Multiple System Warnings

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Steve B. said:
Bought my clarity on May 28, 2019 and have 4,600 miles on it as of today.

After reading this thread in its entirety, I'm losing even more confidence in the Clarity after only 3 months of ownership, mainly because of what has already happened and that there are not many answers yet:
  • The check-engine light has come on four times and each time I take it in to the dealership they are unable to detect any issues (and the Clarity does not have log files so they can't see any historical codes that have been generated). So I spent $100 to buy an OBDII connector so *I* could capture error codes as they were happening.
  • Then, after being gone 5 days for the Labor Day weekend time, I jumped in to my Clarity to run errands on Tuesday and it was stone-cold dead. Had it towed to the dealership and they supposedly fixed it, but I'm very uncertain any meaningful analysis or deep troubleshooting was done.
So what would you do in my situation?
Click to expand...

@Steve B, If you cherish your marriage, which I am sure you do, I would trade your Clarity in for a new or used Honda at the same dealership in an effort for them to make things good for you. I don't know about you, but I couldn't sell this car to some unexpecting soul.
 
Sorry to hear that and I would be as frustrated as I’m sure you are.
May I suggest it’s time to start checking out your state’s Lemon Laws? It might be the only way to get your money back as trading in will probably cost you. Be prepared though. It’s an involved process and you want to document EVERYTHING and keep a running time line. Keep all records, receipts, emails, phone call transcripts, etc. Also, where possible, follow up any verbal communication with an email to that person recounting both sides of the conversation so you have a written record that the other party agrees on the content and had a chance to dispute it. This avoids the “he said; she said” finger pointing that carries little weight in a court or arbitration setting.

PM @craze1cars as he has been a great source of knowledge from his career in automotive underwriting and may be able to weigh in on this.
Best wishes on an equitable outcome and keep us posted.
 
Steve B. said:
Bought my clarity on May 28, 2019 and have 4,600 miles on it as of today.

After reading this thread in its entirety, I'm losing even more confidence in the Clarity after only 3 months of ownership, mainly because of what has already happened and that there are not many answers yet:
  • The check-engine light has come on four times and each time I take it in to the dealership they are unable to detect any issues (and the Clarity does not have log files so they can't see any historical codes that have been generated). So I spent $100 to buy an OBDII connector so *I* could capture error codes as they were happening.
  • Then, after being gone 5 days for the Labor Day weekend time, I jumped in to my Clarity to run errands on Tuesday and it was stone-cold dead. Had it towed to the dealership and they supposedly fixed it, but I'm very uncertain any meaningful analysis or deep troubleshooting was done.
So what would you do in my situation?
Click to expand...
1) If the check engine light was on when you brought it to the dealer and they could not find any codes, then find another dealer. Probably time anyway since the line about the car doesn't store codes is BS.
A bit confused on this as your own report and receipt shows that they found stored codes and took action to correct the problems. You claim the OBD codes were the same in all four instances, but you didn't have a code reader and the dealer couldn't find any?
2) Dead batteries happen -sometime a door is slightly ajar or a light of some type is left on. Sometimes is just a defective battery. If it was user error (lights left on, etc) then there is nothing for the dealership to find/repair.

You are obviously not happy with the car, nor will you likely ever be at this point. Likely best if you cut your losses and trade it/sell it. I don't think you have enough to get it classified as a lemon under CA law (unless you have additional documentation you haven't shared).

No car/manufacturer is immune from sudden power loss reports. Google "Tesla sudden power loss" and you'll find reports of just that.
 
Steve B. said:
Bought my clarity on May 28, 2019
Click to expand...
From your previous write up on the other website on June 1st, 2019:

It’s late afternoon yesterday (May 31, 2019) and we are headed home from an appointment ......When the battery drops to two bars — the baseline where the car’s computer stops the drainage from the battery to power the car — the engine is supposed to kick-in but it began REVVING and then lost ALL POWER.

