i fixed my accord ima it was a nightmare like this civic but i learned how. First off you got a low battery, full voltage of the pack should be at 170v not 154v my friend, your battery contactor wont pull in its in protect mode. Also you can fix a bad temp sensor with a standard resistor of a working temp sensor value in resistance in place of the broken one in a pinch. Also if you got a low stick it takes about 3 to 7 days to trickle charge a very low stick to gain capacity back but you need a 12 ohm" power resistor " in series with the battery stick and basic 12v dumb charger. Do not use a hobby charger they dont work correctly you need a dumb old style charger but you will find with old pack sticks it wont have enough capacity and throw a light, best off replacing your pack sticks with chinese nimh sticks and it will work for 1/4 of what honda charges to replace the whole pack. Also the ima system only trickle charges the small 12v so you cant run long because your draining your small battery too fast.
I have a 1st gen Prius and after much pain the only thing that made come back to life was replacing the hybrid battery. I agree with egn83b it's very hard to bring back to life those old cells sticks.
@@leifhietala8074 156v is low that pack is on its way out if its resting.. my accord ima uses the same cells as the civic and voltage. Each cell at nominal resting at basically lowest depth of discharge is 1.2v which is 144v like on the sticker its misleading information. When the cell in each stick reaches 1.45 or 1.50v new they are at full capacity. But resting is normally 163v to 165v. 156v is ima light territory but software on the civic may be different then my accord but should be the same.
So....ur saying he didn't balance the batteries by not charging them all in parallel at the same time and a contactor is not closing? because it's not getting enough voltage? So the batteries are undercharged unbalanced and theres also a bad thermistor? And this is all contributing to a contactor not closing? That'd be a simple fix then no? He prolly sold the car tho..... hmmm is this guy an electrician? Could he not just use multimeter to find where the power is being cut off? Shouldn't one just check voltage to see if current is running and not ohms? If theres a circuit board with digital switches does that mean he ohmed out all the pins? But if circuit board won't allow current through if there isn't enough voltage or "balance" when there is then the circuit board is busted no? And if the thermistor is busted then that means the battery overheated so that battery is fucked. No? But since there are thermistors that should protect circuit board no? Lol
Goodness, I purchased a new hybrid battery and module for my 2004 civic and has everything installed today. However my ima is still on with check engine and maintenance light. Any suggestions? It has power and drives good with the 12v which I had tested at the local automotive store
He needs a better battery balancer as well. You need to check capacity of the battery in addition to voltage. You can easily have a cell at the correct voltage which will have like 100mah of capacity. Since they are in series, they all need to be similar mah in capacity.
Yep you do need to balanced the new batteries. Otherwise it won’t work. Plus replace the temp sensors. Yes having a bad 12v battery will cause issues with inverter. These cars are picky when getting IMA to work. Doubt it anything major.
I recently purchased a 2004 civic (for $1100) and had the same issues / codes. The person I bought it from popped off the led lights for the engine/ima/maint warnings, but I knew they had to be on. I rebuilt the battery, still same codes as yours. Finally bought a battery from a well-known hybrid battery company, put it in and no codes and works just like new. It cost about $1600 with a $400 core charge. The battery sticks need to be exactly the same in every regard for the car's computer to accept it. I did not realize that during the battery rebuild.
I would look to fix the temp sensor before spending money on parts. You have 3x sensors so just use an ohm meter and look for the odd one out. Start as close to the pack as you can then work back until one of the three measures different. I don't think the car will "use\" the battery until you fix this.
And you don't need to disassemble the battery if you can find and measure two of the sensors and get a resistor of the same value to substitute for the third, faulty one.
The temp issue is probably the one battery that was previously changed out that they sliced all the way through the sleeve to the metal of the battery. It might get hotter because it is directly touching metal.
Love the fix and flips, you're saving cars, and providing cheap properly repaired vehicles to people that need them. It's fun to watch. More Opels on the channel! They're weird and cool! Find another Manta, or a Kadett!
I agree to your statement in theory, however these hybrids, particularly older models, are highly unreliable, or had issues to begin with. My brother in-law bought an 07 Camry hybrid supposedly rehabbed, new battery pack...the short story...had he just ran an OBD scan before purchasing, he would have discovered the entire battery and recharge electronics had been bypassed. He did take the car to a Toyota dealer and was told it was not worth repairing...more or less, he had purchased a totaled car. The Camry was hardly worth the tires it was sitting on and he wound up selling as a parts car... IMO...the claim carbon base fuels cause more environmental damage than alternative fuels, battery, solar or wind...is a double-edge sword. The manufacturing of the batteries with its by-product wast disposal, not to mention batteries winding up in landfills affords more pollution than conventional carbon fuel. However I do believe battery tech will come of age...its just here yet...my 2¢...
