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Hybrid Vehicles Honda Civic Hybrid Honda Civic Hybrid IMA Problems
180 messages, Last post on Nov 30, 2009 at 6:28 PM
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Replying to: halanr (Oct 14, 2008 2:52 pm) First, I try to lay off the Assist. I find that I can completely not use it once the car is at 25mph. I use slow, smooth acceleration. I try to use at least 2 to 3 bars, but sometimes 4 cannot be helped. Second, I recharge the battery every chance I get. If I'm going down a hill, I allow 1 or 2 bars of recharge bars to show. This has been the key to keeping the battery state of charge up. I try not to rely so much on the battery pips as they are not an exact representation of the battery's state of charge (as stated in the manual). I have been able to keep the pips at 6 or 7 regularly. I used to coast as much as possible with no recharging and did not use my brakes often at all. This would cause the battery to drain and re-calibrate, causing my mpg to drop and the car to run on the engine alone. When this happens, I stay in the right lane (I drive only in the right lane anyway) and let it do it's thing. Between 5-10 mins later it' s back to normal. You have to recharge your battery whenever you can, not just when braking to a stop, but even when your coasting. The car seems to suck more energy from the battery, more so than it recharges back into it. You have to look for those opportunities to recharge it. Try it for a week or so and see if there is a difference. BTW, I've had my car for 2 years with approx 28500 miles on it. My lifetime average mpg is 54.9 over 52 tanks. My last 6 tanks have been in the low 60's mpg. I have a 30 mile round trip suburban commute which I regularly get 65 mpg. I live in Charlotte, NC and the summers can get a little toasty with mid to upper 90's w/ 100% humidity. If I use the A/C, I use the Auto A/C set at 78-79. It seems to have less drain on the battery than regular A/C. Good Luck. |
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Replying to: halanr (Oct 14, 2008 2:52 pm) As far as an update on my situation, I had Mr. Ogawa with American Honda send me a letter in writing that there is absolutely nothing wrong with my car despite my complaint. And when the letter arrived, lo and behold he stated that my dealership had inspected and driven my car and saw nothing to substantiate the claims about my car. I find that appalling since the dealership clearly saw there was a problem, had my car for over 2 days, felt the need to contact American Honda, had me fill out that ridiculous form and has been in contact with me just about 3 times a week. So how on earth could he basically claim that my concerns were unfounded?!!!!!! 
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My 07' Civic Hybrid has the IMA disease too, and I have filed a complaint with the NHTSB. My car's symptoms briefly; rapid discharge of battery (all bars gone in less than 10 seconds), occurs much more frequently in hot weather, cannot achieve 8 full battery bars anymore, reduced gas mileage (about 10%), less effective braking while malfunctioning (actually feels like the cruise control in on when you let off the throttle). Living in Louisiana my dealer doesn't see lots of hybrids, so they are at a loss but seem to want to help. My biggest problem; although my IMA might malfunction a few times a day.... or not, I cannot get the IMA to act up when at the dealer. Has anyone been able to come up with a method of getting the IMA to rapid discharge all the bars in less than 10 seconds on demand? If someone can come up with a way to get the malfunction to occur intentionally the dealers would not be able to send you home with the car saying it's working within Honda specifications and we might get some traction for a repair or the lemon laws would get our cars replaced. Has anyone found a way to get the car to malfunction on demand? |
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Replying to: freddierap (Oct 18, 2008 8:13 am) 1) There is erratic behavior of the charge/assist system. Sometimes the system charges under acceleration when it should assist and it assists when coasting downhill and it should be charging. 2) Sometimes the charge/assist indicator will bounce between charging and assisting, and a noticeable “bump” or “surge” occurs. This happens when the car is accelerating, or sometimes decelerating down a hill when it should be charging. 3) Although a new IMA battery was installed and for a couple of weeks it seemed to hold a charge, the battery has become discharged on several occasions since the installation of the new battery. The car then exhibits very degraded performance and poor gas mileage. The battery has never charged the way it did before the first IMA problem. Prior to October 2007 it would often charge fully, sometimes each day. Since the first IMA work in October 2007 it rarely charges fully. 4) Sometimes when driving on level ground or a slight downhill grade, the gas mileage indicator drops all the way down. It stays there for several seconds and then goes back up to a normal level. 5) At times it seems that the engine will race or rev up when I start to accelerate from a stop. The car engine goes to AutoStop when the car stops, but it doesn't’ seem to move immediately when it restarts the engine after I take my foot off the brake. This does not happen really frequently, but occasionally. 6) The gas mileage of the vehicle has dropped almost 15% overall. But the gas mileage has also very frequently been inconsistent. At times the MPG is up to the 50 MPG range or more. At other times it is in the 38 – 44 MPG range on the same type of road conditions, same driving patterns, and no AC use on either occasion. I drive the vehicle 30,000 – 33,000 miles per year for work, so I am very familiar with the normal performance and mileage of the car, at least before the problems occurred after the IMA warning light came on in October 2007. I have told my dealer that I am considering some options, contacting local and/or national media about the unresolved problem and American Honda's denials, and getting a magnetic sign made for the side of my car that will warn others who may be considering buying a Civic Hybrid. I would name the local dealer and American Honda and state that they cannot fix my car. The dealer has made me a decent offer to trade my car for another, and I could get a pretty good deal on a 2009 non-hybrid. I told them that there are bigger issues than just my dissatisfaction. The weather is cooler here now, so the safety issue is not as big of a problem. I hope other owners file complaints and try to put pressure on Honda. There could be some strength in numbers.