I am not disputing at all anything that you are saying, I just wanted to point out that a consistent theme in nearly all of the similar reports that I have read is that the incidents occur or at least first occur when the car is quite new. I can't recall anyone saying they had their car for six months or whatever before it happened the first time. Maybe there are one or two exceptions but in most cases it seems that whatever the problem is, it is likely endemic to that particular car and the problem manifests not long into ownership. We then unfortunately never hear what the resolution is, I'm sure some give up and trade the car, but I don't know if that always explains the typical silence after the initial complaints, instead I suspect that Honda does something to fix it for most people who have the problem. Unfortunately the first one or two trips to the dealer will usually go nowhere as the dealer assumes that the facts are not entirely right or exaggerated or that the owner simply doesn't understand how the car works (people often report this is the response they first get when they take it in. That is when the frustration of course reaches the point that people go online to post their experience, which is understandable. But I do strongly suspect that once a dealer actually contacts Honda and provides coherent and detailed facts, and also reaches the right person at Honda who knows about it, then it gets solved.

I'm not saying you shouldn't get a different car, I am only stating what I have observed, since we have plenty of people on here who have owned their Clarity for over a year and never had any kind of problem like that, which makes us believe that the problem is rare, and that it does eventually get fixed when going to the right dealer who also goes to the right people at Honda. Also yours is the first report of this in a long time on this forum, it seemed like it was more with the older 2018's, surprising to hear that a 2019 has the problem.

Again your situation especially with the other problems will lead to either car replacement through lemon law or simply moving on to another car, I am not commenting on your particular case I am only commenting on the aspect of it that fits the pattern which is that the problem first occurred very soon after purchasing the car, usually within a few weeks.
 
Steve B. said:
Bought my clarity on May 28, 2019 and have 4,600 miles on it as of today.

After reading this thread in its entirety, I'm losing even more confidence in the Clarity after only 3 months of ownership, mainly because of what has already happened and that there are not many answers yet:
  • The check-engine light has come on four times and each time I take it in to the dealership they are unable to detect any issues (and the Clarity does not have log files so they can't see any historical codes that have been generated). So I spent $100 to buy an OBDII connector so *I* could capture error codes as they were happening.
  • Then, after being gone 5 days for the Labor Day weekend time, I jumped in to my Clarity to run errands on Tuesday and it was stone-cold dead. Had it towed to the dealership and they supposedly fixed it, but I'm very uncertain any meaningful analysis or deep troubleshooting was done.
So what would you do in my situation?
Click to expand...
I have never seen a loss of power like you describe. We have about 50,000 miles on the Clarity. Lots of highway miles, up and down mountains, etc.

The BMW i3 saw some similar issues, where the engine would fail to start. It makes me wonder if something is wrong with the high voltage battery where it is more dead than it thinks it is and has trouble making power or that there is something wrong with maybe the generator in the car so it isn't generating enough power. However, the car should have plenty of power even with a battery at 2 bars.

The issue is this is a new car and a lot of dealers might have trouble with it. Don't let them dismiss you. If the check engine light was on there is a record of it or something is wrong with the car. If they refuse to help, take it to corporate Honda. Also check Lemon laws as someone else stated. I suspect is they just don't want to work on it and will hope you will leave them alone.

Since nothing was replaced I would assume the problem is still there. Also, file a complaint with NTSB. Why did you spend $100 on OBDII? You can get them for like $10. ;)
 
Steve B. said:
Bought my clarity on May 28, 2019 and have 4,600 miles on it as of today.

After reading this thread in its entirety, I'm losing even more confidence in the Clarity after only 3 months of ownership, mainly because of what has already happened and that there are not many answers yet:
  • The check-engine light has come on four times and each time I take it in to the dealership they are unable to detect any issues (and the Clarity does not have log files so they can't see any historical codes that have been generated). So I spent $100 to buy an OBDII connector so *I* could capture error codes as they were happening.
  • Then, after being gone 5 days for the Labor Day weekend time, I jumped in to my Clarity to run errands on Tuesday and it was stone-cold dead. Had it towed to the dealership and they supposedly fixed it, but I'm very uncertain any meaningful analysis or deep troubleshooting was done.
So what would you do in my situation?
Click to expand...
So sorry you are having these issues with your Clarity. I haven't experienced any problems of this nature after 21 months and 36K miles.
 
So I had Brake Hold activated and was driving at very low speeds when I needed to back up. I'm not sure but I may have come to a complete stop (and thus gone into Hold) before selecting reverse and quickly backing up (almost flooring it). I heard and felt a small clunk. When I stopped backing up, I noticed a couple different error notifications mostly concerning the brakes popping up in succession. Sorry I can't recall the exact messages as I was in a rush to get off the road. Anyways, the car was still operating normally including the brakes so I continued driving with the messages continuing to pop up. Also, brake hold was now not available. I decided to try power cycling the car 5 times in a row and the messages cleared. This works if the error that triggered the messages doesn't happen again during the on/off routine.

