I have a 2009 Honda Civic Hybrid.

I find that when the car has been parked for a few hours, that the power saved up in the battery does not last.

When I get in the car after it has been sitting, the battery gauge reads the same power level as it did when I parked the vehicle.

After driving for only a few minutes the battery meter suddenly drops from whatever level it is at (usually 6 or 7 bars) down to one bar. I can literally watch it count down 7,6,5,4,3,2,1...

At that point I no longer have any battery power and have to wait for the battery to charge back up.

I call this a "battery dump"....

Sometimes I have seen this battery dump occur after only driving 2 blocks.

After the battery charges back up (usually within 3 miles), I get normal usage from it for the rest of that trip, but if I park the vehicle for a couple of hours, I have the same problem on the next trip.

Does anyone else experience this?

 

Yep. read up on it and you will see it its normal for any car with the latest programming updates. See the guys at cleanmpg.com to learn why Honda wants it this way.

ks

 

The display of IMA battery state of charge is not necessarily an accurate description of actual state of charge, for several reasons. When you see the state-of-charge rapidly dropping, there's not really a big drop happening. What is happening is the car's Powertrain Control Module (PCM) has decided that it doesn't have an accurate picture of the state-of-charge, and needs to re-calibrate. That sudden drop, followed by forced charging and gradual rise in SOC is the re-calibration process. Also, the bar graph display of SOC likely has some leeway at both top and bottom, ie: all bars lit doesn't necessarily mean 100% charged, and 1 bar does not mean the battery is near dead.

 

Thanks!!!

Should I be concerned if I see the "recalibration" happening more frequently than I did a couple of months ago? I now see this happen every morning during the 1st 5 minutes of my commute to work and every evening during the 1st 5 minutes of the trip home from work.

Am I potentially having an issue with the PCM, or am I just being paranoid?

Thanks again...

 

Enjoy your car and stop worrying. I don't think the Pcm manages the charge. Its the bcm and the mcm that handles the soc. your pcm and the rest is just fine and doin' whut Honda needs it to do..

ks

 

Increasingly frequent re-calibrations are a common symptom of ailing IMA battery, at least from what I've been reading. I think it's a case that everyone gets recal, but twice a day sounds like a lot. Our experience is maybe once a week, or less, so far.

 

Two recalibrations per day is pretty excessive. Mine recals once every day or two in extreme heat and maybe once per week in moderate/cool weather. From what I understand, IMA systems should rarely recalibrate- once every few months if not less often. My dealer won't do anything about frequent recals unless the IMA light comes on.

 

Thanks for the comments everyone.

My re-cals used to be of the same frequency as most of yours until the past month or so, and I'm seeing even more frequent re-cals in the last week or so (some times 3-4 per day).

I'll get it checked out and let you folks know what the results are.....

Thanks again!!!

 

Maybe I was being optimistic in saying we're only getting weekly recals. Since your posting I've been a little more alert to recal behaviour. My wife does most of the driving in ours, especially weekdays. Last weekend when I was driving I noticed at least 3 instances where the state-of-charge fell off (not all the way to 1 bar, but close), and constant charging was happening, 2~3 green bars constant.

Our car had been in shop for body work for practically a calendar month, don't think that helped...

 

THE PLOT THICKENS!!!

When my wife found out I was taking the car in for service, she had a confession to make......

Two weeks ago when she was in California, the IMA light came on. She took the vehicle to a dealer. The fault code reading was "battery deterioration". The dealer updated the software and the IMA light went away.

But I am still getting 3-4 recals per day, so I brought the car in to be checked out. The "battery deterioration" fault might be a legitimate fault, and not just a software issue...

I'll let you know what happened...