[ericbecky]

I accidentally left the ignition turned on and drained my battery so low that the battery meter was empty. (0 bars lit up.) I had to jump start the car and it took about 7 miles for it to fully recharge.

Since then, the battery meter has been staying fuller than it was in the past.

When it did the initial recharge I noticed that the meter was filled a bar or two above its usual full charge mark. (Previously the top two bars rarely became lit up.)

Even during my usual commute, the battery meter has been staying very full. Now it never goes down more than four or five bars, even when doing some aggressive acceleration. (Previously the meter could drop to as low as ½ full or lower when I went up some long steep grades.)

Do you think draining the battery to empty harmed the car?

Or was draining the battery to empty a good thing? Sort of analogous to purging your cooling system.

Either way, I’ll continue to be attentive to the battery’s charge.

I’ve never had a recal, so I hope this “very full” charge does not make one more likely to occur.

 

[Corey872]

It is funny you should mention that. I got a chance to take our insight out on the open road today. The only driving it has seen is the girlfriend taking it to work and back which is a ~15 minute stop-and-go trip. Well, with afternoon temps near 100F, heat index of 115F, lets just say the AC is on full and the battery is heat soaked for the afternoon trip...so it offers little boost and doesn't take much charge.

So I hit the open highway today with ~3 bars of charge left on the gauge...10 miles later it is up within 1 bar of full...stayed there through some light city driving and most of the return trip home. I finally had a couple of hills to climb with no real downhill on the other side, so I stopped with about 3 bars gone.

I thought to myself...I don't remember it ever charging to within 1 bar of full...usually it is ~3 bars away.

The only possibility I could think of was that the car was force charging through most of the hilly part of my drive, then stopped about the point I was entering the overall downhill portion. This led to the slightly higher charge in the battery. If it wasn't force charging, I probably would have used more battery in the hills and been slightly lower when I hit the downhill slope.

Anyone else?

 

[Insightful Trekker]

Pretty much describes my rare 100% full indications too.

EricBecky if you havent read my old post in regard to IMA functions see:

http://www.insightcentral.net/forum/vie ... fdd3075a64

HTH!

 

[ericbecky]

Thanks Insightful Trekker,
I read that post months ago, but now is a good time to re-read it with a new perspective. Thanks.