Uh yeah, um, I hate to break it to you but I offered Corporate Honda and my local dealer to have an engineer look at my car and tell me why their tests show nothing is wrong, but when you drive it, it loses battery life within a mile of driving, has a major loss on mpg, and no accelleration at times. They refused, and stuck to their line that nothing is wrong.

 

Mendel, please let me know how it goes for you. I have no issues with my battery at this time so I am not going to touch it......

 

Ditto for me. Just got my letter today. After reading the mixed results here, at cleanmpg and the LA Times article, and given I don't yet have any issues with my battery, I definitely am wanting to opt out of this "upgrade". But I have my "A" maintenance service scheduled for Monday... What if they say they're going to apply the upgrade at the same time they do my maintenance work? Can they do that? Can I refuse? Will my refusal void my warranty? Can/will they apply the upgrade without telling me?

 

I'm no lawyer, but the car I test drove and bought had certain operating characteristics and I based my purchase on those characteristics. Something in English common law and the concept of merchantability. Also, I read that to maintain my warranty I had to follow the recommendations in the owners manual, not said details in the owners manual plus any software updates that may occur from time to time to dumb down the battery/mileage performance.
I'd get it in writing that they will not touch your software. You own it, not Honda. Good luck.

 

I believe the letter said "non-mandatory," no? There's your answer.

 

My Honda letter states "What should you do".
Sorry for this example, but: 28 years in the air-force taught me the difference between "should" and "shall". "Should" describes an action in an (aircraft operating instructions) that will usually render a desired result more efficiently with no impact on flight safety, but the choice is still up to the operator. "Shall" is not open to discussion, it is an action that the operator must take lest one is violated for incorrect procedures.

Bottom line, the contents of the Honda letter are "non-mandatory".

 

As a draftsman I agree: "shall" put's onus on the recipient to compy with the instruction, ie: contractor shall bevel all exposed edges. But, if someone out-of-the-blue sends you an unsolicited letter saying you shall, will, or should do something, I don't see that you're obligated to comply.

On the other hand (Fiddler on the Roof), this is not exactly out-of-the-blue: you've bought their product, and I'm sure somewhere in the fine print there's an indication that Honda reserves the right to ammend the maintenance requirements. It's actually not such a bad idea. As long as it doesn't get out of hand, updates coming fast and furious, not working, and so on. Then the lawsuits start.

The expression that comes to mind for me is "keep your friends close, and your enemies closer". Even though Honda's agenda is very likely motivated at least in part to stave off escalating battery replacement problems, I still think it's worth considering. Things I'm considering:

1. I'd just like to have the latest software profile. I like trying new things. They've likely tweaked multiple performance characteristics, and I'm curious. Hope that won't be on my tombstone.

2. I do think there will be slightly lower mileage due to the new assist characteristics and more reluctant auto-stop. Hopefully not much, and hopefully it will preserve, or even improve, the battery health.

3. Regardless of my legal obligation, I'm sure if my battery fails, and I've refused the update, it will be a factor in any arguments with Honda.

Anyway, we're booked for next Thurday, will post when it's had a chance to do it's thing.

 

Thanks for the responses. Actually, nowhere in my letter does it say "non-mandatory", or "mandatory" for that matter. I assume there's a different letter for Canada than the U.S.? I plan to bring the L.A. Times article with me on Monday... we'll see what they say!

 

Here's one posted scan of the US letter:

http://media.journalinteractive.com/...ery-letter.pdf

My (Canadian) notice does look quite different, but the gist is the same:



Sorry for the quality: I think it's just legible if you bump up magnification. I can't figure out a better way to post.

 

I got the latest IMA battery software update at my Honda dealer last week and I would like to share my first impressions. I have a HCH-II 2007 with 26K miles. I consider myself an eco-driver, not a hypermiler (I've gotten 51mpg lifetime on this car, my girlfriend who has rarely driven this car and drives it aggressively gets an average of 40-42mpg). My IMA battery started showing signs of deterioration few months ago (lower charging capacity, occasional "crashes", etc). I use my car for my daily commute to my office: 20 miles, mostly highway, starting with a cold engine, at 60-65mph on highway, currently 80-100F heat, AC at 80F. After the update, I noticed that during the first 4-5 miles my battery will drain down to 3 bars from the starting 5-7 bars and will stay there, even though there is a continuous charge (regen) without giving any assist or auto-stop. During those first miles, my mpg is very low: 20-30. Then, after the 4-5 miles, and without any notice, the IMA battery charge will jump to 100% full (8 bars?) and then it will start behaving normally (actually better than before the update). In fact, after the 5 miles, I find easier to apply the basic hypermiling techniques, such as gliding, mostly because the IMA behavior is more predictable now. After 20 miles (my daily commute), I will get around 52mpg overall, which is typical for this time of year with AC on. I suspect that the reason my IMA does this jump to 100% charge is that the new IMA software wants to make sure that the battery will charge to its full capacity before it starts discharging to prolong its life. That way (I think), it purposely shows low charge to protect the battery from any discharge before the 100%. So my experience so far: with a cold engine, I get no assist/auto-stop for the first few miles, but after that, I get performance comparable to (even better than) that before the updates.