Maintenance

Lots of threads here on the oil change frequency.

As far as the price, that seems high. We pay $80. Do the air filters ourselves.

 

Honda of Pasadena, CA charged $65 on two occasions for the A01 service. If you spend a few minutes with the Owners Manual, you will learn that the recommended oil change interval is not every 3-5K miles.

 

Is thus (this?) crazy? You have never charged your Clarity in 20,000 miles? That is crazy. Why did you buy it?

 

Not answering for the OP but some folks purchase qualifying vehicles specifically for the HOV access.

 

Oh yes it will. It can charge at 120V with the charging cord that comes with the car. Just plug it into an outlet near where the car is parked.

 

Can you elaborate on this for us?

 

My house electrical panel did not work as well initially as it kept blowing the cicuit breaker. I called an electrician who determined that my wiring could accomodate a 20 Amp circuit breaker in the garage and that solved the problem. In fact, I bought a 16 Amp 110 volt charger on ebay for a little over a hundred bucks and that charges significantly faster than the 12 Amp charger provided by Honda.

 

Thanks for the follow up.
It is likely that the 15A breaker was faulty. There’s no reason that the factory charger cable would trip a properly functioning 15A breaker.

Glad you got it fixed.

 

I think you meant a 16 amp 240 volt. That's what I did on a dedicated 20 amp breaker. Charges in about 4.5 hours but much better than 12 hours on a regular 110 outlet.

 

If the 15A circuit was not dedicated and had other devices plugged in it could indeed trip when charging.

A refrigerator compressor starting is a good example:

 

This is why I usually take my 2012 Chevrolet Volt 8A/12A selectable charger if I am on the road and staying at rentals where they might allow me to charge at night. I've only encountered one problem so far where the circuit tripped after a couple of hours at 12A. I reset the breaker and charged at 8A thereafter with no problems.

 

No, actually, it is a Level 1 100v 16 amp EVSE. Here is an example from ebay https://www.ebay.com/itm/283834697617?hash=item4215ddc791:g:nnEAAOSwO-JfoTcu I paid $129 about a year ago. I only have one line going out to my detached garage so I have to keep it 110. I thought about adding 240v but it would be expensive and is not necessary. With this 16 Amp cable, I can almost always get a full charge during the low EV rate hours (midnight to 6AM). Of course, if the battery is completely empty it will take 8 or 9 hours, but that is rarely the case.

 

Keep in mind that if your line to the garage is truly a dedicated branch circuit (one circuit breaker feeding a single receptacle), it is usually 'trivial' (and very low cost) to make that be 240V. There is no wiring change required (just swapping to a 2-pole breaker, and changing to an appropriate receptacle). This gives you true Level 2 charging. With a 20A circuit @ 240V, you can charge at 16A. This will do a full charge in around 4 hours.

Many have done this as a very nice way to greatly improve charging time over the factory Level 1 charger with only a small expenditure compared to installing a new branch circuit from scratch.

It is also possible to use the factory charger with 240V (it works on 240V even though it is not specified that way). This provides a full charge in maybe 5.5 hours using 240V @ 12A.

 

Well said, that's why I assumed he meant it was a 240V. I was blessed with my fuse box in the garage, so sticking a double pole 20amp in just for the charger was a breeze. About $100 with labor having an electrician do the work. You're right on with the charge time. Usually 4 - 4.5 hours if empty to full.

 

Unfortunately, I have things like lights, garage door opener, radio, power tools etc, all of which run on 110V in my garage. So the only option would be to add an additional circuit and the cost would not be trivial due to it being a detached garage with undergroud wiring. My main point is, it is really not a big deal to maintain a 15 amp/hr battery (usable) on a 110v circuit. Very doable.

 

I misread your statement and thought this one line was just to the charging outlet... Now I get it.

Just keep in mind that when you run your EVSE (120V @ 16A) on a 20A circuit (assumed to be AWG 12 wiring), you are right at the maximum capacity and really should not have anything else operating on that circuit. Many people operate the factory EVSE on non-dedicated circuits like this. The difference is that the factory EVSE with it's 12A load, has some headroom (4A) for other loads on that circuit.

It's good that you operate when you are sleeping anyway, so other things on that branch circuit would naturally be off...

 

Yes MrFixit,

I see you know your household wiring. The electrician I hired saw the 12 guage wiring and suggested the 20A circuit breaker. There is a lot of other stuff on the circuit but nothing that would be on between 12AM and 6AM. I recently bought an electric bicycle with a 4 amp charging system. I would also like to charge it on a timer at night to take advantage of the lower rates, but I will have to find another circuit to plug in to.

 

Changing your own oil is probably the easiest of vehicle maintenance things to do. There are tons of youtube videos on the subject. I just bought a new oil filter and oil from amazon for roughly 40 bucks. It will probably take me 15 minutes and I save......................a lot. I also do this twice a year. I could probably go longer. I also drive roughly 70 miles a day.