No Honda hybrids have NiCad batteries. They use NiMH.

Back to the cats dying, if you look at http://avt.inl.gov/hev.shtml, you'll notice a # of Honda hybrid seems to have transmissions and cats go at around 90K miles. So, I'm not all that surprised.

 

Just had a local Honda dealer replace IMA battery on 2003 HCH. When I said I wanted to take the original pack that was in the car they said I could not, it had to be sent off to the remanufacturer. I said it belonged to me when I dropped the car of, yes?
His response was I might be able to take it if I bought it from them for
$2 or 3k. Has anyone else had this experience?

 

That is normal. The dealer has to pay a core charge of $3000 if they do not return the old battery. Your warranty on the car states that they will fix the problems, not give you extra parts. Therefore, when they gave you a new battery, the old one became their property.

If you had paid for the battery, you could have kept the old one, but the cost is $3000 plus a $3000 core charge ($6000). The reason for this is twofold. One is that the housing and electronics have a very real value in building the replacement battery pack for the next person. The other reason is that if you open up the battery, there is a significant chance of being hurt. Hurt = lawsuit.

What would you have done with the old one? As far as I know, I'm the only person on the planet that knowingly (and willingly) buys bad batteries.

 

The battery technology is Nickle Metal Hydride (NiMH) not Nickle Cadmium (NiCad). NiMH batteries are more forgiving than NiCad. They have up to a 30 year life, but in my experience, the average is 5-7 years before imbalance problems set in. The problem is that it is 120 (for the 2003-2005 Civic) or 132 (for the 2006+ Civic) cells that do not wear evenly.

After your warranty period is up, there are options to repair the battery by replacing the bad cells (while keeping the good ones).

 

Actually, it's not just Civics. My 2001 Insight's cat died at 96,000 miles. It was totally clogged. My highway mileage dropped from 70 to 45. I changed the cat with one out of a parts car and the mileage shot right back up.

 

Thanks for the explanation, far more than I got from the service reps at Honda - all four of whom seemed to know virtually nothing about this repair. I heard the words "core charge" but didn't know what they meant.

My car was out of warranty and I paid 60% of the repair, Honda of America paid 40%. The reason I wanted the old battery was for a potential rebuild if a problem ever recurred. Obviously, I could never pay any part of this again on a 7-yr old car. I've read about repair instead of replacing the pack, and thought that might become an option if anyone local got proficient with doing the work. Do you know about the place in Staten Island? People ship batteries there for repair from all over, they fix and ship them back to the owner.

By the way, my one-day-old battery pack lost half of it's charge, and didn't go up more than one or two notches with an eight-mile highway run. We live in the city and don't drive that much. It is single-digit cold here, but that's not going to change anytime soon. Is the battery going to survive?

Thanks very much!

 

I AM the place in Staten Island.



50% is Honda's standard goodwill. You paid 60% (probably $1800). Not too bad, but probably double what the repair would have been. A P1449 by itself is usually one or two bad cells that are internally shorted and are causing the voltage in their subpack to drop to nothing under hard load. Your IMA light probably first lit as you accelerated onto the highway. The P1600 is a placeholder and just means there is another code to look for (the P1449).

When battery repair prices are below the price of a catalytic converter, it becomes worth repairing the cars instead of junking them.


Yes, cold won't damage it. Also, the gauge may not be reflecting the reality of the battery. Contact me when the weather warms up and I'll tell you how to reset the IMA system so that the gauge is accurate.

Ron Hansen.

 

Hey Honda MD girl, sorry about your 'just-missed' experiences...Your original intentions to help "save the planet" are fantastic, don't give up on them because of the @#&% car dealership...I also have had many issues w/ my dealership. Keep thinking of your kids & grands and maybe try a Prius or a Ford Fusion hybrid? Good luck to you, girl!

 

In some respects I really lucked out; my battery died just a little bit before the 8 year mark, and just a little bit before the 80,000 mile mark. I had bought the car used and I suspect the previous owner(s) drove the car pretty hard. I'm a very gentle driver and in general, have put very little wear and tear on the car even after driving it 25,000 or so miles since purchasing it. My battery was replaced free of charge.

I just hope this one lasts a long time.

To respond to jenniferinky, I don't think that the Prius is necessarily a better environmental choice. Every car has problems and you don't always know how your luck is going to turn out. I've driven priuses and known many people who've had them, and some people have had odd problems with them and some haven't...and you STILL need to replace the battery on them too.

 

Please state your facts and reasoning to support this assertion.