Hi everyone,
I recently bought an '03 HCH (on ebay!) with 22K miles. I've driven the car about 500 miles so far and LOVE it! I do have two questions I'm hoping you more experienced HCH owners can answer for me:
1. Does the battery meter ever register completely full? My battery meter lights up almost all the way, but it's never been completely full (there's always two or so bars at the top that remain unlit). Is this normal?
2. When you start the car in the morning, how long do you wait before driving off? The manual has a section on starting the car, but doesn't seem to address the topic of warming it up. Does the car need to be warmed up and, if so, for how long do you warm it? I live in CA so it never gets super cold where I live. What are your recommendations?
Thanks in advance for your words of wisdom! Cinno

 

1) My state of charge usualy hanga around where you see it. It is possible to fill it up but in my case it never does because of the city driving.

2) I only warm up my car in the winter when it gets realy cold, not because I feel I have to, but I want a warm car when I get outside.

 

If you go up into the mountains your charge will obviously go down. Coming back down is the fun part. The battery will charge all the way up. Once it receives a complete charge it will stop charging. Your downhill speed will increase because the electric motor is not acting like a generator anymore. At least that is what I've experienced.

I'm also in CA. Start it up and drive it like a normal car. It will get to normal temperature rather quickly.

Howard