 12V battery for 30 seconds
5) Reconnect your 12V battery
6) Get in the car and hold the engine at 3250RPM as best as you can, until positive recalibration
7) Report how long it lasts in contrast to how long it had been lasting

For me, I got 15 minutes of problem-free driving before the IMA light returned.
 
#13 ·
Nothing but good results so far from the Grid Charger. The first time I left it on the charger for 24 hours to give it a nice long charge and balance (as per the instructions). It balanced the cells out, I drove it and noticed an immediate improvement. No longer was it jumping from full charge to no charge, it was actually reading the battery voltage correctly. Also, battery capacity tripled. Here is what I believe the problem was: One of the cells had become unbalanced. It did not know whether to read a high or low voltage. Keep in mind, I have only been driving it for about a week, but the improvement was immediate. Pretty awesome :)
 
#14 ·
Good to hear.

Here's another item to chew on: As good as grid charging is, it's only part of the 'maintenance'. Worthwhile to read up on 'deep discharging'.

Over time, the grid charging will become less effective, and that's when I would 'discharge'. If you got your unit from HybridAutomotive, talk to Jeff again, he has a discharge unit also, which might be adaptable to what you now have.

Happy Insighting,
 
#18 ·
The fan should run whenever the charger is charging. The whole point is to keep the temp from rising, as much as you can.

Sam
 
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