Hey Guys,

I read somewhere that the HCH battery will eventually become unuseable after around 7 years worth of driving. Currently, I think it said that the battery price alone is worth $3,500. Can anyone confirm that and has anyone seen your battery wearing down yet? I didn't get a warranty because of this fact since the 7 year/70,000miles seems somewhat short of what I think it would take for my battery to die out. Anyways, I'm blabbing too much nowadays, so I'll stop.

 

The salesman that I bought my Civic from last week told me that a battery replacement was running around $2500 for parts and labor. I don't know if that's factual or if it was just salesman talk but that's what he told me. The warranty on the Civic battery is 8 years or 80,000. If it dies by that time, hopefully it will still be under warranty or the price of repair will have dropped significantly.

 

For sale on eBay right now (7 days left) is an HCH battery with 7k miles on it, starting at $200 with no reserve. I'd ****** this up as insurance if it wern't for the fact that I tend to only keep cars an average of 2 years.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eB...tem=7966845185

 

Scott,
I try to keep my cars for 10 years and I'll have more than 300K miles on my HCH at that time, so battery life was definetly a concern of mine as well.

When I bought my car I also paid an extra ~$900 for the extended warranty which covers the drivetrain, all hybrid parts except battery for 7yr/70K miles and the battery is warranted for 10yr/150K miles.

If the battery works itself flat before then I can still drive the car.
So far I've had the car 17 months and 37K miles and it indicates the condition has not changed from the first month.

If the battery is useless at say......

175K miles I'd likely begin a search for a guaranteed used pack such as from a junk yard, unless the OEM price had come down- in which case I'd buy new.
If the battery wasn't already replaced then at 250K miles I'd do the search above and if all else fails just drive the car as is.
If it needed replacement at 300K as I suspect it would, I'd just drive it as is.

 

Hi,
I know this is an old thread, but I just recently was told by the dealer that the reason my check engine light was on was that my batteries were degenerating. My car is a used 2003 HCH that I bought in 2005. It's right above 100,000 miles. The cost to replace the batteries was "about $3000". The guy at the dealership said he had not run into this problem with the Civic hybrids before. I questioned him further and he said he had seen the problem in the older (original version) Insight hybrids. He said most people go ahead and replace the battery, since it is less than a new car. I am letting it go for now, but will probably pay for it if it gets really bad (or sell the car and get a moped).

 

Hey Rebeinert,

It's been a while since I've posted on this forum, but I'll give it a shot. Now it seems like you have used your HCH a lot more than I have since I only have 30k after 4 years of use (I was out of the country for 2). I did run into a check engine warning one time during my years with my HCH and it had absolutely nothing to do with my engine or battery. After getting it inspected, it turned out that the warning was due to my gas cap not being screwed on tight enough (3 clicks). Who knew that could be the problem? I paid for the inspection and he fixed up a couple of things on my car, which was nice of him. I hope this helps. If it does happen to be your hybrid battery that is giving you trouble, then $3000 seems about right from what I heard back in the day to replace that battery. Maybe it could be cheaper, but I haven't researched. Anyway, check the gas cap because that could be a simple solution to a problem that seems very expensive. Also, you have two batteries in the HCH and the one under the hood is the regular battery which will cost you only $30-$50 to fix (you should've gotten this replaced a couple of times already) and the one behind your back seat that costs $$$.

Peace,
Scott

 

I took the car into the service center yesterday and the first thing they checked was the gas cap, actually. But that wasn't the cause, unfortunately. They told me it was the hybrid batteries after plugging into the car's computer to find out why the engine light was on.
I guess the car was pretty heavily used by the previous owner. It had quite a few miles on it when I bought it. I've had to drive across country in it twice now each time I moved, which added a lot of miles, too. I try not to use it too much, since I can usually just ride my bike for most of my daily needs. But between me moving and the previous owner's heavy usage, I guess it's been through a lot.

 

Cruise over to this site - might be some helpful info. I keep a link to the site just in case I have need with my battery (hopefully not for years!)...

http://www.hybrid-battery-repair.com/