Dead Honda e

[peniole]

That post is 2 years old, so they may have updated the charging cycles. At least I hope so, not charging because your HV is>=90% seemed a strange decision to me.

[Highanddry]

Can someone drain the 12V battery and try it out please

Sorry had a dead battery this morning and did not have time to try it out - as looking to hit appointment.

The weather has been colder here and car parked outside but the day before the car took a larger (say 80 km) round trip, so strange this happened now in my limited tech mind.

Only hooking it up with good size CTEK 12V charger made it able to start again.

Battery life time now should be about 2.5 years, had no means to measure the voltage when it was dead.

I am reconditioning the battery now and see how it goes.

Plan to put it on the 12V charger from time to time over the winter.

If things get worse- replace the battery.

And next time if stranded or having time will do the buckle trick, it does sound pretty cool !

[Ebenezer]

I've just posted in the other thread but came here to report another dead 12v Honda this weekend.

Could it be some kind of software update that went wrong? When I got a new battery there was a red icon on the dash next to the tcu indicating failed software dl I think?

[EEEE]

Now that a few more posters are coming out of the woodwork - it seems too coincidental that it seems to have happened after the pushing out of a software update. Most people do not have their car within WiFi range of the house (or indeed have linked it to wifi), but the notification of the update is pushed out via the TCU/Mobile network. Once the infotainment is woken up, who knows when it goes back to sleep? This could well be the cause.

If anyone has a BM2, are you seeing little voltage drops every 2 hours? I never had the BM2 fitted before the software update / flat battery so not sure if this is a new thing, or it was always like that.

[londiniumperson]

Now that a few more posters are coming out of the woodwork - it seems too coincidental that it seems to have happened after the pushing out of a software update. Most people do not have their car within WiFi range of the house (or indeed have linked it to wifi), but the notification of the update is pushed out via the TCU/Mobile network. Once the infotainment is woken up, who knows when it goes back to sleep? This could well be the cause.

If anyone has a BM2, are you seeing little voltage drops every 2 hours? I never had the BM2 fitted before the software update / flat battery so not sure if this is a new thing, or it was always like that.

About 18 months ago I was told that my car had an update to resolve the 12v battery drain issue and it hasn't occurred since, before then, twice it had drained flat overnight with the car locked for no apparent reason.
I've inadvertently caused a flat battery a couple of time myself when I've been cleaning the car with a door open and not switching it to 'on'. This has never happened on any other car I've owned, but we all know that the battery is of very low capacity.

As for the current update I don't see that being the cause because my car still hasn't downloaded it even though it has started several times and failed; most likely due to lack of WiFi signal near my house & minimal mobile signal within a few miles of home.

[Highanddry]

As for the current update I don't see that being the cause because my car still hasn't downloaded it even though it has started several times and failed; most likely due to lack of WiFi signal near my house & minimal mobile signal within a few miles of home.

Same here. The flat battery issue yesterday was before the TCU update.

Only managed to do the update just now by driving it into the garage to put up strong enough WiFi.


My 5 cts, as not very technical, so shout if you dont agree:

It is a small battery, and a running the car on any standby load drains it quickly.
And as it is now getting colder and quite a lot of cars / batteries are now 2-3 year they drain even quicker.
The recharging of the 12V battery from the main battery is not done in the smartest way possible by Honda engineers.
Hence we have issues to have to kickstart the small battery to get going.

[peniole]

As for the current update I don't see that being the cause because my car still hasn't downloaded it even though it has started several times and failed; most likely due to lack of WiFi signal near my house & minimal mobile signal within a few miles of home.

Same here. The flat battery issue yesterday was before the TCU update.

Only managed to do the update just now by driving it into the garage to put up strong enough WiFi.


My 5 cts, as not very technical, so shout if you dont agree:

It is a small battery, and a running the car on any standby load drains it quickly.
And as it is now getting colder and quite a lot of cars / batteries are now 2-3 year they drain even quicker.
The recharging of the 12V battery from the main battery is not done in the smartest way possible by Honda engineers.
Hence we have issues to have to kickstart the small battery to get going.

I had to defer the TCU update a while back, but it never came up again and I couldn't trigger it. Any idea what the TCU update is about? Thanks

[ZeroEmissionRequiem]

So after my e died last saturday (or maybe already on friday?), Honda's road service came to revive it and stated the 12 volt battery was at 3 volts. While most would consider the battery irrecoverable, surprisingly the car has worked since. I have used a 12 V charger afterwards, in an effort to keep it from dying again until the issue has been rectified, and said charger always indicated 1/5 bars, which according its handbook is the lowest figure and means "below 12.35 V".

Today I took it to a dealership so they could investigate the problem, but was told there are no fault codes and the 12V battery passed Honda's battery test (12.62V and 475A, no further results were shown), so as far as they can tell the car is in perfect working order...aside from that "dying while parked" thing I guess. Anyway, since there were no issues present, the investigation was not covered by the warranty, and thus I got to pay for it myself.

This was a pretty shit experience.

[5thcivic]

I think that might be normal. I regularly charge the 12V maybe once a month since do few miles, and both (different) smart chargers start at 1 bar display showing around 12.3V more or less. Never had a flat yet and the car is now 2 and 1/2 years old. Waiting to see what happens after 3 years!

[ZeroEmissionRequiem]

I think that might be normal. I regularly charge the 12V maybe once a month since do few miles, and both (different) smart chargers start at 1 bar display showing around 12.3V more or less. Never had a flat yet and the car is now 2 and 1/2 years old. Waiting to see what happens after 3 years!

Your chargers start at 1 bar, but what do they finish at? I've had mine on for multiple nights, and as I wrote, it always indicated 1 out of 5 bars lit, with another bar blinking to indicate it's trying to charge the battery.