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Honda Civic Hybrid Engine Questions

28 messages,  Last post on Jun 08, 2008 at 1:01 PM

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What is this discussion about? Honda Civic, Engine, Coupe, Sedan

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#27 of 28 Re: Help! Possible Battery Issue?? [2mnycats1] by uzless Jun 08, 2008 (12:24 am)
Replying to: 2mnycats1 (Apr 25, 2008 4:10 pm) 2mnycats1 - Your car is OK, from what I see. A couple of things to note (I have an '06):   - The IMA system is calibrated to only 'fully charge' the battery in limited circumstances. This is because NiMH batteries last longest when they're kept in the middle of the spectrum ('7' bars should be considered optimal; on the rare times when you have 8 bars, you'll see the system giving you 'extra' assist to bleed the charge meter back down to 7). At the lower end of the spectrum, 4 bars is the 'minimum' charge, and you'll see the system do 'extra' charging to bring the level back up if it drops to 4 bars. You'll also notice assist is lessened at this level. At 3 bars, assist pretty much stops, and at 2 bars, you'll lose the auto-stop function. Most of the time, my car sits between 5-6 bars of charge, it goes up to 7 bars occasionally, and 8 bars on the very rare occasion. When it's at 8 bars, you'll see it drop down to 7 after a few minutes of driving.   - When you saw the state of charge (SoC) drop down like you did (drained down to 2 bars, then down to 0, then a big recharge), what you were experiencing was a 'recal' (or, recalibration). Your owner's manual will tell you that this meter is an 'approximate' state of charge. What happens is that the system occasionally loses track of how much juice is left in the battery; when it finds out that it's far enough out of sync, it drains the remaining charge out of the battery, and then charges it up again (thus, the recalibration). This will happen occasionally, however, if it occurs regularly (ie; at least once a day), take the car in and have it checked. Generally, if there's a real problem, the IMA light will illuminate in the dash - if this happens, there's a stored trouble code that the technician should be able to find with his / her scan tool.   - Your A/C unit is a bit different than a traditional unit. This car has a 'dual-scroll' compressor. What that means is that the compressor can be driven by the traditional belt / pulley design, or, when the engine is stopped, by a pure electrical signal. Unfortunately, the compressor will tend to drain the life out of the battery at stop lights, etc, especially if you like the A/C cold. Try this - keep the temp dialed in at 80F, and increase the fan speed to your liking manually. You should notice that the battery SoC is better maintained, and at 80, it's still fairly comfortable. 78F or lower will drain the battery, 80F seems to be the best compromise.   Hope this helps. Your car is OK...you just need to get used to the differences between this car and a conventional one, and the compromises made in certain areas (like what I mention above) for usability / user expectations. I'm not thrilled about the A/C issue, but now that I know the 'why' and 'how', I can cope a bit better. Especially when I get 50-52mpg from 9-10 gallons of gas at a fillup.
#28 of 28 Re: 2005 Honda Civic Hybrid Intermittent Starting Problems [bso1129] by texlib Jun 08, 2008 (1:01 pm)
Replying to: bso1129 (Jun 07, 2008 11:42 pm) Hi Meeps I have had this problem with both my 04 and now my 06. I took it to the dealer and they didn't have a clue, so I went ahead and changed the conventional battery under the hood. The replacement was about 15% more powerful then the factory one, now waiting to see if I have the whole blinking light situation again, no problems though for the last month.

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