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I want to start off here with a few details concerning my 06 hch gen 2 with 111000 mi..
I’ve been driving this car for 7 years and I’m still learning about how it works.
I just leaned about what vtec does a couple moths ago. I don’t think I’ve used vtec much
in either the 02 or 06 civic while driving in the past.OK, I’ve noticed this year my battery charge indicator as well as my electric assist indicator gauges
on the dash are way different then they used to be.
It’s hard to believe that less than a year after starting to use second gear instead of the brakes
( to slow the car and generate charge ) would have such dramatic effect on how the electric motor boosts
and the battery usage,
( charge and discharge ) has changed. So much so that it appears there so a problem with the battery pack.
( quick discharge -down to 2 bars- and very slow charging ) while driving.I’ve started using the brakes normally again and I’m testing how
( stopping the vehicle and letting it charge fully before continuing to drive )
effects the charge and discharge rates. I think they call this battery recals,
which I’m just learning about the last few months.
I’ve never seen the electric boost indicator top out until just recently. Usually it stays at or below half on the gauge.
– driving habits ?I’ll stop here with this short intro and keep you posted regarding what effects my new techniques have
on the charge discharge rates of the battery or if I find I have to install a new pack eventually.
( no codes so far either )
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You might want to take it back to the dealership and have them check the condition of your power controller.
[quote=”DiRT-Powered” post=83605]You might want to take it back to the dealership and have them check the condition of your power controller.[/quote]
Last time I had it in for service, they had a 2013 civic hyb reduced 3k on the sales floor they tried to sell to me. They almost had me, until I opened the hood. :woohoo:
It looked like it was the mechanics test vehicle.
Plus there is a whole new set of mechanics, service reps and shop manager.
Do the math. :stick:OK,
Then check out the NEDRA, thats the national electric drag racing association. I’m pointing you in there direction because they are the most level headed people that know ev tech inside and out. Most of them don’t have their head up their ideological @$$es.
Its not your fault, its Hondas. I hope you got your $200 from the $14+ million settlement on 6 class action lawsuits regarding the battery packs for the HCH. If you already took the vehicle to the stealership you’re probably in worse shape. Their “updates” mask the problem and prolong the inevitable by illegally modifying the threshold for OBD to set a DTC for battery deterioration. I doubt you will anymore but before the lawsuit some people at Honda admitted to this. Last I heard the computer has to determine the battery is at 10% of specified capacity to set a check engine light!!! Honda won’t touch the car with a 10 ft pole until you fork over hundreds or get this CEL. Sorry.
On a constructive note… If you really like the car though I would invest the ~$2000 in a third party battery pack and home charger for periodic reconditioning. Its just not worth it to drive a dangerously underpowered vehicle hoping it will eventually set an error code so you can just start a long & hard battle with Honda… Only to have them swap in another sub-par pack and put you in the same position 2.5 yrs from now out of warranty… Either that or have an “unfortunate accident” 😉
The 06 Hybrid has been out or warranty for more then a year now, that includes the honda extended warranty(ies)
for the model. I’m not he sharpest tool in the box, but I do watch my service schedules.
And yes, it has been dealer serviced up and until Oct 2013 when I noticed my lifetime oil change
contract included recycled oil ( not so good for a 0-20 weight spec ). Besides that, I’ve had to monitor simple
oil changes at my dealer since 02 ( 02 civic EX ). Overfills were way to common to not be an A##h##e
and bring to the attention of the service reps.
And the old shop foreman(s) tried to do their best with advice, to a DIYer with simple questions,
but service still was not up to presidential awards standards by any ways or means,
but not the worst I’ve seen either, by a long shot.
But the times they are a changin – and I doubt I’ll be able to find any dealer anywhere that will
conscientiously service an out of warranty honda vehicle, much less one of their hybrids
( from the looks of the class actions ), properly.
After all it is a dealer, and the sales dept is eager to get anyyone that walks into the showroom in some kind of vehicle,
and the local dealer management has to walk that fine line between sales, service and it’s bottom line.
But I digress.Exactly, you get it. That’s pretty much how it went with my 07 HCH. It was a great car for about a year but at 45k miles the IMA battery problems were just about unbearable and taking it to Honda just seemed to make it worse. Then my mom got into an accident because the IMA system did a recal while she was pulling out onto a highway and the car lost 50% of it’s power instantly. I put some touch up paint on the bumper and we traded it in on a brand new car (certainly not a Honda!) by the end of that week…
I’ve been happy with mine but I’ve driven it like an old lady since it was new.
I wanted to see what kind of mpg I could squeeze out of it using alternative driving techniques.
I’ve heard the modules in this hybrid adjust to different driving styles.
I’ve been interested in knowing just how true that is, and I guess I’m getting even more interested now.I’d also like to get a handle on what the dealer service does to the modules, when done correctly.
It seems to me as if I have gen3 ( 2012 – 13 ) hybrid specs set on my gen2 hybrid.
( does that make sense to anyone else? )I remember commenting to my navigator on a road trip a few years ago,
“I can’t get more then 4 bars of assist.”
to clarify, that was normal I’d never gotten more than 4 bars of assist from the time the car was new
until just a few months ago.
In contrast, these last few months the assist gauge often shows all the bars.
The battery charge gauge ( the one I’m watching the closest ) also changed within the last few months.
And the battery charge gauges is showing bigger change as the weather gets colder. And those differences
are much more pronounced than in past winters when I never noticed any change as the weather got colder
from my assist gauge or from my battery charge level gauge.I only know what the FSM says and what experience I had with my 07 and taking it to the dealer, but I don’t think the modules have much “adaptation” over long-term trends for IMA behavior. The “updates” are simply software revisions that are downloaded at the dealership to the car. Again, I don’t know everything but my experience was they just modify assist/regen to preserve/mask poor battery capacity. Even the techs at the dealership probably can’t set any particular parameters for the system. The programming is locked down pretty tight, to my knowledge Gen II/III hasn’t been hacked into yet. Gen I Insights & Civic Hybrids, on the other hand, are pretty easy to hack into the programming and configure a “manual override” circuit. I had a friend with a 5 spd 2000 Insight that could put the car in 1st and putz around the parking lot at school w/o using the gas pedal just by using his “manual IMA joystick” to force the MCM to give full assist.
So I think I get what you mean about it being configured to “Gen III specs” but I don’t think it works like that. Gen III is a very different system anyways, based upon the higher quality lithium ion battery. What I can tell you is don’t believe anything the State of Charge gauge says. That is where the “recalibration” problem comes in, the computer guesses the SOC based on how much assist/regen is used, but when the battery is deteriorated the modules can’t calculate SOC. So when the battery is full/empty, a voltage threshold is hit and it forces the computer to recalibrate the SOC as full/empty even though the gauge can read anywhere from 3-6 bars.
Colder weather definitely is what brings out battery pack health problems. Ours was getting 45mpg one winter, 37 the next summer, then back up to 40 for a little while in the fall before plummeting to the low 30’s when it got cold. I thought it might get better when it warmed back up, but it fell to around 28mpg in April 2012 when we traded it in.
I made this video right before trading the car in, you can compare your symptoms to this if you want. Pay close attention to the tripometer and how often it recals (about every 2.5 miles).
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