FWIW
 
fotomoto said:
So I had Brake Hold activated and was driving at very low speeds when I needed to back up. I'm not sure but I may have come to a complete stop (and thus gone into Hold) before selecting reverse and quickly backing up (almost flooring it). I heard and felt a small clunk. When I stopped backing up, I noticed a couple different error notifications mostly concerning the brakes popping up in succession. Sorry I can't recall the exact messages as I was in a rush to get off the road. Anyways, the car was still operating normally including the brakes so I continued driving with the messages continuing to pop up. Also, brake hold was now not available. I decided to try power cycling the car 5 times in a row and the messages cleared. This works if the error that triggered the messages doesn't happen again during the on/off routine.

FWIW
Click to expand...
I had an electronic parking brake error and transmission error message coming up (and maybe one more?). Turned out something was under the reverse switch not letting it fully seat. If you started backing up while your finger had it slightly raised, i can see it creating the same errors.
 
Multiple system dash warnings led to battery removal and pending battery control module/unit/something needing to be replaced. Photos attached


216886D6-F2EC-4123-82D7-2B14BA1D3BAE.webp EDF8DB8C-FDDA-46EA-AC4E-EAF0D0AA6F9F.webp
 
I should post larger photos of the battery pulled out from the bottom of the car. It was really interesting.

The only thing I noticed happening before this was the car not taking a charge right away more and more frequently. I was blaming my charging plug, or perhaps port. I'd blow out with air and that usually seemed to work, but was probably coincidence. Several re-plugs, and sometimes just waiting a couple of minutes and it would start charging. It was a "worry about later" problem at the time.

Anyway, more specifics about my issue. 30K on the car. 2018 base. Wife called one day and said all the dash lights were on with several warning messages. She took another car.

I, of course, searched the forum and found this. I tried power cycling several times to no avail. I was about to disconnect the 12v in an attempt to reset, but decided to take it into the dealership. I haven't taken it in since owning it, so I thought it would be good to see how that goes and maybe get some firmware updates. Drove there fine, except it drove more like HV mode than EV mode. Settings couldn't really be changed.

Got a call from a very excited service manager, saying it took all day but they think they found the issue and it is the batter control something or other. They were not able to charge the car, saw all the lights, etc. They needed to discuss with the Mothership since they've never seen anything like it (probably haven't worked on many either) and have them send the part if they agreed.

Mother Honda send the wrong part. They are hoping to get the right part today and the car to me tomorrow. I told him to take as much time as they need, I am not in a hurry as I have other cars. I reminded him it was the first one they've done, so seriously, take your time to get it done right.

Warranty repair. Makes me worried about out of warranty repair costs. This couldn't be a cheap one. I'll have to talk with him about extended service agreements, or go back to owning old crappy cars I can work on myself.
 
If you have this problem and you're under warranty, might want to take it in just in case. I got my car back after they replaced the "Battery Monitor Module B." As the name implies, there are two of them A and B, and are in the middle of the battery bank. I can't imagine this would be cheap to replace.
 
Hopefully you are good now...
I'm sure you will keep us posted as you gain a little more confidence that the problem is definitely gone.
 
If you have battery work done, like the battery module replacement I had, ensure they balance the batteries. My symptoms started up again a few weeks or so after the repair. They were going to replace the other battery module, but luckily mother Honda kept looking into the issue after shipping off Battery Monitor Module A, and just as it arrive at my dealer, the Honda engineers sent instructions on how to balance the batteries. If I recall correctly, the two battery banks weren't in sync or communicating with each other after the replacement. Needed to be programmed or reset. All has been well since.
 
2018 PHEV Clarity here with 32k mostly electric miles. Been noticing my EV range has dropped about 20% recently, then started getting the multiple problem warnings, and in general the EV capacity and range indicator has been glitchy.

Multiple System Problems (youtube):

Dealer did the Battery Charger Software Update, it didn't fix the problem.

Multiple people say it could be a low 12v battery, I don't think mine is that problem.

Anyone else get this problem lately on a more mature PHEV?
 
cooljw said:
Anyone else get this problem lately on a more mature PHEV?
Click to expand...

Welcome to the Forum !!

Wow - When it rains it pours ! You certainly have a list there.
Fortunately you are under 36K... I hope you are also under 3 years?