You have amazing work ethic and I wish I could have thrown my two cents in much earlier as I owned one of these generation one Honda Civic Hybrids for five years and 50k miles. Ultimately after one refurbished battery and multiple trips to the dealer (where they miraculously updated the ecu software every time) we ended up junking the car. Why? The battery died....again and the alternator light was on. The car was only running on the 12 volt and would not allow the IMA to function as an alternator. I went deep into the forums, and exhausted the dealer's expertise as well as almost every Insight trick available-more is known now as you have done. I figured out that this car is a Honda science experiment that works under a very specific set of conditions. Any deviation from those conditions will set an IMA and check engine light. I got used to these friendly twinkling reminders that something was amiss in Hondaland. The Takata airbag issue was the last straw for the car. I sent it to the junk yard with a spare battery in the trunk. The good-on a new battery I got 55 mpg plus. The bad-the early ecu software was extra paranoid and cost the original owner 4 catalytic converters, and every check engine/IMA light you can imagine almost all the time (the hilarious thing was the car would freak out mid trip and slowly shut the lights off by the time I got where I was going). The third time they reprogrammed the car they finally got the CVT tune right (and according to the forums, the last reprogram removes all of the oxygen sensor codes), but the car couldn't get any more than the mid 40s mpg. My hat is off to your diligence and perseverance. Great work!
I'm always amazed at how you jump into a new project with such gusto. I like that you choose diverse projects such as this one and I learn a lot. Keep them coming JR!!
Honored to be here watching this video while it's still freshly uploaded and still steaming warm! :) Impressed even more than usual - thanks, JR. Favorite line so far: It's either badly broken or it's something really simple. Love it! :)
It likely the temp sensors that causing issue. I had same issues with one I rebuilt and replaced all of them and IMA started working after clearing codes.
When my 12v battery on my fusion energi went bad the car went bananas, literaly things would stop working and 10 mins later it would work and something else would stop, from lights to radio to power seats. Hybrids are super finicky when the 12v battery goes bad.
One thing to note, if the starter is starting the car, the IMA is not working correctly. If the IMA system is working correctly you won't hear the starter. The engine will just run with no starter as the electric assist will start the engine. Pretty cool actually.
Yep likely issue and yes contractor won’t close if detect fault in battery pack and fan will go on high. I rebuilt a couple of them. It likely bad thermistor. Easy was to verify it is test with multimeter and ohm them out and look for the one that measures way different.
If the 12 volt is heating up, it could have an internal short, and it's functioning like a great big resistor. That would screw with the voltage signals everywhere and throw odd codes for good sensors.
My thought was similar that the 12v battery could be causing issues itself if its not in good shape. Ive heard of cars doing some odd ball things when the battery is in need of being replaced.
Remembering my EIR from 34 years ago, I'm thinking that sensors with an incorrect input voltage on a small set of parameters could throw a false failure code. If the sensor is only catching 11 volts coming in, and "failure" is an output of 11.4 volts coming out on a nominal 12 volt system, then it reads as bad.
When I saw how you were trying to fix the IMA battery, I groaned. Even if you weren't having a temp sensor issue you'd be doomed to failure. Something to be aware of with NiMH, is that voltage is not a good indicator of SOC. You can charge the pack to full an then put it in the car, and it will still show an initial charge of around 20%. The computers need to cycle the battery a few times and measure current in and out to get an accurate model of it. That said, just swapping sticks that have higher voltage will likely still result in a failed pack in a few weeks. If you don't match their internal resistance it will rapidly get out of balance again and throw another IMA code. As someone who has rebuilt several of these, you're better off either 1) doing a full bypass and connecting the DC-DC directly to the MDM output, or sending that pack out as a core and just replacing it.
lol, Just install a 2nd alternator wired to the 12v OR (3) 12v battery wired in parallel and install a solar charger on the roof and trunk and battery charger.
