After experiencing issues with spontaneous charge loss with my year-old '06 HCH (described in another thread here), I'd noticed that my battery was rarely charging past 4 or 5 bars, even on stretches of road that normally would bring it to full capacity.

After taking it to the dealer for the SoC problem, and getting it back with 2 bars of charge, they recommended charging it manually by sitting in 'park' with the RPM's above 1900, which indicates that about 4 bars worth of charge are happening the whole time. I tried this and the summary is that it started at 5 bars, after 4 1/2 minutes of charging it rose to 6 bars, where it stayed until I gave up at 12 minutes. This test was done in a covered garage with the A/C, stereo, and lights off.

My question is: is this normal behavior for anyone else? It seems drastically worse than the first 10 months of ownership but the dealer said that everything had checked out fine with the diagnostics, and I can't seem to get past 75% charge capacity.

No, it doesn't sound normal. I've had mine for almost a year and there have been many, many times when it was nearly fully charged and sometimes fully charged. It's gone down to 2, even 1 bar, but will always get to nearly full charge eventually.

It must be frustrating to have yours behave like that and the dealer not able to find the problem.

Good luck,

Jess

I agree, it doesn't seam normal. That's what scare me. Dealers unskilled with hybrid.

PM

I agree, also.
Mine has gone to ZERO bars several times in 20K miles of driving (mostly highway). It always gets back to the normal 5-7 bars. (Very) occasionally all 8 bars. Maybe you should try another dealer.

Steve

STOP terrorism - Drive a HYBRID

Vehicles:
350 miles a week ------------ 2006 HCH II, Magnetic Pearl, w/NAVI (born on May 25, 2006)
350 miles a month ---------- 2003 Mazda Tribute ES-V6
350 miles a year (for now) - 1986 Mercedes 560SL