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Replying to: lectricman52 (Oct 18, 2008 9:17 am)  Thanks for the reply. I know our problem seems to be worse with heat, however the weather is cooler here now and although not as frequent it's still happening with my car. Couple thoughts; as for the gas mileage loss I really believe this is due to reduced battery voltage from it being damaged during the rapid discharges. I have some knowledge with rechargeable batteries and rapid discharges are their death. I have seen them vent or explode when rapidly discharged. Once they have experienced this brutal discharge, and it only takes one time to damage them, their output voltage under load is reduced and for us this means less assist from the IMA therefore more gas engine required to do the same amount of work. The heat caused by the car sitting in a parking lot for example might reduce the the batteries output voltage if plotted on a graph, but is not enough to be felt to the driver and is not gong to be the cause of the batteries suddenly dumping their capacity. Which gives me my greatest concern, our IMA batteries contain a lot of stored energy, when they rapidly discharge.... where is the stored power going?? To see all your bars click off in under 10 seconds requires nothing less than some form of dead short... can anyone say dangerous. I seriously doubt any system in the car is capable of using that much power in that brief period, therefore a short circuit that could cause an explosion concerns me.
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Several of you have been very helpful and are therefore familiar with the IMA assist problem occurring in our vehicles. After almost 4 months of getting the run around from American Honda, they finally attempted to be rid of me by sending me a letter stating that there is nothing wrong with my car, and that (contrary to actions taken by my dealership) Duval Honda found no evidence to support my claims that the vehicle was malfunctioning. They have since stopped taking or returning my calls. Going so far as to hang up when I call the service manager direct. I have gone to a new dealership. The issue: As of yesterday my car threw a check engine light, while accelerating, the car will buck and jerk and is really quite terrifying to be driving. This behaviour is inconsistent and I had initially thought the problem to be the O2 sensor. It will turn off my cruise control when the irradict behaviour starts up as well. However, (as I am sitting in the dealership now) I have just recieved information that this dealership thought a rat had damaged a single 2" area of my wiring harness. I of course being moderately familiar with cars, and not at all stupid went to see for myself this "rat damage" And wouldn't you know, this must be the best rat ever, because the casing around the wires was rather neatly "chewed" and almost no plastic was missing at all. Only a single black wire from within that casing was damaged, and it was almost perfectly cut. I of course took my stance that there was no way a rat came into my car decided to cut my wire casing and neatly cut a single wire. There is no evidence of any damage anywhere else in the car. FORTUNATELY, my service advisor understood my concerns, and my conspiracy theory against my last dealership and took it up with the manager. So now I am getting the wire fixed and new diagnostics done on the car, with the oil changes etc. for $90. They said they did not want to be associated with being at all like Duval Honda and did not want to behave like Duval Honda. While still not perfect, it is much better than the original cost, but I don't feel like they did the damage, and I am not taking it back to Duval Honda to try and argue that they did it, so I will be moderately content to part with the $90. I had never thought to check and see if my old dealership had "accidently" damaged any part of my car. But this is where I am now on the IMA issue, I hope that this fixes it. |
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I have recently had some work done to my 05 HCH and ever since then the mpg have dropped by 5-10. My day started out with a flat tire. It was time to get new tires so that's what I did. I took it to a tire store and while they were under there they noticed the front brakes were 90% worn so I had those replaced and the 50,000 mile check-up. Starting that day after I left the tire store I'm averaging 34-36 mpg instead of 42-46 mpg. Does anyone have any insight on why this could be? It is really bothering me. Any advise would be greatly appreciated. |
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Replying to: highmpg (Aug 27, 2008 8:35 am)
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Replying to: sholmes717 (Jan 01, 2009 5:54 pm) |
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Replying to: 46jimbo (Jul 18, 2007 10:19 am) |
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