Hi,
I have a 2003 HCH with about 220k miles and the original ima battery. The CEL and IMA are on and when the car gets below a certain rpm (around 1K or less) the 12v battery light comes on.

I also notice that 75% after starting the car, it won't use the ima nor charge the ima battery for the duration of the trip (the ima and cel light are on). When I stop at a red light, the 12v batter light comes on until I move again. I sometimes pull over and turn off and on the car again to try to get it to turn on and use the ima.

The other scenario is (The 25%), I start the car and the car will use the ima battery (It goes blue when acceleration and green when braking) but the IMA and CEL still stay lit.

I took it into the dealership and they said one of four things may be bad and each thing costs about $2500 to fix.

Has anyone experienced this problem before or have any guesses as to what is going on?

 

How old is your 12V battery?

 

About 4 months old. I replaced it because the other one was really bad. There was green stuff on the car battery. The car was giving me electric power problems about a month before I replaced the 12v.

 

The service department should be able to read the error codes that would specify what the problem is.

 

The IMA battery is probably bad so you need a new one.

The ignition lights comes on because the IMA is disabled and the generator doesn't put out enough voltage to charge the battery when engine is at low revs and if you rev it above about 4500 rpm it will come on as well as voltage is now too high.

If the ima battery is bad you have to keep the revs between 1500-3500 to keep the red light away. Eventually (possibly quite soon) though the red light will come on all the time and you will be stranded with a flat 12v battery.

Bottom line is you need to fix the IMA battery/system problem.

Ring Eli at bumblebee batteries in the US for help.

 

bought a obd 2 reader today

P1600
P1564
P1571
P1566
P1449

 

I had same problem @ 150k miles as time went on it got worse. by the time I hit about 180k I start the car drive 5 miles (if I was lucky) and it would happened. I got used to putting the shifter in N and holding the gas pedal so the rpm's were above 1200 to keep the 12v battery charging. WARNING don't rev the engine over 3500 rpm it will overload your inverter, your 12v light will come on because your computer shut off your charging to prevent damage. after your rpm are back down between 1200 & 3500 about 30 seconds it will reset and 12v light will go off. but doing this a lot can't be good for your system. well LONG story short I replaced the IMA battery and all my problems went way.

 

How much did you pay for the ima battery? Dealer wants about 4k

 

I Have a friend at a junk yard and called me as soon as a wrecked 2005 came in. they sold me the battery for 200 so i gave it a shot and it worked out so far. it's been in since october (knock on wood ) its still working.