I sat in traffic for 7 hours two nights ago (unexpected snow storm) to travel 25 miles. Obvisously most of the time was sitting not moving with the defroster, headlights, radio and Satelite Radio running, and the IMA battery drained down to 1 bar. It stayed that way for 5-6 hours until I was able to get moving again, and it began to charge normally, but the IMA light came on.

Now the IMA light is still on, but it appears to be working fine. IMA battery has reached full charge, and seems to be charging/discharging normally. I used my OBDC II Code reader to try to pull the code that is causing the IMA light, but it says there are no codes. Is there a trick to getting special codes like the ones related to the IMA?

Does anyone know if the car will past VA Safety Inspection with the IMA light on? I know it will not with the Check Engine light on (the Check Engine light is not on, and never came on - I am just using that as an example.)

 

Not sure if your year does this as well, but as long as you have the CVT i think you can drop it to low and get 3 bars of charge while idling if you need to ever build charge in a stop and go situation.

 

Really? I'll have to try that. I tried reving the engine (in Neutral) to charge it but it didn't work. It may have saved my battery.

 

If your IMA light doesn't go off on it's own try disconnecting the 12V battery (neg cable) for a minute or so and this will turn the light off. When you reconnect the cable the IMA battery will show no bars and will charge up and recalibrate after you drive a while. If the light comes back on after that you might want to get it checked at the dealer. Be sure you have the radio code before you disconnect the battery as this will need to be reset.

As for the inspection I can't speak to Virginia but I'm pretty sure that in NY the IMA light alone wouldn't fail the safety inspection, as long as no codes are set and the CEL isn't on.

 

That worked! I only drove around long enough to have it show the battery fully charged, but the IMA light stayed off. The big test will be when I drive it to work (one hour) in the morning.

I have 130k on the car so I really can't expect much more, but every month I get out of it is money in my pocket.

 

The basic OBD reader will not show IMA codes.
If you really need some special codes to be read then buy or get something more advanced, like Autoenginuity or some handheld pro-multi-scanner.