sorry I haven't revisited this ... didn't realize there were new replies.

I eventually realized the battery level change wasn't related to why my car broke down. I think the battery charge went down because I moved into town with lots of signals and stops. Before, I made very few short trips; most trips involved highway miles, which keep my car charged up. The car broke down the day I moved, so the two things were intertwined.

What I was really concerned about was why my car suddenly failed on me. Watching the battery was just one aspect of paying attention to the car to see if it was doing anything weird. I also thought it was cutting out and having weird surges where the car would speed up when I hadn't increased the gas, as if it suddenly was getting more fuel. Unfortunately, each time the tech drove it he thought it was fine.

Anyway, but when I got the recall notice I thought, bingo, this is it. I may be wrong, have to wait until next week for an appointment. (oh, and they are not offering loaners for the half day in the shop).

The reason I think this "running lean" might be the problem is that when my car broke down it was acting like the engine was starved for fuel. I lost power, check engine light came on, IMA light came on. It has not done it since, BUT I have to drive it not knowing when the problem will strike again.

I personally am pretty annoyed with Honda because I took my inquiry to the top (through both my dealer and American Honda) and they claimed that the engineers who designed it could not come up with anything that would have made the codes come on. Did Honda factory engineering not have an inkling of this recall coming down the pipeline in mid-April? I find that hard to believe.

Lastly, as several of you recommended, I asked to talk to the regional manager. They wouldn't give me a phone number, but they did set up an appointment that was to be next time he came to my area, six weeks from when my car broke down. The day of my appointment, I got a call asking if I could make my car have the problem when I took it in to meet with him.

I had made it clear when I set up the appointment that I wanted to talk about Honda's inability to diagnose the problem based on tech experience, the codes the breakdown generated. They had information, and they couldn't come up with any theory except that I might be a stupid driver who couldn't tell the difference between auto-stop shut off and having my engine quit on me while driving down the road.

Point being, they all new my car wouldn't break down on cue. So I got a call back saying the regional manager was canceling my appointment I had waited six weeks for because there would be nothing for him to see in the way of a problem.

I'm very disappointed in Honda. I feel they need to deal with the fact that they put a car on the road that was great as long as it ran perfectly, but with insufficient training of techs in the case it malfunctioned, and the manager could have at least had the courtesy to meet with me or speak to me on the phone.

Lastly, as I posted above, American Honda said they could not try any repairs they were unsufe about because of starting the counter on unsuccessful repairs under the lemon law. Well, the lemon law does not apply to my car, because in Hawaii the lemon law is the first 24 months or 24 (or 25)K miles, whichever comes first. My car was 7 months past that when it broke down. So either they don't know their lemon law (possible) or that was a lame excuse.

I hope my catalytic converter is OK. I'll ask them to check it. FWIW, I bought this car in California with California emissions equipment and shipped it to Hawaii.