I had my IMA battery replaced today and I would like to share my
experience. This was for the second time but was still under
warranty. I have an HCH-II 2007 with 66K miles. My first IMA battery
replacement was at 31K. My IMA battery started showing signs of
deterioration again last summer (lower charging capacity, 1-2 recals
per week, etc). The number of recals increased to 1 per trip and
eventually 3-4 per trip. Then the engine light came on. The mechanic
at the Honda dealer (John Eagle Honda in Dallas, Texas) found a
malfunction code P0A7F, which means that the IMA battery needs
replacement. Since my car is still under the new warranty extension
(9years/96.6K), I got the replacement for free. The battery of course
was refurbished. I use my car for my daily commute to my office:
20 miles, 90% highway, starting with a cold engine, at 60-65mph on
highway. The following graph shows the MPGs since the day I bought the car:



The MPG measurements (black line) were taken at the gas pump. The red
line was drawn by smoothing the black line. The biggest drop-off on my
MPGs was when I replaced my OEM tires with Michelin Primacy MXV4
(about 10 MPGs drop-off). This may be a coincidence and may be due to
the faulty IMA battery that started at the same time. I knew that
performance tires will give lower MPGs than OEM but I didn't expect to
be so low. Other than the low MPGs, I get an excellent ride with
these tires (the OEM tires were extremely noisy and unsafe).
I hope the new battery is better. I am thinking to buy a grid charger
to extend the battery lifespan since it will be out of warranty next year.
Anyway, I just wanted to share my new experience with replacing the
battery for the second time.

 

Good for you. The Honda replacement packs are mediocre at best. A grid charger would be a very good investment for you. Lots of good info over at Insight Central that applies out our cars.

I strongly recommend the Hybrid Automotive Discharge-ready unit primarily because the design is simple and tested, and he has a true discharge option over the MaxxVolts unit. Charging is only 1/2 the equation. Charge with discharge can really rejuvenate an ailing pack.

 

I wish I had the dedication to do something like that... with our old car for about 10k miles I saved the receipts and wrote odo values on them.... kept them for a while before throwing them away, never entered a single value into the computer lol

 

The IMA battery for my 2006 HCH was recently replaced for the second time. 1st time at 4 years/24K and now at 9.5 years/59K. There were no alarms/error codes but after the first failure I knew what was happenings. Lack of power, recalls, etc. The dealer did a manual capacity check of the battery, which proved it was failing. The DC to DC converter was also found to be defective and replaced under warranty. The replacement IMA battery assembly uses new Lithium Ion vs a refurbished assembly. Hope I have better luck with different battery technology. The other parts of the car have been faultless.

 

First of all, congratulations.

Second, your claim that they use new lithium ion is almost impossible to believe. Is it possible that you misheard them? The original battery for all civics from 2003 to 2011 have been NiMH cells. Li cells were introduced in the 2012.

There would need to be MAJOR, COSTLY changes to the IMA battery management system to accommodate a drop-in lithium pack.

Thanks,

Steve

 

Steve, when I first spoke with the service rep he stated that if the IMA battery was bad the replacement would be Li Ion. He said that is what Honda is doing for pre 2012 IMA battery replacements. On two more occasions, over the 5-6 days that it took to replace the IMA and converter, the rep confirmed that the replacement batteries were Li Ion. He could have not been more clear. BTW - There was a lot of back an forth between the dealer mechanic and Honda tech support, which is why it took so long to make the repair. Whether the pack uses Li Ion or not, all is good for now. If I get 4-5 more years out of the IMA I will be thankful.

 

If you got a Li-ion pack, and Honda did it right, you should get far more life out of it than the NiMH pack.

 

I have a 2007 HCHII 135300 miles. I started seeing IMA battery; battery; and engine lights all come on in June 2016. I went to the dealer they told me the battery was going out and I needed a replacement. I found Falcon Hybrid Solutions online and I got a replacement battery which I installed myself. Originally I installed it incorrectly; and rectified. After installing it correctly and getting a software update the new battery ran super. I was happy. Less than 500 miles later (during a particularly hot summer!) my IMA batter; battery; and check engine lights came on again. I had the auxiliary battery checked; the fuses; the wiring; all came back good. I called the FHS guys; since I have an 18 month extended warranty and they sent out a second IMA battery. I installed the second battery myself; correctly. And nothing changed. None of the lights went out. I tried a manual recall buy putting the car in park with the parking brake on and revving the motor to 4rpm's and holding it there until the green bars start. NOTHING. After driving it a while and turning off the engine then turning the engine back on.. the batter showed 2 bars and green lights in park with all the warning lights. I did the manual recall a couple more times and all the lights went out. Unfortunately I did not drive it over a weekend; and on Monday all the lights are back on and only two bars show with no green recal or white assist bars showing until after it is driven a while; turned off; and then turned right back on again. So I have a situation where the manual recall works to a degree but overnight all the lights come back on and the charge drops to two bars showing or less. So, the question remains...got to get another (third) replacement battery? Or does this sound like a wiring; sensor; my vehicle has an issue--issue? I do get the codes P1570 and P0A7F when I go to the Auto Zone to turn them off.

 

Those two codes scream dead battery. You have received yet another defective battery from falcon.

You are learning the hard way that reconditioned HCH2 batteries are unreliable. Contact falcon for another replacement. I have owned and touched a lot of these batteries for my own cars. >80% of the sub packs are bad in my experience.

Building a reliable battery when 80% of your raw materials are bad is almost impossible.

 

Hi Steve;

Thanks for the speedy response. The crew at Falcon have been nothing but helpful and I know that when I get the dealership to run a diagnostic (complete with all the particulars that Auto Zone does not offer) They will happily replace my battery again. Well, the tough part is having to install another one.

Nope, I am not a mechanic; I just play one in real life

thank you again, Steve. I will try to keep up with the posts.