Battery level never reaches full, is this bad? Valve adjustment needed?
 

Hi,

I just purchased a used 5sp 2001 Honda Insight with the battery pack replaced under warranty at 60K miles. It currently has 69K miles. It seems to run fine with no dummy lights triggering. The engine seems to be rough and underpowered, but according to a Honda mechanic (his own shop and he owns an Insight), mine runs the same as his, so I guess it is running as expected. Lifetime average MPG is 64.9. Not too bad. ;)

My question is the battery level never seems to be completely full. It can hover with maybe one or two bars unlit, but I have never been able to get all the bars lit. Is this normal? Do I already have the makings of a battery pack going bad?

Other than this question, I have one other. When the car is started up in the morning, it makes a lot of noise (sounds like the valves, but I dunno). The mechanic wasn't too concerned about this being serious. I am using Art's Automotive in Berkeley, CA. They seem to get excellent reviews. He said I may want to have the valves adjusted even though the maintenance schedule states this doesn't need to be done until 105K miles, but again he didn't think it sounded too bad. It's much better once the car is warmed up. Mileage is good (I'm getting 65MPG around the San Francisco Bay Area). The engine sounds like the head has a blown gasket or ?, which I assume is not the case. Do all Insights run kinda rough and make tapping noises especially when cold? I know it's a 3 cylinder, so maybe I'm just used to the smoother running 4 cylinder of my VW New Beetle Turbo S.

Thanks for any insight ;) in these matters.

ron

Re: Battery level never reaches full, is this bad? Valve adjustment needed?
 

Sharpie

The Insights have a personality all there own. They aren't all alike. My battery charges up like yours does and is OK. Try not to use assist too much. I know it sounds wrong but you get better mileage if you don't use the assist.

The valve tapping is normal for solid lifters in cold weather. Just like you said when it warms up the tapping stops. I just did the 105000 mile check on my car and the valves were still fine. You might try a can of induction cleaner for the roughness, I use Berryman chem tool once in a while to clean out the injectors and the combustion chamber. You might also be driving on the verge of lean burn. If you drive right on the edge it can be rough. A little faster or a little slower should smooth it out.

I have no experiance with Arts Automotive, but I hear good things about him. I think you can trust him especially if he own an Insight. Good luck with your Insight, I sure love mine.....Louis

Re: Battery level never reaches full, is this bad? Valve adjustment needed?
 

I have a 1st generation HCH, so the IMA is nearly identical. in 4.5 years, I can count the number of times I've seen a full charge on one hand. Likewise, I have rarely seen the charge at zero. I believe that the IMA software tries to keep the array in the 20% to 80% range.

Re: Battery level never reaches full, is this bad? Valve adjustment needed?
 

IIRC, the display for state of charge already takes the 20-80% range into account, ie: full on the indicator is really 80% of capacity, etc.

as for the tappet noise, they are a bit noisy when cold. but they should not run rough. especially when warmed up.

Re: Battery level never reaches full, is this bad? Valve adjustment needed?
 

My 2000 also ran kind of rough when I got it. I talked to another owner, who said that replacing the EGR valve fixed that. Since I'm cheap, I had my mechanic just clean out the EGR valve, and that did help quite a bit. Still not the smoothest in the world, but pretty good.
My battery would get within one bar of top regularly, but almost never reach full charge. This past month, during very cold weather, it did top off, and now I've got battery problems. So it's probably not good to see it fully charged.

Re: Battery level never reaches full, is this bad? Valve adjustment needed?
 

I think the best bet might be to seek out the biggest Honda dealership in the St Paul/Minneapolis area. Chances are they are most likely to have the technicians that can fix it.