ok... so day 4 with the new battery pack. This is now my 3rd pack. The first day all was well. The second day it started acting up. The battery bar would stay between 4-5 bars. 3rd day, it would jump up and down at times making the engine work 100 percent of the time. Today, the battery showed full but no assist and wasent charging and no auto stop. Eventually it dropped to 2 bars and started charging. shortly after it jumped to 8 bars. sometimes it would assist and sometimes it would drop to 2 bars. Eventually my IMA and check engine light kicked on. I don't think i can deal with issue anymore. This is my 3rd pack and no change. It could be due to the packs but then again, it can be an issue with the IMA system. I know it had the recall done where the computer was updated cause i called up Honda. I don't want to buy a new pack just to find out the issue is something else. I was thinking about taking it to Honda (or a reputable hybrid shop if i can find one) to have them diagnose the exact problem. If i know that my issue is in fact the battery pack then i would buy one but the problem is that the warranty for the battery only covers the battery itself. So if i do get a new battery pack and the issue continues, i just spent over 2k on a battery pack and now ill need to diagnose and repair the core problem which will more then likely cost me 1000+ dollars. My alternative is to trade the car in as is for a prius and cut my losses. Need advice.

 

The bolded portion is almost certainly wrong.

If you have a P0A7F, per my previous message, you should be having this immediate reaction: "Falcon battery bad. Call Falcon."

Stop trying to give them the benefit of the doubt. They have yet to supply a good battery.

EDIT: I told you it could take more than 11 visits. Hang in there. They'll eventually get it right... that whole monkey/typewriter/shakespeare's works thing...

 

OK... Reason why i did not do the test you requested where i would test the voltage and verify changes the next day was because i dread removing the seat and then cover to test it out, however, i just realized i have a grid charger harness connected. Just need to plug in my voltmeter into the terminals of the harness in my trunk to get the readings instead of removing the seat. I have a long drive tomorrow for work purposes so i am grid charging the battery now to get a decent amount of power for tomorrows drive. When i return i will do the test. Seeing as how my battery is failing within 3 days time, i don't think i will have any faulty readings when i return home after tomorrow to do the test. This test will be done to the xxx.xx volts to be on point in which i will document my results.
Thanks pal... Your probably right regarding falcon. Knowing then what i know now i would have just opted for a new battery. Originally i bought a grid charger hoping that would solve my problem. I then went ahead and bought a rebuilt battery. In both cases, my issue still exists. Even if i do get a good pack, there's a high probability that it will last no longer than 1 years time anyways. I do like this civic. The engine is in good condition among other things. I also added a lot to the car since i got it ~4 months ago; rear wheel adjustable arms for alignment, new tires, new 12v battery, window visors, new navi stereo, new wipers, oil and antifreeze change, new spark plugs and LED headlights. I already dumped a lot of money into the car so its hard for me to trade in such a short period of time. That and the fact i like the car. Its nimble, fun to drive and reliable (as far as the engine goes). Let me troubleshoot after tomorrow as you suggested and see with 100 percent certainty that its a battery pack issue. Thanks again for the replies. Im sure your aggravated as you keep pointing to the battery and im still in denial that the packs i get are faulty and it must be something else. I just want to visit all avenues before i dump an additional 2K into it. I Certainly appreciate your patients with me and will continue to post untill my resolution is at hand. Hopefully we can help many others in this same predicament.

 

I don't see how you're going to get the 11 subpack readings from your charger harness. Your charger harness only picks up the full pack voltage.

The thing is, once you get a pack that lasts at least a few months without recalibrating, there's a good chance you'll be able to keep it working for years with regular grid charging/discharging maintenance.

What grid charger did you buy?

I'm not aggravated at all. I'm just making sure you maintain the right perspective.

 

I was going to test the pack as a whole. I was going to take a reading say at 8AM. lets assume I am getting 185.26 Volts. I was going to test the pack again the next day at 8AM and see what readings I get. If I get 183.56 volts (for example), then in the course of 24 hours I just lost ~2V. That should determine a bad cell somewhere in the pack leading me to believe that the pack as whole is in bad shape and I need to contact falcon. If this pack gets replaced a 3rd time and I am running into the same issue with the 3rd one... I am going to ask for a refund as 3 packs within a month is unacceptable. I cant keep taking off work to go there and swap them out but at least I have documentation that the packs are loosing voltage at a significant rate. To answer your second question regarding the grid charger, I had purchased it from "hybrid automotive".

 

Your proposed method has almost zero value. There are 132 cells cells in the pack. A 2V drop would be an average of 2/132 = 0.015V per cell, which is very typical (you will always get voltage drop over time). Furthermore, the car will likely be at different states of charge every time you park it, so values will vary normally from day to day. NiMH voltage is also very misleading. "Active" voltage and "resting" voltages can vary by what seems to be an absurd amount, and you are going to see what appear to be big voltage drops.

