Hello everyone,

So I bought a used 2005 Honda Civic Hybrid just over 2 years ago. It had about 117K miles on it when I bought. The hybrid battery light actually came on the week I was looking at it, so the dealer had it replaced. The car is now at 152K miles and the IMA and check engine light came on a couple days ago. Took it to Honda and all the codes were on for IMA failure. They are saying it is $3300 to replace it with a new battery. This is more than half of what I paid for the vehicle. I contacted the dealer and they said they had it replaced with a used battery, so it did not come with a warranty. Unfortunately, I did not know it was a used replacement and didn't even ask.

I am also in grad school, so money is tight with having student loans and such.

What should I do??? I don't know if it's worth putting more money into this car. Should I look elsewhere for batteries? Are used batteries worth looking into for the right price (obviously the one the dealer bought wasn't great since it only lasted 2 years)??

 

Used batteries are a great way to throw money down the toilet.

I'm biased because I know the owner very well, and I have insights into who he does things, but your only real option is Bumblebee Batteries.

They offer reconditioned batteries with a 1 year warranty for about $1400 (don't quote me), but they have a waiting list.

They also offer packs made with brand new cells and a 3 year warranty for $2095.

If it's a CVT, and you don't have to pass emissions testing, you can bypass the IMA pack. It loses quite a bit of power, and your mileage will revert back to that of a regular 4 cyl, but the highway mileage will be exceptional. The CVT allows the engine to rev a little more as power is needed. The loss of IMA on a manual transmission is extremely noticeable.

 

The HCH1 is the wrong car to own if money is tight. Or just in general I suppose. Between the IMA and the CVT you are always in danger of a $3k repair popping up. Other than that the car is reliable. At 150k miles the CVT cannot be far from shuffling off its mortal coil too. If I were in your position I would try to find somebody who would like to tinker with a car like that and would offer $1k (roughly what it is actually worth) for it as is, and then buy an old Civic (conventional one) or Corolla.

That assumes you can actually sell it. If you live in a state like CA where a valid smog certificate is needed to transfer title it will not pass smog with the IMA on. That is part of the smog system as far as they are concerned.

If you want to fix it...

An IMA with all new cells from Bumblebee is around $2k if you can install it yourself. It isn't hard to do, the only tools needed as I recall are a decent socket set (8" or 10" extender needed to unbolt the back seat). I vaguely recall also using a torx bit on the bolts which attach the metal shield behind the rear seat back. Vastly easier if you have a helper. You can also get a used pack from Bumblebee for even less. But as you have seen, used packs do not last long.

Grid charging it might buy you a little more time with the current pack. You can drive it around with the IMA light on for quite a while until eventually the pack really dies. At that point it becomes a real PITA because the 12V battery only charges in a specific RPM range. There is a way to bypass the IMA entirely, apparently, but it would probably not pass smog like that.

 

Note that you can buy a "clean" 2005 manual Civic with 150K miles for around $2K from a private seller. A car like that might need some repairs from time to time but short of a crash or a blown engine the repairs are not going to come anywhere near the cost of an IMA or CVT replacement.

 

I concur with pasadena_commut's assessment.

I strongly discourage friends and family from purchasing used hybrids UNLESS they are cool with spending an additional $2K in UNEXPECTED maintenance within the first week of ownership.

 

OK you're tight on money. Are you also tight on time?
This car is expensive either one way or the other but at least its fun to drive.

But joking aside, you have 3 options.

1. Possibly low cost: Ignore the IMA light and codes. The battery will sooner or later 100% cease working and you will be starting the car with the 12V under the hood. No assist and no auto-stop but some people have run the car with the IMA light on for years and not noticed a huge difference (look on youtube)
I'm not sure how the CVT will react but with the IMA battery no longer doing anything your 12V battery will be getting drained at low idle and any time the electrical demands exceed what the IMA motor (which also functions as the cars alternator when its not assisting) is putting out.
The RPM range the 12V charges at is 1500-3500RPM, if the gas motor runs outside this range you will be draining your 12V battery. IF its in good shape and you do alot more highway than stop and go (and looking at how many miles you put on in 2 years, you probably do alot of highway) you should be fine for the limited time the car is draining the 12V. Worst case you need to charge your 12V between drives and you can get something like a solar charger on amazon pretty cheap.

