Honda Insight Hybrid Battery Woes:
The Honda Insight's Hybrid battery is covered by a 10 year/150,000 mile warranty, but many people are now exceeding that mileage. It is becoming obvious that most if not all Insights will eventually develop battery problems.
One of the biggest fears that most Insight owners have is that they will have to replace their battery out-of-warranty. It costs about $3000 on the east coast to replace a battery pack and $4000 or more on the west coast. In addition, the dealership may require you to replace your BCM and replace (2000-2001) or reprogram (2002-2006) your MCM. Together these parts can add $1700 more to the repair.
We offer an attractive alternative to this bank-breaking repair. We repair Insight batteries for $750 - $1250 depending on how many internal components need to be replaced. The average repair costs only $1000.
| Honda Dealer | Hybrid-Battery-Repair | |
|---|---|---|
| Battery Type: | Refurbished | Refurbished |
| Source of components: | Bad Batteries | Wrecked Insights |
| Battery Cost: | $2700 - $4400 | $1000 |
| Shipping Costs: | $600 (included in battery) | $200 (max) |
| Installation: | $300 | $200 (max) |
| Total Cost: | $3000 - $4700 | $1200 - $1400 |
| Projected Battery Life: | 7 years | 5 years |
| Cost per year: | $430 - $670 | $240 - $280 |
| Warranty: | three years | one year |
IMA Batteries
IMA batteries are made up of 20 battery "sticks". Each stick is made up of six "D" cell NiMH (Nickle-Metal-Hydride) batteries that have been welded together. This means that the IMA battery is really just 120 "D" cell flashlight batteries. The cells are welded together to provide large contact areas so that they can handle the enormous charge and discharge current (up to 100 Amps). If you tried to simply replace the cells with off-the-shelf consumer "D" cells, the tips would melt under load or they might even set the car on fire.
NiMH batteries have a life of over 30 years under ideal conditons. The Insight certainly does not provide ideal conditions, so some of the cells fail early. When they do, they tend to affect the other cells and bring down the performance of some or all of the good cells. During the rebuild process, we carefully recondition and test the cells to identify the ones that are bad, the ones that are going bad, the ones that are worn but stable and the ones that are fresh and top performers. We replace the sticks with bad and "going bad" cells with ones that are performing at the same level as the rest of the pack.
The result is a battery that, while not new, will perform properly and will not give any problems for a number of years. A typical customer should expect the battery will work properly for at least another 5 years, after which the battery can be repaired again to replace cells that have failed since the previous repair.
Please note: We can only repair batteries that are showing P1447 (battery degradation) or P1449 (battery overheat) errors. Anything else is a circuitry problem and not the actual battery and should be fixed by a mechanic or dealer. Please contact us if you are not sure. We'll be more than happy to help you by providing the information that you need to get your car back on the road.