Wish I was closer I'd help.It seems like a super simple fix and you need someone that's good at troubleshooting VFD drives so if you have a friend that's a commercial hvac tech or electrician ask him to help
I'm giving you props somewhat for not using the marking cardboard method when removing and reinstalling all the nuts/bolts during the disassembly/reassembly.
Much respect for trying as hard as you did to fix the Hybrid. I drive (and love) a 98 Civic but would NEVER own something as complex as your project car. I'm sure I will own an electric vehicle someday but it will not be a Hybrid. Hope someone comes up with the controller you need. Thanks for the fun. Better luck next time. (I suggest something old school.)
I believe modern electrics trip up us oldsters where a young person would adapt readily. It's like my former father-in-law, at the age of 9, would drive around his father who was circuit rider preacher and had never learned how to drive the modern transportation called a Model T Ford.
Loved my 2003 Civic Hybrid (new May 2002). Replaced the battery pack once with a rebuilt, which didn't cut it. Honda "participated" in replacing that with a new pack - about 1/2 price to me. Worked great. Ran fine until I totaled it hitting a deer in 2018. That car was like a spaceship with its 600+ mile range on one tank of fuel. Unlike a Prius the Civic has a usable "limp home" operating mode when the IMA is in disabled state. Made these cars safe for travel "off the grid."
@Bob Riemers: I believe Prous has “ limp home” mode, though activating it is involved procedure. And driving it in that mode is dangerous. They call it “Diagnostic” mode.
I had a guy fix my IMA battery, on my previous 09 civic Hybrid. He charge cycled the sticks multiple times until they would hold their load somewhat consistent. After that it worked for almost a year, then went bad again. Best fix is ordering those Chinese battery sticks. They were about €800 back then, instead of the €2800 the Honda dealer charged for a new battery pack.
Had a flash back to my 2004 civic hybrid, battery went out under warranty and once out of warranty. Gave it to my mom after getting a replacement aftermarket battery. She still drives it, thru electric system requires work like every other year.
I had a couple of first gen Honda Insight's from 02 to 2014 the last one I sold when it was 8 years old and had the IMA battery pack replaced under warranty . Every caller wanted wanted to know was how old the IMA battery's were and watching this video I think about what a royal pain in the ass these older hybrids are to fix now. A lot more work just to get a few more mpg's.
I replaced the batteries on this same model... mine just worked IMA light went away my mechanic did some kind of bypass or something cant remember. But I had the same problem as you but my mechanic figured it out...
This cars pretty cool. They didnt have a civic hybrid here for the 7th gen. Only 8th gen. (In Canada. Maybe only on quebec.) But clearly they're a pain to work on
Sorry to hear you couldn't fix despite your effort. But interesting to hear that the car is still worth owning and using since regardless whether the IMA is working or not, the venhicle was designed to be first a combustion engine car and olectrical is assist only.
My theory is, the owner of the Honda had the battery go bad. They purchased the rebuild kit, did the repair and when it happened again threw in the towel. The cells that they said were new were actually old. Maybe the factory cells.
If you do have a failing module, it heats up quickly, triggering the fan. Resting state voltage readings on the modules aren't really indicative of the module health. When under load the module may drop voltage very quickly. A better test is hooking up a headlight bulb with both high and low beam hooked up for 60 seconds and recording the voltage drop. That is a proxy for the internal resistance of the battery. Ideally, you'd measure the discharge voltage curve as you discharge each module from full charge down to close to 0%, then match all modules in pack based on those curves and internal resistance.
I have 2 Honda civic 2003 hybrid. Bad ima pack. I bought one reconditioned bat from a source and the other I tried reconditioning them. The working ima bat works. But the one I worked on doesn't wanna work even tho it shows the proper voltage. My guess is bad temp sensor
The other thing is you can charge each pack of 6 cells to whatever voltage, but the individual cells might be different voltage, not sure if this is that big of a deal in nicad and chemistry will mess up in internal resistance
as an owner of Crown Victoria's, this seems like a hell of a lot of work for a car that has a 1.3 liter motor.. I have heard these cars are incredibly slow, it would be less work to just swap the motor lol.. for somebody with lots of money it might be cool to just increase the voltage and see what can be done with it before it starts to turn into a fireball 😁
Sounds like the dirt bike I bought that "only had a blown head gasket". After a complete rebuild, it's running great. Everyone gets burnt sometimes. Wonder if those cells are like bike batteries. If they sit for a year unused, they are toast.
