A friend of mine has a 2003 Honda Civic Hybrid. She has noticed that the milage is dropping and that the car is sluggish. I believe that she has a diagnosis from the dealership that the battery is dying. It looks like the battery warrentee is 8 years or 80K miles. She is well under both qualifiers. Does this mean that she is in line for a free new battery, and if so what is the best way to force the dealership to honor the warrantee?
Has she had all the software updates. If not she really should get them. Honda will not change the pack unless a code appears.Allot of HCH2 owners are having problems with the pack in their HCH2's . The pack develops a cell or two that is weaker than the other twenty or so, and the IMA system tries to keep them in balance, thus recal mode sets in . This is when the power problems occur. Is you friend having recalls? The SOC will drop to zero and then it has two recharge the the pack again[Recal]. You may want to try a reset by removing the battery - cable for 15-20 min. and then reconnect. This may help the IMA figure thing faster. If you want more info go to cleanmpg.com. and check out msantoes thread on care for your HCH2. H
If that was an official diagnosis from the dealer, they would have replaced it under warranty. More likely they said that frequent recals and low SoC may indicate a deteriorating IMA battery. I'm 99% positive that she won't get an warranty replacement until it the IMA light comes on. But if recals are frequent, it won't be long, she just needs to keep driving it as much as possible and hope that it codes before running out of time or miles on the warranty. She should also be aware that warranty replacement batteries have a shorter lifetime.
Most car batteries have like a 3-year warranty. Having this one go out in under 2 ... 1995 Honda Civic..battery died now radio doesn't work! ---------- Demin Martin
I just traded my honda civic hybrid for a prius. There is currently a class action lawsuit in process regarding the batteries. She should google information and take it to the dealer and demand to have her batteries replaced. They told me they couldn't replace mine unless the computer showed a problem. The computer showed no problem so they drove the vehicle around with the computer attached and it faulted. My dealer went to bat for me with honda and honda authorized the replacement. Then honda told the dealer to tell me that "we don't think this was the problem but we don't know what is or how to fix it." Seriously??? Time to trade! My car was a 2008
