108,000 miles on my 06. Waiting for battery to die anyday now, but so far so good.

 

2006 with 79,400 miles, it is about the only thing I have not had problems with on that car.

 

I have 92000KM (57,000 miles) - so far so good. Keeping my fingers crossed. Hope it does not die after warranty runs out which is 130,000KM here in Canada.

 

Good Morning All,
I really need to vent in how disappointed I am with Honda Motor Company and my 06 Civic Hybrid. I have been in the automotive industry and employed by a domestic manufacturer in the technical end of things for over thirty years and I have never been so frustrated with the lack of lack of customer service and product reliability by the once almighty and powerful Honda Corporation.

The only reason we purchased this automobile is so my wife that I love dearly could drive in the rideshare lane by herself to and from work on the busy Southern California freeways. Of course the mileage helps with gas at the price it is at but that is secondary. About 1 1/2 years into our ownership my wife had concerns about a lack of power, low battery state, and forced regens. This was going on during the hot socal summer and I started working with my dealer on this concern but I was advised all is normal.

To make a long story short and after many dealer visits we are at the 3 1/2 year ownership point. I have bought my wife a Escape Hybrid to drive because I do not feel safe or confident with her in the Civic trying to drive on the freeway and losing the battery, you might as well be driving in deep sand, very unsafe! I have had all the updates, patches, reflashes done and the car is still miserable to drive. I did meet with the Honda Parts and Service Director for our area to voice my concerns and he listened to my concerns and said all we need is a IMA light to come on and we could replace the IMA battery, sweet!

We left for a trip to Arizona last week and the Honda sat all week as we took our Escape on the trip. When we arrived home I jumped in the Honda to go to the grocery store and as usual instead of using the IMA motor to start the engine the standard starter cranked her over and the engine started but to my great surprise the IMA light came on! I was never so happy to see a light come on. I plugged in my scan tool and pulled a P0A7F "IMA Battery Deterioration" and went to the dealer right away praying the light would stay on which it did. The dealer took it in and to my surprise I recieved a call later in the day that Honda would not replace my battery but install another patch and give that a try.......

I picked up the vehicle the next day and lost all battery power within 1 mile of the dealer and the vehicle performed a regen. It also still uses the standard starter motor to start the engine. I let the dealer know and they said nothing can be done unless the IMA light comes back on.

Sorry again for the long letter but it has been a long 3 1/2 years and 33 thousand miles of ownership of a vehicle that was produced by a once great manufacturer. I have owned many previous Honda's over the years and stil have 3 Honda motorcycle's. It appears there are many other folks in the same boat as I am.
Have a Merry Christmas, Jack

 

Been awhile since I posted. I used to post and contribute a lot around here, but life took me away. My '07 HCHII will be 3 years old in April 2010 and has taken a mileage beating this last 14 months! I will turn over 70,000 miles in about a week. I was in California from Apr 07 to Sept 08 and only put on 21,000 miles. Daily commute was about 15 miles roundtrip with side jobs adding in some miles here and there, but overall average I suppose. I packed up my Civic and moved to Florida, putting 3,000 miles in 3 days! My commute to work is now 65 miles RT (54 highway), and occasionally do 2 trips a day if I get called in to work. At least once a month I do a 250 mile RT to see the family (mom, sis, bro), and do a lot of 30+ mile each way trips for fun places to go. I have put 46,000 miles in 14 months, as I said bringing me to turn over 70,000 miles in a few days...

I can say I love this car. I would love to get rid of the payment, but that's not any trouble with the car, just my wallet. My average over the last 10,000 miles is 40-42 MPG... a far cry from the 50 MPG I was getting in California, but my driving style is different here in Florida. I do 70-75 on the highway here to get to/from work (used to not go over 65 in Cali). I use the A/C more due to the humidity. And I rolled into Florida with steel-belt exposed on the stock Dunlops thanks to the neg camber problem, so I had my tires changed with "normal" tires since I couldn't afford decent LRR's. So I'm sure that has affected a few MPG from my ride. But complaints, I have none. Just the grumbles of common issues that everyone has such as the SoC recal and "thunk" of the CVT coming out of Auto Stop. No signs of any battery issues.

 

2006 HCH 149000 miles; battery still hanging in there.

 

85,000 miles on my 2006 hch and it will start on 12v every time if the car sits for 3 days. 70 degree weather. no ima light yet tho. dealer said with the software recall that they check the battery, so even though it was bad at 75,000 miles, they said it was good. i doubt anyhting could be done though becouse the ima light is not on. after driving the car for 5 miles, ima battery mysteriously fills all the way up.

 

Update: It's been another 14 months since my last post in this thread (see 2 posts up). My 2007 HCHII just turned 4 years old in April and I will turn over 110,000 miles this month. I've had nothing but trouble with the battery for the last 25k miles. At about 86,000 miles is when the IMA and check engine lights first came on. They were only on for a few hours. It was a Friday and couldn't take it in to Honda till Monday. Of course, when I got there, the IMA light wasn't on anymore and they charged me $90 since they couldn't find anything wrong - the onboard memory of the computer couldn't remember an error code for 48 hours that the IMA light had come on! They did the software updates (to my hesitation).

At around 92,000 the IMA light came on again. I called the Honda dealer and I explained that I didn't want to get charged another $90 if the system couldn't find anything wrong again and that by the time I got there the light would probably be off. They said my HCH was out of warranty. I told them bullsh!t, I bought the car in California with a 7/120,000 warranty on the IMA and CVT. They said "Well the car is now registered in Florida so you only have a 6/80,000". What kind of crap is that?? At what point can a company change the warranty based on the state it's registered in vs the state you bought it in! She gave me the 800 number to the Honda America. I called and basically they were no help at all.

So I've been limping along now, dealing everyday with starting the car and watching the SoC drop from the 6 or 7 bars I left it at the night before down to 1 bar (I have taken video and can reproduce this everyday). All through town to get to the highway for the next 5-10 minutes get no AutoStop at the lights and have a forced regen the whole time. I've settled in to the fact that I just have a plain old civic with an underpowered 90 hp engine with sporadic electric assist. I love the car in general - it's very comfortable and has the features I need, and somehow I still pull 46mpg without the IMA working properly! But with a crappy battery and poor customer service, I hate Honda!

I was going to give my 2007 HCH to my daughter as she turns 16 in August, then buy myself another HCH. But at this point I feel she would not be safe in the vehicle, especially when it wants to do it's "no assist" when trying to turn across a 3 lane road and you have no power, even though the SoC shows 5 or 6 bars! As well as the fact that they changed my warranty which I believe is unlawful AND unethical. Honda has lost a customer for life now, so I would never buy a Honda anything ever again if they can't back a defective vehicle/battery that they have known about for quite awhile now and won't issue a factory recall. I've written some letters to Honda with of course no response.

 

2,000 miles later, ima light and check engine light came on. im at 87,000 miles now, but the light went off and check engine light came on. hopefully the entire battery will be fixed under warrenty. Also, that it will not be a catalytic sensor. i will take my car to advanced auto for free diagnostics, get the code then give dealer a call. only 7,000 miles out of warrenty, hopefully i can get some honda help with it. anybody with experiance have info?

 

Around 53,000 on my 2006 purchased Dec. 06. So far it is rock solid. H