There is a service bulletin that says that honda may replace the battery out of good will IF the dealer appeals to their regonal office or something. Someone posted it not to long ago. You might want to check in to that.


Oh.. here it is.
http://www.alldata.com/tsb/Honda/114...0-070/701.html

 

Got my battery replaced on Friday. Topped off the tank right after making the change. So far milage has been at 69.5-70.0 MPG over 150 miles whereas when the battery was bad I got around 59.0-60.0 MPG showing. I am now a happy camper since my Insight has a new heart.

 

rigger,

I went six months on the new battery before the 1st recal. Assuming it behaves the same way, it will never recall, because the 2-3 times mine has recaled was doing pulse and glide attempting to get over 150mpg...

 

I hope not to have any recals. Right now I am at half full on the battery meter and I suspect it'll top off on the way to work in the morning. The one bad thing is the hills in this area don't give you a chance to regen but they suck the life out of the battery going up it. The poor little car is having to haul quite a bit of weight too - as you know, the wife and I aren't exactly little twig people (no we're not super fat either ). We'll see tomorrow. I accidentally filled the car up too much the other day when I topped off the tank as the "automatic" shut off din't automatically shut off like it was supposed to at the gas station. I've got close to 200 miles on this tank so far and the first bar just disappeared on the fuel gauge.

 

I'm at 78,000 on my HCH and everything seems as good as day one. Since this thread is filled with experience I have a couple questions:

1. I think Tom asked this earlier: Was your car still drivable? I'd guess it was but less performance.
2. When the IMA light came on did you still get charge/assist indications or was the IMA disabled?
3. What did your SOC show leading up to the condition? That is, was it acting normally, or making increasingly odd displays?
Or did it suddenly go from perfectly normal to a series of recalibrations?

I've wondered those questions for years and years.

 

1. I think Tom asked this earlier: Was your car still drivable? I'd guess it was but less performance.

When my car's battery went out I never noticed ANY difference and the battery acted as though nothing ever happened. It actually performed better!

2. When the IMA light came on did you still get charge/assist indications or was the IMA disabled?

CHG/ASST worked fine. Now when my BCM went out that was a different story. The IMA did shut down.

3. What did your SOC show leading up to the condition? That is, was it acting normally, or making increasingly odd displays?
Or did it suddenly go from perfectly normal to a series of recalibrations?

I actually was using quite a bit of elec. that morning. The IMA light came on a few minutes after I turned the rear defroster on. Once I got it to work I ran some tests with my handy code reader (aka: PAPER CLIP) and it showed as battery deterioration.

I've wondered those questions for years and years.

 

Thank you Rigger for the post.
I have one more if you don't mond.

In your opinon do you think you could have driven the vehicle indefinetly with your old deteriorated battery?

I'm asking this as these questions pop up here and there, and more personally hope to drive my car over 350,000 miles. I believe the battery will go South before then and I'm researching all options.

Thanks again!

 

In your opinon do you think you could have driven the vehicle indefinetly with your old deteriorated battery?

I honestly don't know. It may play havoc with the rest of the IMA until it completely dies. Honestly, it was a dog to drive though with the deteriorated battery. For the most part I think you'll be able to reasonably replace your pack at a "worldly" price when the time does come for it to R.I.P. On top of that I bet they'll have the better battery technology in the packs as well.

 

Honda Came thru for me paying for everything - $5600 and mine had 178kmi on it. Keep the pressure on the dealer to have the local rep stop by and contact Honda Cust service if the local reps do not come thru. See my Thank you Honda post. Ted

 

I have another good news story! My 2000 Insight with 137,000 threw a battery deterioration code P1443 last Monday. I took it to the local dealer and he called Wednesday morning and said he had a new pack with modules ordered and they would be in next Wednesday.$0 for the parts & $0 for labor. I was prepared for a fight.
I am a happy Honda owner!