2. High $$$ Cost: Call Bumblebee, you won't find a more respected vendor for refurbed batteries. One afternoon and between 1200 and 2200 dollars and you're good as ($1200), or better than ($2200) new.

3. High Time Cost: Look around on here for instructions and parts lists for building your own grid charger and drain circuit. For 60-100 dollars you can build this and try to recondition the battery periodically. As Steve will quickly tell you, no pack is typical and you may get several months, or only several hours between reconditioning cycles and a return of the IMA light.

3b. Higher time and money cost but more likely a good bang for buck. Do option 3 above, do at least 3 recondition cycles (look around forums for details on that) and then disassemble the battery pack down to where you can access both ends of each stick. I'll have a video up on it sometime later this year. buy a 12V battery tester from amazon, 22 bucks. and test each stick (more details on how to do this correctly are also elsewhere in this forum) If my experience is a guide, any stick which drops under 6V during a load test of 10 seconds is likely not recoverable and will need to be replaced.
After this test you will have a much better idea exactly how bad your pack is. Its possible anything from only 1 to all 20 of the sticks are bad, a load test after reconditioning is the best way to tell. Then if it seems that most of the sticks are in good shape you can either buy more used sticks on ebay (Bumblebee batteries sells them loose) or try to find a used battery pack for under 500 bucks. The more info you can get about it the better, the less time its sat unused, in general, the better. Recondition and test the second pack the same as the first and with some luck you may be able to make one good pack from the two. (or you may need to buy more sticks or a third used pack... no way to know before load testing everything).

Its not difficult but it is time consuming. In 9 months I've gone from uninformed to pretty knowledgable (thanks to this forum and the people here) and hope soon to have an IMA free pack which will last some years before it konks out again. If I had the option again, I would not have bought this car.


One thing is for sure, DONT buy a pack from Honda. All they do is harvest still good sticks from old packs, put them all back in a pack and then resell as new. You can do that work yourself for 1/6th the money, and you will care more about longevity so you will do a better job selecting the best sticks.

 

I think he Thelma and Louise'ed the car!

 

(((From Andrew)))
I have a 2005 Civic Hybrid. I purchased the car, and had no IMA issues to about 20k miles later. I ended up getting a replacement complete Battery package with IMA module. Pulled the Original battery. I noticed there was alot of DUST on the battery itself. being that I have experience in the US Army with Electronic maintence. I ended up pulling the battery out and cleansing the dust off the battery pack of the Original batteries. I did the same with the replacement battery which was alot cleaner. After install I restarted the car and the IMA was gone. The IMA came back on about a month later. I have not since done any additional work to the battery IMA system behind the seat. I have reason to believe that the ROOT cause of all the problems are Humidity and Dust. The IMA system is located behind the rear seat which is really easy to get to. You just need to pull up the rear seat and unbolt any bolts at the bottom of the rear seat back cushion.

Disconnect the main engine (under hood) battery, and flip the main IMA switch that is behind the seat. ((I remind you, don't access the IMA from the trunk. it is a waste of time)) Unbolt the metal cover. you will see the black battery pack and the silver IMA module. You can unhook and dis-bolt the IMA module, look close for dust and any corrision. You can sweep/blow out the dust (I reconmend getting the battery and the IMA out and dust everything). if you have the time, you can pull the battery, and battery cores from the crate. WalMart Sells battery recharging modules that you can deep charge the batter Cores. I have not personally done this, but I have seen it online. You can still drive the car without the IMA/battery system. Do a Youtube search online about recharge manintence on the hybrid battery. you will be surprised how easy this really it. I assure you this is a NOT a complete 100% fix, as I still get the IMA light, but everything works normal for me. So i am thinking what May be anohter problems is Relays. Remember, Humidity is the #1 cause of all electrical failures.

 

Bullsh!t.

#1 cause of IMA battery failures is sh!tty design on almost every level.