You're way over-thinking this with your "documentation" plan. The proposed plan with Falcon requires zero effort on your part beyond reading the codes. P0A7F and/or P1570 = bad battery. You don't NEED to document anything else. If you want to drive a nail in the coffin, you get the tap voltages after sitting 10+ hours. I recommend you use O'Reilly and only O'Reilly to read your codes for free. Their Bosch code readers are very good at pulling hybrid codes. Not all "standard" OBDII readers do so well.

The only other obligation you have is to ensure the 12V is healthy. Given that Falcon has touched the car at least 2 times, they should be ensuring there are no other issues with the car including the 12V, but I'm assuming a minimum level of competence.

 

Maybe good news maybe bad. I drove from NYC to Massachusetts for work. Its a 200 mile drive (roughly 4 hours). During my drive up there, i had little to no assist and the bars were going up and down. Eventually, my IMA came up again. No surprise there. By the time i got there, the battery had pretty much failed giving me Zero assist. My bars bottomed out and stayed there. The next morning, i was running 100% on the engine. No power and stalled (NOT auto stop) at nearly every light unless i either put it in neutral coming to a stop or gave a little gas. So now im 200 miles away from home. There was no way i was going to make it home without blowing the engine considering the drive consists of many uphill drives. Just going to Massachusetts, my RPM's would race to nearly red line and that was with the hybrid battery still somewhat working. With no assist, the motor would most likely red line up each hill which in turn will cause overheating, premature wear, stress on the transmission and excess strain on all the components.
I called up falcon (don't know why as i wasn't gonna make it to their shop even if they agreed to swap it) and was told that my engine may be the culprit for the hybrid battery issue. I explained how the only reliable thing in this car was the engine as that's the only thing that has not failed. I also added that i went to autozone and had the fault code checked previously. Came up with P0A7F. Also had the 12V load tested despite the fact that it was 3 months old on his suggestion which in fact passed the load test. He then wanted me to go get the check engine light codes read again and to show him the results before any further service was going to be done. Based on S Keith's advice, i went directly to Oreilly for a scan. The guy told me that he has bad news and that it was a deteriorating hybrid battery code "PA07F" and that the battery needs to be replaced. I emailed falcon the results but what good is that going to do me in my current situation?
So now im 200 miles away from home with a crap battery and a useless hybrid system that is just adding dead weight. I was desperate to find a battery. There was no way i was getting home without causing damage to my engine/transmission based on the drive over. I looked online and come to find there was a shop 1 hour away from my location that sells new Honda hybrid batteries. I called up and they checked to make sure they had one in stock and they did. They had both the 6 and 8 amp as well as the refurbished one (obviously wasn't going that route). The 8 amp was only 200 dollars more so i opted for that one. I explained the guy my situation and out of sympathy knocked 100 dollars off the price. Comes with a 3 year warranty with unlimited mileage. I payed them online and took the strenuous drive over to them (i say strenuous cause the way the engine struggled, you would think i was driving the car vertically) to the address listed. As soon as i pulled up, this guy Chris came out with the new hybrid battery as he was expecting me. He asked if i needed help with the installation (even though i opted out of paying for installation) and i explained that i carry the exact tools needed for fear i would have to extract this thing again (12/10 mm socket, torx bit and a Philips head) as iv removed this thing plenty of times to know exactly how to swap it thanks in part to Falcon. Took me literally 15 min to swap in the parking lot from the removal of the rear seat to putting it back on.
On my drive home, the car had much more power. Had a total of 27MPG by the time i got to MA which turned into 38 MPG by the time i got home. Reason for the lower than unusual mileage was because of lots of hills, high winds and i was doing roughly 75mph the whole way. Plus had tools and a small suitcase in the trunk.Pretty much the same items i had coming. In addition, driving to Massachusetts i started with half a tank of fuel. Going home i filled up to the brim which also added weight.
Not once did the bars go below 4 and the battery regenerated slowly to max at times instead of springing up and dropping. It was a consistent balance considering how many hills i had to climb. RPM's never exceeded 4K. I am going to keep an eye on the meter for the next few days and will re-post. Hopefully, i wont have any further issues. If i do then at the very least, ill know its not the battery. I will make an attempt to call Falcon and get some money back (partial if at all possible). I doubt i will be able to convince them as i know they are going to tell me "well it was under warranty, and you were eligible for another one"/"we would have replaced it free of charge if need be"/etc... I would have continued going there until they got it right but i wasn't going to take the chance of destroying my engine on the long haul home just for the chance they would have swapped it out for a good pack. 2 failed packs in 1 months time doesn't bring good odds for the 3rd replacement pack.
I just wanted to thank Keith for all the help and advice received. I truly appreciate your posts and shooting me in the right direction. I sincerely hope that anyone that comes across an issue like mine can view this post and not make the same mistakes i have. In addition, can help them troubleshoot and determine an educated solution to his/her problem(s). Its definitely a pricey resolution but well worth it to avoid the headaches. Thanks again Keith!