Com'on, JR; I'm sure you have a good friend (probably bunches of friends) that works at a local Honda dealership that can loan you all the the parts that the book says to swap out. You always have friends working at all of these car shops to help you out.
Where is the Comm Cable A you were talking about in the end of this video as well as what does it look like. I have a 2013 Honda Civic Hybrid, thank you
There is virtually no way to practically resistance balance a NiMH battery pack in the field, which is why so much goes back to replacing the battery module. I'm going to attempt it on mine but I enjoy this stuff and have a pretty good knowledge of electrical engineering without being one. There's no way a shop would make money trying to do this. The issue is the batteries are all low amp-hour and in series, so if one of them is mismatched from the rest of the chain, the entire performance of the array is going to suffer. I can understand early hybrids having conservative approaches to monitoring battery array performance because, as Tesla discovered, its not so great when your customers die in car fires. If that pack went up behind that foam seat, you could have kids waiting in a car engulfed in flames in a minute.
@@jamesbrowne7948 the part in question was a controller, not the battery. There should be a way to field test the controller other than swap with known good.
Goodness, I purchased a new hybrid battery and module for my 2004 civic and has everything installed today. However my ima is still on with check engine and maintenance light. Any suggestions? It has power and drives good with the 12v which I had tested at the local automotive store
i fixed my accord ima it was a nightmare like this civic but i learned how. First off you got a low battery, full voltage of the pack should be at 170v not 154v my friend, your battery contactor wont pull in its in protect mode.
Also you can fix a bad temp sensor with a standard resistor of a working temp sensor value in resistance in place of the broken one in a pinch.
Also if you got a low stick it takes about 3 to 7 days to trickle charge a very low stick to gain capacity back but you need a 12 ohm" power resistor " in series with the battery stick and basic 12v dumb charger. Do not use a hobby charger they dont work correctly you need a dumb old style charger but you will find with old pack sticks it wont have enough capacity and throw a light, best off replacing your pack sticks with chinese nimh sticks and it will work for 1/4 of what honda charges to replace the whole pack. Also the ima system only trickle charges the small 12v so you cant run long because your draining your small battery too fast.
I have a 1st gen Prius and after much pain the only thing that made come back to life was replacing the hybrid battery. I agree with egn83b it's very hard to bring back to life those old cells sticks.
156 or so is about right for the HCH1 when fully charged.
@@leifhietala8074 156v is low that pack is on its way out if its resting.. my accord ima uses the same cells as the civic and voltage. Each cell at nominal resting at basically lowest depth of discharge is 1.2v which is 144v like on the sticker its misleading information. When the cell in each stick reaches 1.45 or 1.50v new they are at full capacity. But resting is normally 163v to 165v. 156v is ima light territory but software on the civic may be different then my accord but should be the same.
So....ur saying he didn't balance the batteries by not charging them all in parallel at the same time and a contactor is not closing? because it's not getting enough voltage? So the batteries are undercharged unbalanced and theres also a bad thermistor? And this is all contributing to a contactor not closing? That'd be a simple fix then no? He prolly sold the car tho..... hmmm is this guy an electrician? Could he not just use multimeter to find where the power is being cut off? Shouldn't one just check voltage to see if current is running and not ohms? If theres a circuit board with digital switches does that mean he ohmed out all the pins? But if circuit board won't allow current through if there isn't enough voltage or "balance" when there is then the circuit board is busted no? And if the thermistor is busted then that means the battery overheated so that battery is fucked. No? But since there are thermistors that should protect circuit board no? Lol
Goodness, I purchased a new hybrid battery and module for my 2004 civic and has everything installed today. However my ima is still on with check engine and maintenance light. Any suggestions? It has power and drives good with the 12v which I had tested at the local automotive store
you need to balance the battery cell together in order to have no code. just parallel all cells together and charge so it has same voltage all across.
This comment needs more likes. Please give it a thumbs up so that JR sees it. The battery is angry that it is out of balance.
He needs a better battery balancer as well. You need to check capacity of the battery in addition to voltage. You can easily have a cell at the correct voltage which will have like 100mah of capacity. Since they are in series, they all need to be similar mah in capacity.
Yep you do need to balanced the new batteries. Otherwise it won’t work. Plus replace the temp sensors.
Yes having a bad 12v battery will cause issues with inverter. These cars are picky when getting IMA to work. Doubt it anything major.
