When I decided to purchase a Clarity I went to my local Honda dealership first: They said they would NOT get one for me but that they were "Clarity-certified" and could provide service if I bought one from another dealer. Six dealerships and two states later - in August of 2020 - I found the model I wanted sitting on a lot, unsold and never charged, since delivery in December, 2018. As a condition of purchase I requested that the run a capacity test on the traction battery and, a few days later, they handed me the "traditional" six-page printout. (The capacity was 55.0Ah, btw.) Just last week I hit the 15,000 mile mark and went to my local dealership for scheduled service. I asked them to run the battery test and generate the same report - I showed them the original: They couldn't determine how to do it. They contacted the regional Honda office: No one there could tell them how to do it. Do I really need to drive the 135 miles back to the dealership from which I purchased the Clarity or is there a better way to request what I want from my local shop?
See this thread https://www.insideevsforum.com/community/index.php?threads/budget-battery-capacity-readout.10531/ you can buy a reader for $27 (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B071D8SYXN) and do it yourself. Your dealer doesn't know what they are doing. For regular service, they are probably fine, but if you need battery/electrical system work, not sure I'd trust them.
Thank you for the information but I'd rather make them stew, trying to comply with my request. They claim that they HAD a Clarity on the lot once, but they traded it away when it didn't sell. I know they intended to - the box holding the EVSE is sitting next to the wall in the shop, never installed! Even the dealer from whom I purchased the Clarity never installed an EVSE: The Clarity PDI specifically tells the dealer to NOT charge the vehicle using the included "granny cable" but that's exactly how they charged mine to do the capacity test.
The Battery Capacity has nothing to do with which cable is used to charge the vehicle. The PDI specifies that the dealer should not use the portable cable to charge the vehicle because it is "strictly for customer use". They just want to deliver the cable to you in "new" condition... It is also important to note that this is not a capacity "test". The Clarity constantly monitors the HV battery during the course of normal operation, and the PDI (or the methods we have identified in this forum to obtain the capacity number) simply read the current value out of the vehicle. This number is some kind of long term average and it doesn't really matter what the current State of Charge is... The last page of the PDI tells the dealer precisely what to do, so there is no excuse for ignorance on their part.
As I mentioned in the initial post, the car had NEVER been charged in the 18 months it sat on the lot. It have been driven 59 miles with no charge in the traction battery - so the salespeople couldn't understand why anyone would want such a noisy, underpowered vehicle and - thus - didn't attempt to sell it (or its twin - as they had two). So, in order to run the battery testing regimen, they needed to charge the vehicle - and the cable in the trunk was all they had. They also swore they'd never seen the PDI - they seemed surprised when I handed them a copy. They did not, for example, know the purpose of the frame plugs and, therefore, had not installed them.
If this is the level of training and experience that this dealership has with the Clarity, I would drive far away before they destroy the resonators on your rims—or worse.
So far I've only needed one oil change, a tire rotation and new wiper blades. Hopefully it will continue to not require significant service.
