The battery indicator on my new HAH usually shows 4 bars. Often it dips to 3 bars and occasionally 2. On a couple of occasions it has shown 5 bars.

Is this typical?

What is the maximum number of bars YOU see? 5? 6?

Alan

 

Completely normal.

read through the threads- there is nothing wrong with 3 bars. Any battery that is continually being partially charged/discharged will rarely achieve a full charge.
It should make sense that the average charge state is in the middle of the display- 3-4 bars. And you see excursions outside that to 1/2 or 5/6, as expected. If you are consistently much lower, only then would I worry about it and take it in for a check.

6 is as high as it goes- I've seen 6 a few times, but not for long. Same with 5- depends on how/where I'm driving. 3-4 is the norm for me, over 4 months. 2 just means you leaned on the IMA pretty hard- it'll come back up.

 

Wohoo! Today while driving to work was the first time I ever saw six bars. Determined to see if I could do it, I drove really easily on the gas. After about six miles, I finally got the sixth bar to appear!

 

Cool- anytime I've gotten 6, it was after a whole lot of stop/go- lots of braking. Which meant my mileage was in the toilet- like mid-20s. I have since repented my ways, and avoid that like the plague now.

 

After 17,000 miles, I've seen 6 bars once--after taking the car to the dealer after the check engine light came on (they "reset the computer" after finding no cause for the light).
The tech said the batt charge was "low" (it had been at 3 bars) and that he'd charged it; only time I've seen 6 bars. I asked the tech if he used a charger; he said no, that he'd just revved the engine.... I now ask service to DO NOTHING to adjust batt charge level unless they find a specific problem and then to ask me first. The tech, btw, did not know how many "bars" there were on the indicator. In his defense, this is a small dealership and the first HAH he'd serviced.

As others have noted, IMA was very active at a 6-bar charge, so active that in very moderate city driving the charge level was back to 4-bars within two miles, suggesting to me that the HAH computer does not see 6 bars as a "normal" level, more an "excess" that needs to be used ASAP. It stays at 3-4 bars 90% of the time; 2 sometimes, and 5 less frequently; I've never seen 1 or 6 from any of my driving conditions in 17k miles. From all that I've read here, this range is more typical than not.
Lewis