Hybrid Battery Replacement Anxiety

[GPSMan]

Year 2000 Honda Insight.
First Hybrid to hit the street.
(beat Prius by a few months in the USA)

Was still driving on the ORIGINAL battery in 2016 when I sold it with 185,000 miles. A 16+ year old high mileage car and I still got $3k for it.
The battery was weaker. You could tell from the dash instruments and behavior. BUT IT STILL WORKED.

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[Walter56]

2007 Mercury mariner 259k miles good battery
2000 Honda insight bought used with "bad" battery.
Balance the nimh cells manually. Purchase price $900 sold for $3000 189k miles drive for 3 years and got 65mpg. Only sold to by used Chevy volt with 90k miles that runs and drives like a brand new vehicle.
I like hybrids,

 

[uga]

https://www.ebay.com/itm/265874716945

If your worried, here is a brand new Mav hybrid batt, CHEAP!

 

[JimParker256]

2012 Toyota Prius-C with over 90K miles. Battery is still pretty strong, and mileage has not declined in the five years (and 48K miles) that I've owned it.

 

[icegradner]

I owned 2008 Camry Hybrid. Drove it until it was lost in an accident earlier this year, no problem with the original battery when it was 14 years old. It was degraded, sure, but dead no. Over 150k miles (247k km).

 

[10Terp]

2006 Escape Hybrid with 132k is still kicking, but the HV battery is definitely tired (it doesn't hold charge if it sits undriven for more than ~2 days). Only repair I've done is replacing the battery fans. I can't fault it though; it's a 16 year old NiMH pack.

 

[GPSMan]

2006 Escape Hybrid with 132k is still kicking, but the HV battery is definitely tired (it doesn't hold charge if it sits undriven for more than ~2 days). Only repair I've done is replacing the battery fans. I can't fault it though; it's a 16 year old NiMH pack.

I had a 2005 FEH until it got rear-ended in 2019. Was doing great in 2019. I kinda miss it.

Have you experimented at all with the HV battery? In theory anyway you could do a crude rebalance of the cells by doing a super charge up. You could do this by doing tons of regen going down a really long hill (down a 7,8,9000 foot mountain, not a hill, or have a tow while in L mode, for like 20 or 30 minutes.

The Mav (so far) STOPS charging at 72%. The Escape would trickle charge all the way into the 90's. Seen 94% once. It's a longshot but sustained regen could let a few low performing cells catch up.

need to do the regen for like 20 or 30 minutes since it is truly a trickle charge above about 60-65%. I forget.

 

[VNOMUS427]

Replaced my 2009 Escape Hybrid at 210K+ miles with my Maverick. Never had any battery issues.... The CV tranny was starting to slip though...

 

[stoptothink]

2007 Mercury mariner 259k miles good battery
2000 Honda insight bought used with "bad" battery.
Balance the nimh cells manually. Purchase price $900 sold for $3000 189k miles drive for 3 years and got 65mpg. Only sold to by used Chevy volt with 90k miles that runs and drives like a brand new vehicle.
I like hybrids,

Never owned one, but I loved the original insights. 20+ years later, still the king of hybrid fuel efficiency. I would like to see someone make a modern version (the more current insight was a bust); would make a great complement to our hybrid Maverick as the regular commuter.

 

[10Terp]

I had a 2005 FEH until it got rear-ended in 2019. Was doing great in 2019. I kinda miss it.

Have you experimented at all with the HV battery? In theory anyway you could do a crude rebalance of the cells by doing a super charge up. You could do this by doing tons of regen going down a really long hill (down a 7,8,9000 foot mountain, not a hill, or have a tow while in L mode, for like 20 or 30 minutes.

The Mav (so far) STOPS charging at 72%. The Escape would trickle charge all the way into the 90's. Seen 94% once. It's a longshot but sustained regen could let a few low performing cells catch up.

need to do the regen for like 20 or 30 minutes since it is truly a trickle charge above about 60-65%. I forget.