Do you have a voltmeter to check the 12V battery? I agree that it is unlikely, however... The list of problems is not unlike what happens when the 12V battery is disconnected. And, in the scheme of things, replacing the 12V battery is quick and very low cost in comparison to other things. Your dealer took a shot in the dark with the "Battery Charger Software update". That seems even less likely than a problem with the 12V battery. If your dealer is stumped, then it would seem reasonable for them to "try" replacing the battery (under warranty).

In your introduction, you may be trying to anecdotally relate an EV range loss to the genesis of this problem. I believe this is unlikely to be related. We have found that there are many variables that feed into EV range and the Guess-O-Meter (GOM) display. If you really want to know how well your HV battery is doing, the best way is to read the Battery Capacity from the vehicle. It is this very parameter that Honda uses when evaluating warranty eligibility of the HV battery. The dealer can do this, but most are completely uninformed and it is hardly worth asking them. Fortunately, we have found a way to do it ourselves... You can see all the details in this thread: https://www.insideevsforum.com/community/index.php?threads/budget-battery-capacity-readout.10531/ Many forum users have done this, and have contributed to a shared spreadsheet that illustrates what to expect as 'nominal' battery degradation.

Please keep us informed as you work this out. This forum is so great because of the collective knowledge and experiences of all the users.
 
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MrFixit said:
Welcome to the Forum !! ................
Click to expand...

Thanks! My 3 year warranty literally expires next week! But this should be covered under the battery warranty anyway...

My drop in range is not based upon my car's GOM readings (which has also been fluctuating wildly since the problem and range dropped) but my observation of reduced actual driving range based on my normal driving routine (I get ~20% less EV miles doing my regular driving route compared to just a couple months ago).

Update: Dealer says they did further testing and have determined the traction battery needs to be replaced and are ordering one. I guess I'm not too surprised based on my sudden drop in range?

But surprisingly: I asked for a copy of the 5 page Electric Powertrain Diagnostic and the battery pack capacity says "55.0Ah" (7th line) which is the original capacity of a new pack?! Can't be right in this case? (see snapshot)Screenshot 2021-08-11 180630.webp
 
Oddly, we have seen this on multiple vehicles (factory-fresh capacity readings when it makes no sense).

Here is a chart from our shared spreadsheet that shows a few other vehicles that have this suspiciously high capacity reading:
upload_2021-8-12_6-35-1.webp

The only thing I can postulate is that something causes the BMS to 'reset' the capacity calculation. I would then expect that it would be re-calculated over time. In one case, a Forum member obtained a vehicle that was shipped overseas, so we thought perhaps there was some kind of reset caused by the shipping process. Maybe a bogus high capacity reading like this is a warning sign that something is failing? This is all just speculation.

I can only recall one other HV battery replacement that was reported in this forum. In that case, the owner was notified by Honda that they wanted his battery back for analysis, and they replaced it to obtain the old one. I think Honda may monitor vital statistics via telemetry, and they may have seen something that they wanted to investigate.

The other forum members with the 55.0 capacity do not have any failure symptoms that I know of (like you do).

It would be very interesting to know exactly what diagnostics led your dealer to determine that your battery was bad. As usual, I have lots of doubts about a dealers competance. Presumably, they were in consultation with Honda Engineering, especially with something as severe and rare as a HV battery replacement.

Could you tell that the Electric Powertrain report that they gave you was current, and not just a canned report from when the vehicle was first delivered? I think there are time/dates, VIN number, maybe odometer miles, etc

How long did they tell you it would take to obtain another battery?
I assume you can't drive the car in the interim. Are they providing a loaner vehicle?
Just curious - what kind of climate do you live in?
 
The dealer said they should be able to get the new battery within a week. I'm just leaving the car there, no loaner. Electric Powertrain report is current based on date, mileage, VIN for my car. This is also not the dealer I bought the car from so I don't think they would have the report from delivery anyway.

I'm in SoCal coastal region. Car is always garaged. Heat shouldn't ever be an issue. If anything I've noticed each summer that my EV range increases, presumably due to warmer temps.

When I go back to pick up the car I'll certainly get as much info as possible about what was wrong with the car and will report back.
 
Would it be possible for you to attach the entire Electric Powertrain report?
I think the only 'personal' data is likely to be the VIN which could be blacked out.
I am wondering if there is anything else that is indicative of a failure. There is a lot of information in there including individual cell voltages.
 
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