nstarz,

Well, I used the battery for another two years before I replaced it. The real question should be... did my effort produce sustained results. And the short answer is... no. I don't think it did.

I don't believe it is enough to cycle the battery cells a few times from near dead to fully charged. It did some good and it likely brought the cells to similar charge states. I saw great improvement at first drive. But it did not take long before I was back to the recals.

In order for me to have done a better job, I needed to get a little more sophisticated and map the charge and dis-charge curves of each of the packs of cells. I believe you need to remove those packs that have differing curves. Not an easy task. I purchased the CBA II but never got around to using it. It connects to the computer and graphically displays the discharge curves, storing it in memory. So you can put one curve on top of another multiple times to see which ones differ from the others.

All of this costs a bit of money and takes a lot of time. In the end, you heft the pack back in the car to run it. If it works great for a couple of months after, you feel pretty good. But mine didn't last. And I didn't want to repeat the effort.

I bought a pack with new cells from revolt and put it in my car. The IMA light is off and the recals are gone. I hope it lasts.

Best of luck!

Ross

 

Glad to see you're back to answer my question

I will look for your review on revolt's review.

I am guessing you got http://hybridrevolt.com/catalog/Hond...1-Civic-Hybrid

NEW High Current 8 Amp Hour IMA Battery (2006 - 2008)
$1,895.00

+$500 core deposit
+$100 warranty year 2
+$100 warranty year 3


Standard IMA battery (2006-2008 Civic)
$1,299.99
90 day warranty only
+$500 core deposit

 

Realistically, what do you guys think the average life expectancy of a battery pack is with normal daily driving and no extended time sitting?

 

I started a long-winded response in your other thread, but after 10 minutes of typing, my browser crashed, and I emoragequit.

Based purely on anecdotal evidence and what I've read on forums, 80-100k mi assuming no extreme cold or heat, minimal hilly terrain and conservative driving. I also believe that can be extended significantly by monitoring and maintenance. Insight owners have extended their IMA battery life by years with regular/semi-regular grid charges/discharges. Keeping the cells balanced goes a long way to preserving overall capacity, function and longevity.

I'm going to start treating my battery like any other maintenance item. Quarterly, I'll look to do at least a single grid charge/discharge cycle and monitor recals. Once they start occuring on a regular basis with quarterly grid cycles, I'l probably pull the pack and check it out at the stick level. I don't have a firm plan in mind, but it will be adaptive since I don't really know what is best yet.

Steve

 

That doesn't help us here in Texas since we get a bit of hot weather

 

This Arizona resident says... quitcherb1tchen...

 

I'm looking at some grid chargers now, pretty interesting. I don't particularly like some of the install directions that say "don't touch this or else you die", but interesting nontheless. Are there no easy ones that don't require pulling the battery and what not?

 

I used to post here as Jeep Daddy. I've pulled my IMA battery out several times, charged it up, connected leads to charge it every night etc. I got tired of doing that and bought a battery from a wrecking yard. It didn't work good either so I got them to give me another battery but only after they complained that I couldn't return it. I showed them on the paperwork that I could and they did. The second battery was worse than the first. It almost immediately caused it to throw a code. I took it home and put the original battery back in and took it to the dealer with the code still lit up. The dealer replaced the battery with a brand new one but wouldn't do it unless it threw the code. I ate the cost of the bad wrecking yard battery since I got a new battery out of the deal. But now that I have a bad battery, I could, if I want, fiddle around with the D cell NiMh batteries to see if I could build all new sticks. It would probably cost $600 for the new batteries, but building those sticks adequately could/will be a challenge.

 

It's pretty easy. Mike Dabrowski started the whole grid charger craze... here's his video about an install in a HCH2:


The most cost effective ready-made solution is the Hybrid Automotive option, but it will still set you back over $400.

Having done it once, I can have my IMA pack out in about 15 minutes. Most harness installations can be done w/o complete pack removal. I wouldn't worry about it until your warranty period is over AND you start seeing semi-regular recals.

and Jeep... it costs way more than $600 for new batts. That's why the new aftermarket ones are on the order of $1800+

Steve

 

Yeah, I'm watching a few install videos right now and it doesn't look too bad. It's something to think about for down the road - I just want to get the car back on the road right now.