Civic Hybrid Battery IMA Problems

I have a 2007 honda civic and is currently having the same problem. The car couldn't maintain 32 mpg while it use to get 40+mpg. Honda doesn't know how to fix it and refuse to address the problem. All the can do is logging the case the passing me around with different people within their customer service department. Let's know if there's a class action lawsuit. I'm in.

Hi to all of you... I have this same EXACT problem and live in KS where it doesn't even get that hot or humid, but still my 2006 hybrid fails whenever it's hot outside and I'm idling at a stoplight. I've had so much trouble with American Honda and the dealership, that I've hired an attorney to help with this, but even he is having trouble with American Honda. My car has been labeled as "irreparable" by Honda but they have not offered to honor the factory warranty that the car is still under nor have the come up with a "fix" to the problem. I've been without my car since early July and have had to drive a loaner. How much money have I lost so far? Only about $25,000. Honda is not the car company they once were. My '98 civic with 150,000 still going strong. Wish they'd get back to what they used to be good at... making dependable cars.

I live in Los Angeles/Riverside, and it gets pretty warm in the summers (high 90's/low 100's). I have about 75k miles on my HCH and it has started to do this as well. I have found that is occurs significantly less when I give the engine a good chance to warm up. In the non-summer months, i almost never have this problem, but that heat is a killer on the battery.

I was thinking about buying a hybrid and decided to do research on battery life. I am sorry to here about the problems you all are having but rest assured I am taking it to heart and will not be buying a Honda hybrid. I hope you are able to get Honda to honor their warranty. Thanks for the heads up.

I bought a used 2003 Civic Hybird that had only 37000 miles on it from a dealer 150 miles from where I live. I took the car into Ed Morse Honda in So Fl for service and had them do the 36000 mile service since I did not know if it had been done. 3000 miles later I noticed my battery would loose 50% of its charge just sitting over night. I took the car back to Ed Morse and 3 days later they had a new battery in my car at no charge. These batteries have an 80,000 mile warranty so any dealer should take care of the problem. I was very pleased.

Sorry to say this but is it a relief to see im not the only one!! My car is a 2003 civic and does the EXACT same things!! i thought i was jus hard on my car! I brought my car to the dealership several times complaining about the problem and they kept telling me they didnt see a problem and NOW THAT IM OUT OF WARRENTY they decide to tell me i need to replace the battery for like $3000?!?!

Ashley:
You did a great job on the video and having your voice heard when against Honda, one of the giant corporations.

I am also a HCH II (2007 Civic Hybrid) owner, and ever since the first day I purchased my car my MPG can never go above 40MPG. I used to blame it on my little aggressive driving behavior (I do tend to accelerate) and my residential location in which you have to drive a few uphills (I know gas consumption is crazy driving uphills). Not until now did I realize that perhaps it is Honda who's to blame? My average is from 32-34MPG after two years of ownership.

One thing worth to notice is that, within few months after I acquired my HCH II, one night I went to pick up my friend from the airport, and on the way home, the car actually became not drivable. What happened was that the engine just revved when pressing the gas but didn't seem to accelerate; instead it was losing power. The car also had some jitter. In the end, I was forced to pull over the car on the highway shoulder, and turned off the engine completely. After waiting a few minutes, I restarted the engine and the problem went away.

That weekend I brought in my car to the nearest dealership for inspection but no problem was found. I felt like a ghost was possessing my car! However, ever since that night, I put around 50k miles more on my car up to today and this engine problem never occurs again.

Overall, the two year ownership of my HCH II has been OK. Besides the "haunting" story I mentioned above and my less-than-advertised-MPG, the only problem I really have with the car is the driver side roll-up window which seems to roll up off track when the car starts up cold (http://www.greenhybrid.com/discuss/f51/problems-drivers-side-window-goin...) and the window would bounce back and not close. Dealer couldn't find any problem (like always) with it and my work-around is to pound on my window to "realign" the rolling up during the roll-up.

I also believe that Honda never patiently listens to their customer's complaints and concerns, and the only way to catch their attention is to do your homework and present them with legal obligation. I used to own a 99 Accord Coupe and my transmission had this intermittent jitter that could not be diagnosed at the dealerships. Finally I waited for the car to have the transmission problem coming up more and more often and I drove to the dealership to demand the service manager to take the ride with me right away. The manager refused at first until I mentioned about the safety issue and all the possible scenarios if things do go wrong, etc. In the end, Honda replaced the entire transmission under my extended warranty. How long did it take me to fix the problem on my Accord? It took me 60k miles (3 years) of waiting. I encourage you to continue to pursue the justification, and you have m support if you are going for a class action lawsuit. Good luck!

