after turning the car off, mainly when it is hot outside, the cars fan continues to stay on, and usually runs down the cars battery by about 1/3-1/2. sucks, but my fiance has noticed (she drives the car most) that the AC stops working sometimes and after a little driving and some dumb luck (got in the car with 3 bars of battery) once the battery droped below 3 bars the AC stoped blowing cold air...anyone know why this happens or why the fan stays on so long...thanks...

 

The fan is an integral part of the car's cooling system, and it is left on for minutes after the car is stopped in hot weather in order to sufficiently cool the electric motor down. It should not be deactivated, or you will face electric motor overheating and failure. However, it should NOT drain your battery even by 1 bar. If it does, something is seriously wrong with your battery's charge retention ability, and you should contact your Honda dealer to get your IMA battery pack replaced under warranty. If you have questions about warranty coverage, see this thread.

How much battery level you have left should have nothing to do with your A/C output, because the generation 1 HCHs like the one you have are run by a compressor. It looks like you need to have your A/C system recharged by your dealer. Just go to your dealer and ask them to fix your A/C.

One request for you. In future posts, can you please use a spell-checker and at least make a decent effort to write in complete sentences with punctuation, capitalization, and correct grammar? Avoiding elipses and parentheses also helps. That way, it's much easier for those answering your questions to understand what you're asking in the first place. Thanks.

 

Thanks for the link and info. I am going to take the car by our local honda shop today and have them take a look at it. I printed off the list of covered items to bring along as well. you did mention in that post you referenced that they "may" replace it completly free or for a small fee. can i just contact the dealer directly or should i go through regional honda first? thanks.

 

If the parts your HCH needs are still under warranty, they should be replaced free of charge. I can't remember if labor is covered or not; you'll have to talk to your dealer about that.

If your HCH battery pack is out of warranty, you'll have to contact Honda Regional first and get a case manager on your situation in order to get a chance at landing any $$ for replacing your battery pack. I don't promise anything, but other owners have followed the same procedure when they ran out of warranty, and you have nothing to lose in contacting Honda. You can surely use the argument that if Honda builds hybrids and then refuses to help owners with replacing the battery pack, that would be terrible for their image and reputation among the hybrid niche market.

The dealer will charge you ~$4000 for the battery-pack replacement, and I don't think you'll have any luck there getting things replaced at the dealer out of warranty for free. But you can try.

Good luck with the repairs and update us on how they went! And thanks for posting with more clarity.

 

The fan that is running shouldn't be running off of the IMA battery. Also, if the IMA battery is low, the A/C should just run off of the engine power.

 

Even if the fan does not run off of the IMA, the battery should not deplete by 50% overnight and indicates charge retention problems. Battery pack replacement seems necessary. In addition, if the A/C does not blow cold, something is definitely wrong with the system itself.

One thing I forgot to mention: If you push the ECON button on the center console so that the green LED is lit, Auto-Stop is activated. During Auto-Stop, which is when the car's engine turns off at stoplights/stop signs, the A/C compressor is deactivated. But once your engine turns back on, the A/C compressor should start again and blow cold.

The car in question is a 2003 Honda Civic Hybrid, generation 1.

Unlike your 2007 Honda Civic Hybrid, generation 2, the generation 1 HCH's A/C does not run off of the IMA. Please take care to check what model year the HCH is before answering questions, lest we confuse the new owner even more!

Thanks!

 

i took the car to the honda dealer today and told them of my problems. they did a software update on it and said that that was the reason for the depleating batteries. they also stated that the A/C shutting off when the IMA is depleted is normal, however a few RPM above idle would cause the A/C to blow cold again. i am somewhat sceptical at this, however, they did check the A/C and said they found nothing wrong. on a side note, when i had the A/C problems the A/C was in normal mode. i did not have the REC or ECON button pushed. the software update was done free under warranty as well as the A/C check was free. thanks for all of the info, it's greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks for the update and keep us posted.

So it was a software update...I forget nowadays that our cars are as much computer as mechanical machine. Glad to know your Honda dealer took good care of you.

 

Well, after a few days of driving around since the software update there have been no more problems. In fact, the battery seems to be lasting noticeably longer, provides more assist than it used to and now recharges much quicker than before. The update has made a noticeable difference in the car.

Also, on a side note, I finally got my fiancé to start paying attention to her driving habits and what the car is doing. Since the software update, she is averaging just over 46mpg driving the same commute where she used to get 42mpg at best. I can't tell what played a bigger part in this increase, her changed driving or the new software, but a combination of the two has helped tremendously.

 

It's good to hear that your HCH is working well again. Your experience helps all of us know what to do when similar problems surface on our HCHs. Hope you have many trouble free miles ahead of you from now on, and congrats on the improved numbers!