I suddenly bought this car without knowing much about it because it seemed like a good deal (45k miles, 9 grand).

I've been browsing around these forums, encountering a lot of technical jargon. I was wondering if there is a simple guide or thread on how to generally maintain this vehicle that I know nothing about?

Thanks in advance!

 

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That is remarkably low mileage and quite a premium. Are you certain you aren't the victim of fraud? Does a carfax or other document corroborate the mileage?

Maintain it in accordance with the service schedule except replace your CVT fluid every other oil change.

Such a low mileage car likely subjected the IMA battery to excessive self-discharge. Investigate grid chargers and start giving your IMA battery a quarterly charge/discharge to maximize its life.

Steve

 

Thanks for the info S Keith.

In fact I purchased this from a trustworthy friend. It was a 3rd vehicle of hers, well maintained with the battery replaced just weeks ago.

I'll start learning about grid chargers (is their only purpose to increase battery life?). Good point about the CVT fluid.

 

Good to hear.

While Honda treats the IMA battery as a pass/fail item with no maintenance required, maintaining the balance of the 132 NiMH cells will serve to maximize life. Grid charging and discharging does just this.

If the IMA battery was replaced with a Honda battery, it is likely a mix of new and serviceable sticks, and life will be worse than the original pack. If it was replaced by an aftermarket from Bumblebee, Hybrid ReVolt or similar, you can expect long life, and those vendors support grid charging as part of preventative maintenance.

 

Thanks.
Are you saying that a grid charger wouldn't work if it's a Honda refurbished battery?

 

No. I was trying to say it's even more important to do it on a Honda replacement battery.

 

Oh ok. Thanks for the info!

What are some of the best basic grid chargers for a non savvy person such as myself?

 

http://www.hybridautomotive.com sells a turnkey solution (charger and harness). The installation is DIY, but the instructions are very detailed.

http://hybridautomotive.com/gc/shop.html

It's not cheap compared to what you can do from the component level, but it's very reasonable. There is a LOT of labor in putting one of these together, and the price is reasonable when that is taken into consideration. I have built a few, and while the components cost around $100, when assembled by hand, they can take more than a few hours, and the market isn't big enough to justify large-scale automated assembly.

I would recommend the "discharge ready" version for $20 more. He is working on a means of automatically cycling the pack, charge+discharge, and the discharge ready version is already pre-wired for it.

The general consensus is that the most beneficial preventative maintenance is cyclic grid charging coupled with deep discharging. I support that idea as well given that I've seen a 25-33% improvement in capacity from the few packs that I've cycled.

If your pack is under Honda warranty, that would likely null the warranty due to the permanent modification of the blower harness, so you'll have to make the call for yourself. Personally, I would compromise by removing the pack quarterly and manually charging and discharging with my own home-built as that can be done without leaving any evidence.