I recently purchased a 2004 civic (for $1100) and had the same issues / codes. The person I bought it from popped off the led lights for the engine/ima/maint warnings, but I knew they had to be on. I rebuilt the battery, still same codes as yours. Finally bought a battery from a well-known hybrid battery company, put it in and no codes and works just like new. It cost about $1600 with a $400 core charge. The battery sticks need to be exactly the same in every regard for the car's computer to accept it. I did not realize that during the battery rebuild.
13:38 " Hyundais won't send a check engine light until the world is ending " 😂😂😂
I felt this in my soul
I would look to fix the temp sensor before spending money on parts. You have 3x sensors so just use an ohm meter and look for the odd one out. Start as close to the pack as you can then work back until one of the three measures different. I don't think the car will "use\" the battery until you fix this.
this is the same for older nicad nimh type power tools, they also have temp sensors wired
And you don't need to disassemble the battery if you can find and measure two of the sensors and get a resistor of the same value to substitute for the third, faulty one.
Imagine… we’re only a few years from this being a common video on every single electric vehicle model over a certain number of years old
The temp issue is probably the one battery that was previously changed out that they sliced all the way through the sleeve to the metal of the battery. It might get hotter because it is directly touching metal.
I thought about it shorting on the battery itself as well.
That makes sense
Josh: “Oh, I thought you meant it was a hybrid ‘cause it was cheap and broken” I’m dead 😂
I had an '03 HCH, 5-spd, and it was an absolute dream on long trips. It could go 700 miles on a 13-gallon tank, just fantastic.
Love the fix and flips, you're saving cars, and providing cheap properly repaired vehicles to people that need them. It's fun to watch.
More Opels on the channel! They're weird and cool! Find another Manta, or a Kadett!
I agree to your statement in theory, however these hybrids, particularly older models, are highly unreliable, or had issues to begin with. My brother in-law bought an 07 Camry hybrid supposedly rehabbed, new battery pack...the short story...had he just ran an OBD scan before purchasing, he would have discovered the entire battery and recharge electronics had been bypassed. He did take the car to a Toyota dealer and was told it was not worth repairing...more or less, he had purchased a totaled car. The Camry was hardly worth the tires it was sitting on and he wound up selling as a parts car...
IMO...the claim carbon base fuels cause more environmental damage than alternative fuels, battery, solar or wind...is a double-edge sword. The manufacturing of the batteries with its by-product wast disposal, not to mention batteries winding up in landfills affords more pollution than conventional carbon fuel. However I do believe battery tech will come of age...its just here yet...my 2¢...
You have amazing work ethic and I wish I could have thrown my two cents in much earlier as I owned one of these generation one Honda Civic Hybrids for five years and 50k miles. Ultimately after one refurbished battery and multiple trips to the dealer (where they miraculously updated the ecu software every time) we ended up junking the car. Why? The battery died....again and the alternator light was on. The car was only running on the 12 volt and would not allow the IMA to function as an alternator. I went deep into the forums, and exhausted the dealer's expertise as well as almost every Insight trick available-more is known now as you have done. I figured out that this car is a Honda science experiment that works under a very specific set of conditions. Any deviation from those conditions will set an IMA and check engine light. I got used to these friendly twinkling reminders that something was amiss in Hondaland. The Takata airbag issue was the last straw for the car. I sent it to the junk yard with a spare battery in the trunk. The good-on a new battery I got 55 mpg plus. The bad-the early ecu software was extra paranoid and cost the original owner 4 catalytic converters, and every check engine/IMA light you can imagine almost all the time (the hilarious thing was the car would freak out mid trip and slowly shut the lights off by the time I got where I was going). The third time they reprogrammed the car they finally got the CVT tune right (and according to the forums, the last reprogram removes all of the oxygen sensor codes), but the car couldn't get any more than the mid 40s mpg. My hat is off to your diligence and perseverance. Great work!
My favorite part was the cat cameo. But you know I’m a sucker for cats 🐈
The cat was my favorite part too.
It is always awesome to see you JR’s, at Hooves, at the Wizards or, of course the best place to find you is at your own amazing channel!!
I’m a sucker for a nice shaved kitty myself
Yup like the Zeke cameos!
Cats are pets...
Dogs are family!
"as you can see, we now have a very fat cat"
10:05
Fat cat: "Dude, no need to call me that. I'm outta here."
You really amaze me with your ability to figure this out. Way beyond what most mechanics know even
I bet this really makes JR appreciate his Chevy Volt even more.
