Hey folks,

I've got an 04 HCH with 178k miles on it. Before I bought it a Honda dealer installed a replacement hybrid battery in 09. I had driven the car through the cold Vermont winter getting about 38mpg on my mostly city driving, 6 mile trips to and from work. Those short winter trips are mostly gas engine as the hybrid refuses to charge or discharge until it warms up.

Summer rolled along and I started getting 45 mpg and I was pretty happy with that. I could get up to 58mpg on the back roads 50mph trip to my parents and back (25 miles or so).

Then my car was hit from behind and driven into the car in front of it. $4000+ dollars worth of body shop damage. And now, I'm getting those codes and the "maintenance required" light. Also, my rusty heat shield has been knocked lose and rattles something horrible.

Any one know of hybrid batteries getting damaged like this during an accident?

Thanks, Dan.

 

More likely a coincidence unless it was immediately following the accident. 6 years on a replacement pack is great especially if it's a Honda pack. Your short trip scenario in cold weather is also bad for packs.

P1600 is a general IMA fault. P1570 means the car is reading a significant voltage disparity between one or more of the 10 stick pairs. This is a common sign of a deteriorating battery.

Grid charging and deep discharging might squeeze a couple more years out of your pack.

 

Did the car sit for a couple of weeks without being started after the accident? That will unbalance a battery, even a good one. See the user manual which offers the "helpful" advice that one should not do that. My first battery started throwing codes after it was parked for just one week at the airport, and the second one did so not too long after it sat for two weeks while they worked on the CVT.