ok.. ima experts i need your help! 05 civic hybrid... bought car,(previous owner said ima light never on) i had the car sit for 5 months. everything went dead... then ima light came on after got running. reconditioned battery pack.. everything perfect for 500 miles. car went to honda dealer twice in 3 weeks for air bag light i get car back each time with dead hybrid battery..this last time, i drive car 30 miles.. acts all weird.. only asst 4 bars and only charging 4 bars. go back to honda they say so common. blah blah.. drive it... put 70 miles on it.. light come on.. p1433... battery charge is all over the place.. full to dead and vice versa in a matter of 20 seconds.. removed pack ( which car gauge said was dead.. test each stick.. all sticks between 8.06 volts and 8.16 volts.. sounds perfectly charged to me!??i am so confused.. can something(sensor) be telling my gauge to be off?? did they screw something up??

 

Your IMA battery is bad. The gauge behavior is normal. These are recalibrations indicating the voltage taps are hitting lower and/or upper limits when they aren't supposed to. This is indicative of imbalance and/or a failing cell/cells.

Did you recondition the battery yourself? If so, how many sticks did you replace?

Resting voltage of a NiMH battery tells very little about it health or state of charge. Seemingly "good" measurements mean very little without other confirmation methods.

Your experience sounds very typical. Recondition, then it works for a while, then it deteriorates faster and faster.

P1433 isn't a false code. Nothing is wrong with your sensors. You have a bad battery.

 

the first time i reconditioned i didnt replace any sticks. all sticks seemed to have bounced back nicely. just confused how car works perfect. give to honda and literally over night, all hell breaks loose.

 

There is no such thing as a successful "permanent" recondition without replacing sticks. Thorough evaluation of the sticks will always yield one or more sticks that should be replaced. If you just did some kind of low current cycling recondition, it is a temporary fix. Whatever caused the initial problem will come back.

In order to do the airbag, they had to disconnect the 12V battery. That's why you saw 0% SoC and limited charge/assist as the BCM was trying to determine the SoC of the battery based on its response to charging.

The most common mode of cell failure is accelerated self-discharge that causes progressively worse imbalance that will produce a code. If it sat for any significant time (even just a couple of days), that's enough time for the issue to manifest itself.

BTW... 8.06-8.16 on a freshly pulled pack is NOT a good sign. Healthy and well-balanced sticks will be within 0.05V and more likely within 0.03V.

I've been operating under the assumption that the dealer would have diagnosed any 12V issues. A weak 12V can trigger IMA codes on batteries that are deteriorated but rarely on good batteries.

 

ok... so a few days back when i first posted this. i removed pack and did a discharge/ recharge.. on all the sticks.. worked perfect for 5 min.. then ima light again. cel. and ima stopped working all together. red battery light on.. pulled codes, p1575.. p1445.. p1570.. and p1446... all but the p1445 come right back on after clearing codes with key just in assocerry position. also a/c blowing warm ( cause voltage is low?) i understand i probably need a new battery pack. just dont want to spend $2400 to relaize i have more issues..

 

did throw in a new 12v battery as mine was 7 years old. no change

 

First, what current did you use, and what were the discharge values of the sticks?

Second, you had a P1433, you disassembled and reassembled the pack, got an assortment of new codes (you're not even getting the original code), and you don't suspect you made an error somewhere?

A/C is blowing warm because the engine isn't running?

Lastly, check that you reassembled the pack correctly.
Check all connections.
Check the PTC circuit if the sticks have PTC strips.
Check you don't have a stick in backwards (yes, you can).
Check the big fuse on the junction board (under the black plastic cover).

 

i dont have my paperwork in front of me. but discharged down to 6 volts. about 4500 mah at .5 amp. charged to 7500 mah at 5 volts. i did possibly think something is wrong hence why i posted again. i removed back seat last night and cover to access.. everything did look connected. i didnt have time to removed pack and check the 100 fuse.. iam 100% sure sticks in correctly and ptc's all attatched correctly. could doing a half *** job recharging cause these codes? as i only did 1 discharge and recharge cycle.. previous time i did 3 cycles. a/c warm when vehicle is running. but at this point it is only running on gas engine. maybe it stops it to save the 12v battery?? anyways, my daughter doesnt need her car friday. gonna tear it down again and double check everything. i thank you for your help S KEITH

 

4500mAh @ 0.5A = 9 hours to discharge. 20 sticks would be 180 hours of discharging and another 30 hours of charging. Has that much time even elapsed between posts for this to happen?

If your recondition effort involved nothing more than cycling sicks at the currents described, there is no realistic reason to expect it to be effective. The car discharges/charges at 100A/50A, respectively, and you have discharged at 0.5A and charged at 5A.

The charging process you describe, if it happened as you described, 7500mAh input to all sticks, should be completely sufficient.

100% certain? No loose bolts? No broken bolts because you didn't use a torque wrench on them? The pack needs to come out of the car, and you need to go back through it step by step.

 

either way iam tearing it out friday and double checking everything. i had previously read post about somebody ripping off head on stick bolt, so i thought i was careful.. as for charging. i started late friday afternoon... 1 tourigny 4 way charger and and 1 imax b6.. so was doing 5 sticks at a time. finished at about 11:00 sunday evening.