I'm always amazed at how you jump into a new project with such gusto. I like that you choose diverse projects such as this one and I learn a lot. Keep them coming JR!!
Honored to be here watching this video while it's still freshly uploaded and still steaming warm! :) Impressed even more than usual - thanks, JR. Favorite line so far: It's either badly broken or it's something really simple. Love it! :)
Really wanted to see IMA working oh well
It likely the temp sensors that causing issue. I had same issues with one I rebuilt and replaced all of them and IMA started working after clearing codes.
You've helped me decide that buying an old hybrid is definitely a really bad idea.
It isn't
When my 12v battery on my fusion energi went bad the car went bananas, literaly things would stop working and 10 mins later it would work and something else would stop, from lights to radio to power seats. Hybrids are super finicky when the 12v battery goes bad.
Possibly the 12v battery having an internal short is causing some havoc on the electronics?
That would just drain the battery and nothing would work
I've seen it happen...along with a bad 12v ground.
One thing to note, if the starter is starting the car, the IMA is not working correctly. If the IMA system is working correctly you won't hear the starter. The engine will just run with no starter as the electric assist will start the engine. Pretty cool actually.
oh really? so these things have a conventional starter motor just in case the hybrid system fails?
The computer is probably supposed to show “fail high” when the thermocouple/ thermistor circuit is open. That’s quite common.
Yep likely issue and yes contractor won’t close if detect fault in battery pack and fan will go on high. I rebuilt a couple of them. It likely bad thermistor. Easy was to verify it is test with multimeter and ohm them out and look for the one that measures way different.
If the 12 volt is heating up, it could have an internal short, and it's functioning like a great big resistor. That would screw with the voltage signals everywhere and throw odd codes for good sensors.
My thought was similar that the 12v battery could be causing issues itself if its not in good shape. Ive heard of cars doing some odd ball things when the battery is in need of being replaced.
Remembering my EIR from 34 years ago, I'm thinking that sensors with an incorrect input voltage on a small set of parameters could throw a false failure code.
If the sensor is only catching 11 volts coming in, and "failure" is an output of 11.4 volts coming out on a nominal 12 volt system, then it reads as bad.
I would check/replace the temp sensors. If the system thinks the batteries are overheating, it will definitely shut down the batteries!
*Now this was really interesting. it's the kind of thing you just don't see on any of the other repair or flip channels. Good Stuff* !
Can’t win em all. Thanks for walking us all through it! On to the next one!
I did exactly what you did and got the car running.
Thanks for making these videos :)
time to call uncle rich....lol
@RichRebuilds I’ve got this car with a 🔋 in it!
@@WatchJRGo and I see the next rebuild.....
that old bike in that corner!
dm ME...im the Car Wizard of Bikes!
rich + civic oh yes
@@clevelandmaker386 email me, I bought that bike for my girlfriend and can't figure out what it is.
zbantam@yahoo.com
- actual Josh from JRGo
Omg! Please do a crossover with Rich. Please.
Sounds like the Ranger story again
Try to fix it again pls keep the Honda alive lol
I agree. The whole process is interesting, but there is some catharsis with the completion .
Swap with known good. Also applies to entire car!
It is called a company profit center.
You should have more likes because you're right :)
"This is my baby"
*cuts to kicking it into place* LOL... flawless
The cat gets the thumbs up 😹
Amazing the amount of work you put into this . You are a person of strong character
Well done. Easier to follow. High response level. Fantastic content.
When I saw how you were trying to fix the IMA battery, I groaned. Even if you weren't having a temp sensor issue you'd be doomed to failure.
Something to be aware of with NiMH, is that voltage is not a good indicator of SOC. You can charge the pack to full an then put it in the car, and it will still show an initial charge of around 20%. The computers need to cycle the battery a few times and measure current in and out to get an accurate model of it.
That said, just swapping sticks that have higher voltage will likely still result in a failed pack in a few weeks. If you don't match their internal resistance it will rapidly get out of balance again and throw another IMA code. As someone who has rebuilt several of these, you're better off either 1) doing a full bypass and connecting the DC-DC directly to the MDM output, or sending that pack out as a core and just replacing it.
I've been doing it for years on Toyotas and I suggest just replace it
Don’t give up John Ross! Give me hope for fixing the ima on my civic 😂
Great job rebuilding the battery. Too bad for the other issues.
Thanks for sharing! Take care and God bless you all!