Moto

Interesting comments. I live in Arkansas and own a 2005 HCH. Luckily, I have not had any problems, except the occasional lurches when decelerating. My dealership always tries to push the high dollar service on me. Reading your posts have made me worry about my future battery life. I don't have the money to replace it later, but I do love my car. My mpg has increased to 45, as long as I am not using the AC, but I wonder how long this will last. I also have heard that Honda has discontinued making the HCH, probably due to these problems. I assume the new Insight is taking its place. Guess I need to research other brands of hybrids before I actually need one. Thanks for the heads up.

Umm... Lemon Law? I have a 2008 HCH and it hasn't had any of these problems. I get 500+miles per 10.2 gallons. I live in Washington State and had no problems when it was hot this past summer. This is scary! Thanks for the posts!

There has been a class action suit. Go to www.HCHsettlement.com. They'll give you $1000, but you have to buy another piece of crap from them. I have a 2006 HCH and am getting the runaround from American Honda. You're all lucky. My silver hunk of junk gets 31MPG. I should have kept my Hummer-- it got better mileage. Now, all I got was a hummer from Honda. Pass the word-- RUN FROM HONDA!

I was told the same thing-- heat is bad. So now, when I park the car outside of the mall, I bring an air-conditioned tent and hire a technician to make sure the temp never gets above 75.

Oh my gosh! Every time I mentioned the problems you mentioned above they dismissed it as a problem. As I read all of this I can definately identify with all of it! I am now furious with the lack of concern for my situation and would tell anyone who is looking to buy one not to!!!!

Have 08 HCH problems with battery draining to 1 bar(out of eight) then vehicile acts like a 2 cylinder car and then it almost slingshots you to above the speedlimit. Its like driving a car with the e-brake on. Have repeatetly taken car to honda dealership they say no problems with the hybrid battery. Car has less than 30k on it but we live in west Texas were the heat is a factor. Lots of 100+ degree days. Picked it up from honda dealership were they did a software update, left dealership drained 2 bars in less than a mile. I am a 38 yr old father of 4 girls and I drive like it too, very reserved. I am very dissappointed with this hybrid considering i could have bought a regular civic and maybe added leather and a sunroof. Interested if anymore people in southwest have this problem too? Also I don't like the autostop feature, at a stoplight when autostop is on and ac on vents blow hotter air then if car is actually idleing, no way to turn off autostop so if you want cold air at the stoplight you have to put the car in park, very, very, very annoying. I am in process of finding a good class action lawsuit here in Texas.......SHAME ON HONDA

To All HCH Owners:
Thanks for the warnings. I have a 2006 HCH with 160,000 miles, and have done nothing to date but change the cars oil and tires. I still get 50mpg highway. Had hope to get at least another repair free 150000 miles out of the car. But after reading the posts you have convinced me to trade it in and not press my luck.

I have a 2003 Honda Civic Hybrid and before I bought it the sales people and websites touted that the battery was tested to 150,000 miles. Well at 80,500 it went out. Luckily, with the class action lawsuit I received a new battery for free. However, I noticed it wasn't showing a full charge like my original battery did but the dealership said that once driven it will show a full battery. Well here I am 23,000 miles later and the battery has gone out again. Now, I live in VA so it doesn't get extremely cold or hot in fact it was just sitting at the airport parking lot for 4 days when I jumped in and had the IMA, Battery and Engine light come on. They now want $3600 to replace the battery that was only 23,000 miles old. Now that is outrageous. But to top it off, I don't think that will fix the problem, I think due to it not having a full charge the first time and it only lasting a short time both times I seriously thinking Honda is missing something else. I will sell after getting this resolved hopefully in my behalf and then move away from honda and buy another Toyota which I have been very happy with and it has over 100,000 miles with no major or even minor issues. Go Toyota, run from Honda Hybrids.

I have a 2007 HCH I have never got the gas mileage Honda said I would get, I really have not had any other problems, I guess I'm lucky. I do know theirs a special tire that needs to be put on the HCH to get any mileage at all. and this would be city 38 to 40.
Jim

good

I've never achieved great mileage with this car, but averaged about 40 mpg for the first 40K. Since then, my mileage has dropped to about 36 mpg. Every morning my battery drops to 1 bar. I have the extended warranty, but have not reid to have the battery replaced yet. It seems likes I should let it die first.