So I did perform the forscan rebalance procedure 3 times in a row last weekend and it didn’t make much of a difference unfortunately. My last ditch effort is going to be installing a charge cable on the HV battery and taking it up to true 100% SOC and then bleeding it down. If that doesn’t work I have a decision to make. I could always get a refurbished battery for it, but that’s $2500 I don’t really want to put into it and it’d also come out of the maverick fund. It also has a temperamental HCU which doesn’t like the summer, and that’s another can of worms that makes me not want to get a refurb battery. Ultimately I want the maverick to replace it; I only hope it lasts long enough. This time next year if the mav isn’t in sight I’ll have to come up with another plan. I’ve been window shopping accord hybrids.

Its a shame nobody makes an affordable new battery for it. These old FEHs are tanks but the lack of replacement batteries will basically brick them all. There’s only so many used HV battery cells will be out there for reconditioning.

 

[GPSMan]

FYI having owned a first year Escape Hybrid and a first year Maverick hybrid I can say the build quality and fit and finish and even the regen brakes and eCVT was better / nicer in the Escape.

Fuel economy is better in the Mav and the Mav has more electronic gadgets (The Escape had maps on CD-Rom and each disc only held 5 states) but the Escape vehicle felt solid and felt "quality".

Mav feels "flimsy, economy, cheaply made" which of course it is.

 

[JimParker256]

Never owned one, but I loved the original insights. 20+ years later, still the king of hybrid fuel efficiency. I would like to see someone make a modern version (the more current insight was a bust); would make a great complement to our hybrid Maverick as the regular commuter.

I almost purchased one of the original Honda Insights... Until half-way through the test drive. Up to that point, I liked the car just fine. But then we got to a couple of back-to-back stop lights (both red). Unlike Toyota (and every other modern hybrid I've seen or driven), the Insight air conditioner seemed to be driven by the engine. Every time we got to a stop sign or stop light, the engine shut itself off, and the A/C went off with it. Temps in the car (already marginally warm for me) quickly spiraled upward to the point I was quite hot... No way was that going to be acceptable in Texas... So long, Insight. I heard that later versions changed to an electric-driven compressor, but I never went back to verify. By that time, the Prius was out (and so was I...).

 

[stoptothink]

I almost purchased one of the original Honda Insights... Until half-way through the test drive. Up to that point, I liked the car just fine. But then we got to a couple of back-to-back stop lights (both red). Unlike Toyota (and every other modern hybrid I've seen or driven), the Insight air conditioner seemed to be driven by the engine. Every time we got to a stop sign or stop light, the engine shut itself off, and the A/C went off with it. Temps in the car (already marginally warm for me) quickly spiraled upward to the point I was quite hot... No way was that going to be acceptable in Texas... So long, Insight. I heard that later versions changed to an electric-driven compressor, but I never went back to verify. By that time, the Prius was out (and so was I...).

Interesting. I lived in Houston for 5yrs; moved down there with a truck with no AC and never fixed it. I would have been fine with it...wife certainly would not have been.

 

[JimParker256]

We lived in Houston for 16 years. Summer was 98º with 95%+ humidity. No way I could live without AC there! I owned a '68 VW Bug that was in great condition when we first moved there. Within a week, I sold it to buy a car with an air conditioner. It got old having to take three-four starched white shirts to work with me every day... (I worked for IBM, and made frequent customer visits - requiring a shirt change on arrival at each, because I would totally sweat them out after 15 minutes in the VW.

 

[10Terp]

I almost purchased one of the original Honda Insights... Until half-way through the test drive. Up to that point, I liked the car just fine. But then we got to a couple of back-to-back stop lights (both red). Unlike Toyota (and every other modern hybrid I've seen or driven), the Insight air conditioner seemed to be driven by the engine. Every time we got to a stop sign or stop light, the engine shut itself off, and the A/C went off with it. Temps in the car (already marginally warm for me) quickly spiraled upward to the point I was quite hot... No way was that going to be acceptable in Texas... So long, Insight. I heard that later versions changed to an electric-driven compressor, but I never went back to verify. By that time, the Prius was out (and so was I...).

First gen escape hybrids are like this too. The AC compressor is the only belt driven accessory on the engine. You can put it on max AC for summer and it’ll keep the ICE on, but it kind of defeats the purpose.

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