I enjoy these hybrid videos, as they become more common more guys will need to learn to work on them and fault find them.
Damn you have grown exponentially since the last time I watched one of your vids, keep it up
Great video...very informative. Having second thoughts about buying a cheap Prius in the UK
Get a flir camera and look at it. They are great tools for finding electrical problems and you can get one that hooks to a smartphone for about $200
lol, Just install a 2nd alternator wired to the 12v OR (3) 12v battery wired in parallel and install a solar charger on the roof and trunk and battery charger.
i have gotten multiple 2004-05 clusters where previous owners had pulled the needles to fully open cluster and scrapped off the warning LEDs
Excellent work and thanks for the content
Unplug the IMA fuse or the 12-volt battery and let it sit for 30 min then try again
Wish I was closer I'd help.It seems like a super simple fix and you need someone that's good at troubleshooting VFD drives so if you have a friend that's a commercial hvac tech or electrician ask him to help
I'm giving you props somewhat for not using the marking cardboard method when removing and reinstalling all the nuts/bolts during the disassembly/reassembly.
Can we have an update on the Rolls & R8. Would be good to see the 944’s dings and paint fixed then see how it stands up as a daily driver.
Agreed
For sale, Honda Civic Hybrid (batteries not included).
Good stuff. I love the cheap car stuff
keep up the hard work. your videos are very entertaining
Much respect for trying as hard as you did to fix the Hybrid. I drive (and love) a 98 Civic but would NEVER own something as complex as your project car. I'm sure I will own an electric vehicle someday but it will not be a Hybrid. Hope someone comes up with the controller you need. Thanks for the fun. Better luck next time. (I suggest something old school.)
I believe modern electrics trip up us oldsters where a young person would adapt readily. It's like my former father-in-law, at the age of 9, would drive around his father who was circuit rider preacher and had never learned how to drive the modern transportation called a Model T Ford.
Great work guys. Very cute cat, needs a pat and a snuggle.
Loved my 2003 Civic Hybrid (new May 2002). Replaced the battery pack once with a rebuilt, which didn't cut it. Honda "participated" in replacing that with a new pack - about 1/2 price to me. Worked great. Ran fine until I totaled it hitting a deer in 2018. That car was like a spaceship with its 600+ mile range on one tank of fuel.
Unlike a Prius the Civic has a usable "limp home" operating mode when the IMA is in disabled state. Made these cars safe for travel "off the grid."
How many miles did you have to replace the pack and how much was the total 💰💰?
@Bob Riemers: I believe Prous has “ limp home” mode, though activating it is involved procedure. And driving it in that mode is dangerous. They call it “Diagnostic” mode.
I was waiting for this video after your IG post yesterday .
I had a guy fix my IMA battery, on my previous 09 civic Hybrid. He charge cycled the sticks multiple times until they would hold their load somewhat consistent. After that it worked for almost a year, then went bad again. Best fix is ordering those Chinese battery sticks. They were about €800 back then, instead of the €2800 the Honda dealer charged for a new battery pack.
Had a flash back to my 2004 civic hybrid, battery went out under warranty and once out of warranty. Gave it to my mom after getting a replacement aftermarket battery. She still drives it, thru electric system requires work like every other year.
I had a couple of first gen Honda Insight's from 02 to 2014 the last one I sold when it was 8 years old and had the IMA battery pack replaced under warranty . Every caller wanted wanted to know was how old the IMA battery's were and watching this video I think about what a royal pain in the ass these older hybrids are to fix now. A lot more work just to get a few more mpg's.
I love that erra of civic mine is the 1.7l none hybrid and its a beast of a little car
I replaced the batteries on this same model... mine just worked IMA light went away my mechanic did some kind of bypass or something cant remember. But I had the same problem as you but my mechanic figured it out...
It's raining for him. While it's been 100+ degrees for me this whole week
This cars pretty cool. They didnt have a civic hybrid here for the 7th gen. Only 8th gen. (In Canada. Maybe only on quebec.) But clearly they're a pain to work on
Don't give up on it, find the parts necessary and make the car complete, that's the challenge left for you !
You are a determined man Sir.
Check the check engine light if there’s a tap between the light and the cluster
Usually it’s at the back of the cluster sheet...
Honda's are great - But I think i'll stick with internal combustion engines only!!
Sorry to hear you couldn't fix despite your effort.
