If it charged your 12V battery, then your car used it's actual starter (not the electric motor) to start the car. Then your electric (motor-)generator recharged your 144V batteries. At least, that's what's supposed to happen, if I read the owner's manual correctly.

 

Keith, I just do not remember but I don't think it started off the regular starter, I think it spun up off the IMA system.

But I'm really not sure. The batteries were only dead one time, left light on inside car.

I pick up the HAH tomorrow and if the service mgr. is in I will try to remember to ask.

Terry

 

Hmm, the HAH automatically turns off any lights (well, most lights) you may accidentally leave on. So with your new car, you won't have to worry about that anymore.

 

Thank Goodness !!!!!!!!!!!

 

Actually Terry, the IMA battery just does not charge that way.

When the 12 volt battery loses its charge the IMA system looses any awareness of the actual state of charge of the IMA battery. This means that when the 12V power is restored the IMA battery will read at 0 bars of charge. That is very misleading because the NiMH battery is hardly dead or with no charge.

What happens afterwards is that the system goes through a forced recalibration as determined by the BCM software which can last a few minutes and you will (all of the sudden) achieve a full SoC. At this point, the system determined the actual state of charge and all is back to normal.

MSantos

 

Interesting. Never read that anywhere. Thanks for the info.

 

What about using your hybrid to jump start another car that has a dead battery? Should that be a problem at all? Because I did use my hybrid to recharge my dad's station wagon once and there was no trouble- it was only later that I thought about it, after reading things like this thread, and wondered if there was any reason I shouldn't have done it.

 

There shouldn't be any problems. However, fear of the unknown keeps people from doing it. I'm a little reluctant to jumpstart another car with my HAH. However, if I were the only resort, I'd do it. I would just follow the instructions in the owner's manual to the letter.

 

To help start another vehicle? No problem at all.

However, we should remember that it is typical for Honda hybrids to have a downsized 12volt battery when compared to their gas-only counterparts. This means that an effective/ideal boost of another vehicle should only occur if the IMA DC-DC converter is operational on our cars. This means starting our cars before asking the other driver to start his/her car.
In doing so, we will enable the DC-DC converter to supplement and accommodate the likely higher load that the foreign vehicle may cause. In very cold weather this type of approach is recommended as the 12V battery is at its lowest cranking capacity and failing to supplement it can re-initialize or even "crash" the hybrid's PCM/ECU.

Cheers;

MSantos

 

That makes sense because I thought I remembered the IMA showing a full charge. But what I did not remember is the cycle it went through.

Great Info.

Terry