According to the service manager that I talked to the figure is closer to 1K.

The chances of the whole IMA breaking is as remote as any engine on any car going. It's not going to happen. So the 5K arguement only serves to scare people when it's not that much and the prices if anything will go down.

 

I think what is happening is that honda is changing out the other two modules because they have found a problem with the originals. And rather than pass the cost on to the consumer or making some big recall they are just replacing them when a customer replaces the battery. Quietly upgrading only the cars that have had a problem.

This is why they are eating a lot of the cost I think. I have heard that more than 10 people have had insights batteries replaced and a few seemed to have been well out of warranty yet honda replaced them for free or a reduced cost.

I think hondas goal is to get the hybrid tech to last longer than life of the car. When they designed it they probably aimed at 100K. However, I don't think they considered a lot of people that will buy them will be high mileage drivers and will probably get to around 200k.

I will bet the new hch batteries are designed to last > than 150K miles at least.

 

Before I purchased my Insight I researched the whole battery replacement issue. It seems that most of the dealers are clueless (at least in San Jose California). I think only one dealer said that Honda USA has been doing them free and another said it would run ~2k for the battery and ~2k for the service (obviously a total joke). But in general none of them knew a price or even how to do it. (as of last month)



After calling Honda of America multiple times, and asking what the known battery life is and the cost (of which even they would not divulge) they finally said that because this is a new technology and the Insight was the first of its kind for Honda, Honda is “taking care” of customers that are having battery problems.



So, that being said… don’t let that dealer take your money! I would call Honda and start a dialogue with them now. Get them to replace it. Think of it this way, all the new hybrids have 8-10 year warranties and Honda only gave the early Insights three years! Partly because no one including them knew what to expect.

 

what does this mean? the "recalibration" of the battery

 

It means the battery 'computer' lost track of the actual state of charge of the battery and has to re-learn what voltage 'full' is and what voltage 'empty' is. As a battery ages it will have a different capacity, and so the minimum and maximum voltage changes over time, when it's too misaligned the computer starts a 'recalibration' routine to figure out what the real state is.

 

I just received bad news. My IMA light cam on and my Honda dealer told me the battery is degenerating and I need a new one. The cost is appx $3600.

I found your post and would like to know which dealer you went to to get your IMA system replaced for $500.

If I can't go there, I'm hoping I can at least use this as some leverage with my dealer.

I hope to hear back from you soon.

Sincerely,

Mike Parker

 

Quote from ryanh:

So, that being said… don’t let that dealer take your money! I would call Honda and start a dialogue with them now. Get them to replace it. Think of it this way, all the new hybrids have 8-10 year warranties and Honda only gave the early Insights three years! Partly because no one including them knew what to expect.

Mike, I would recommend taking it to the next level, talk to the regional Honda rep. They should be helpful with your problem.

Regards,

 

Mike,

How many miles are on your car? What state are you in? Actually I believe they extended the warranty to all 50 states if memory serves correct. Go to Insightcentral and type in P1447 in the search engine.

Last Thursday my IMA light came on, I manually read the code with my handy paperclip and it came up as the the code of death - need new battery. So I headed down to the dealer and after some brief arguing with the service writer on who was going to pay for them to hook up the diagnostics to tell me it was the code of death they finally told me I needed a new battery.

I've got 75,000 miles on my car. They called this afternoon and said my battery was in, I have an appointment Friday for them to install it. No cost. The rest of the IMA was replaced in the product update.

 

Just in case any of you are contemplating getting a used Batt from a junked insight, you can always check used parts sited like this one
http://car-part.com/ and they should be able to pull a list from across the country. I tried using my zip as a trial and found a few in my state before other states started to be listed. Good luck!

 

I'd definately avoid caving in and spending the $3600. Many times Honda has come up with a "hidden" warranty when people squawk loud enough. Car dealers are largely clueless in general. I had hoped that Honda and Toyota dealers were better but it seems a car salesman is a car salesman the world around. Haven't met one yet worth the powder it would take to blow them away. I can't wait till Wal-Mart starts selling cars.