But interesting to hear that the car is still worth owning and using since regardless whether the IMA is working or not, the venhicle was designed to be first a combustion engine car and olectrical is assist only.
My theory is, the owner of the Honda had the battery go bad. They purchased the rebuild kit, did the repair and when it happened again threw in the towel. The cells that they said were new were actually old. Maybe the factory cells.
If you do have a failing module, it heats up quickly, triggering the fan. Resting state voltage readings on the modules aren't really indicative of the module health. When under load the module may drop voltage very quickly. A better test is hooking up a headlight bulb with both high and low beam hooked up for 60 seconds and recording the voltage drop. That is a proxy for the internal resistance of the battery. Ideally, you'd measure the discharge voltage curve as you discharge each module from full charge down to close to 0%, then match all modules in pack based on those curves and internal resistance.
My dad would always try using a jumper wire on a bypass it always seemed to work probably not the best fix but it worked
Im having the same issue what connector did you pull to get it running right? Thank you
Check the temp sensor!
Whatever you do, don't give up!
I have 2 Honda civic 2003 hybrid. Bad ima pack. I bought one reconditioned bat from a source and the other I tried reconditioning them. The working ima bat works. But the one I worked on doesn't wanna work even tho it shows the proper voltage. My guess is bad temp sensor
I love how you abandoned this project
The other thing is you can charge each pack of 6 cells to whatever voltage, but the individual cells might be different voltage, not sure if this is that big of a deal in nicad and chemistry will mess up in internal resistance
He does really good work
as an owner of Crown Victoria's, this seems like a hell of a lot of work for a car that has a 1.3 liter motor.. I have heard these cars are incredibly slow, it would be less work to just swap the motor lol.. for somebody with lots of money it might be cool to just increase the voltage and see what can be done with it before it starts to turn into a fireball 😁
Sounds like the dirt bike I bought that "only had a blown head gasket". After a complete rebuild, it's running great. Everyone gets burnt sometimes. Wonder if those cells are like bike batteries. If they sit for a year unused, they are toast.
What ever came of this car? Did you end up repairing the IMA system?
I’ve always wanted to swap SuprCaps for the batteries and see if there is a performance change , it would be swapping range for speed
More Porsche!!!! (He shouted excitedly at the mention of it in the video)
Agreed
I've heard of people putting tape on warning lights but never seen it. Also, nice old bicycle.
Looks clean.
Com'on, JR; I'm sure you have a good friend (probably bunches of friends) that works at a local Honda dealership that can loan you all the the parts that the book says to swap out. You always have friends working at all of these car shops to help you out.
One false move and it's Watch Jr glow
This was a very interesting video.
did you test the main contactor to confirm functionality??
Where is the Comm Cable A you were talking about in the end of this video as well as what does it look like. I have a 2013 Honda Civic Hybrid, thank you
Should've tried fixing it. Would have been an interesting episode
I love how the common questions in the description have nothing to do with the channel anymore lol
10 year Honda Tech here. Your problem is you need to buy a Ford Raptor 👍👍👍
I just can't believe someone went through the trouble of pulling the cluster out just to tape over the IMA light, that's just freakin insane IMO.
especially when they couldve just pulled the plug off the IMA module to drive the car like a conventional car with no error lights on.
Official diagnostic is "swap with known good". The engineers really took a shortcut. Let's design this with no forethought of how to field test.
There is virtually no way to practically resistance balance a NiMH battery pack in the field, which is why so much goes back to replacing the battery module. I'm going to attempt it on mine but I enjoy this stuff and have a pretty good knowledge of electrical engineering without being one. There's no way a shop would make money trying to do this. The issue is the batteries are all low amp-hour and in series, so if one of them is mismatched from the rest of the chain, the entire performance of the array is going to suffer.
I can understand early hybrids having conservative approaches to monitoring battery array performance because, as Tesla discovered, its not so great when your customers die in car fires. If that pack went up behind that foam seat, you could have kids waiting in a car engulfed in flames in a minute.
@@jamesbrowne7948 the part in question was a controller, not the battery. There should be a way to field test the controller other than swap with known good.
Are new Honda hybrid packs still built this way? Seems nice and serviceable, which is exactly what I thought we were moving away from.
Goodness, I purchased a new hybrid battery and module for my 2004 civic and has everything installed today. However my ima is still on with check engine and maintenance light. Any suggestions? It has power and drives good with the 12v which I had tested at the local automotive store