Clarity Won't Start - No Power

  • Thread starter Thread starter LeCapri
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LeCapri

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All,

Hope someone can help. I tried to start my Clarity (2019) this morning but when I pushed the start button, it did not start and there was not even any power at all as if the car just died. it was plugged last night and I got notification that the car is drawing little to no electricity which means that it was done charging. Thinking that my wife just somehow pulled on the steering wheel to the right when she parked it yesterday that caused it to lock, I found a suggestion from the internet about pressing the fob's unlock button until the car beeps but to no avail. I hoping this is not something serious so I'd appreciate any suggestions or help from anybody here. Thank you.
 
This has happened to me a couple of times now. Both times I was away from home and had to call for a tow. Now I keep one of those compact jump starters in my trunk. You can buy them on Amazon on sale for $50 typically. After a year they are still charged to 90%, so you can toss it in the trunk and forget about it for several years. I don't know what causes the battery failure. The battery is good, but something causes the 12v battery to discharge completely in a few hours.
 
Thank you for the replies. I just ordered a 12v charger from Amazon and will try it tomorrow. Quick question, though, how is it possible for the 12v battery to die lose charge when it was still driven yesterday? Just really making sense of this. Thanks.
 
No idea. It is a small battery and if there is an open circuit even when fully charged it can drain in a few hours. That has been my experience. Now that I keep a jump starter in the trunk I don't worry about it. It happens very infrequently.
 
I agree that your 12V battery is highly likely to be the problem here.
It is quite possible that it has failed, or an unexpected load could have drained it.

Just a warning however - When you do restore the 12V power, you will have a lot of very ominous warnings / failures on the dash. These will go away after driving for a few miles. Don't let them scare you.
 
LeCapri said:
I just ordered a 12v charger from Amazon and will try it tomorrow.
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You need a jump starter as mentioned in previous posts, not a charger. The 12V battery is charged whenever the car is being driven, including driving in EV mode. And the 12V is also charged whenever the car is being charged. Since the car was driven the day before this happened, and charged the night before, it sounds like the 12V battery is no longer accepting a charge. Assuming that jump starting gets the car going, just be aware that you will possibly have to jump start it every time you use the car until you get the battery replaced.

LeCapri said:
I got notification that the car is drawing little to no electricity which means that it was done charging.
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Where are you getting this notification from? Presumably something other than HondaLink, because HondaLink only reports that charging is stopped, it does not report electricity usage.
 
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BrianRC said:
Now that I keep a jump starter in the trunk I don't worry about it.
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You probably know this already, but if the 12V is dead you won't be able to open the trunk the usual way. You have to use the emergency key located in the key fob to unlock the trunk, using the lock located behind the rear passenger headrest on the driver's side.
 
Frankwell said:
The 12V battery is charged whenever the car is being driven, including driving in EV mode.
Click to expand...

There’s a post around here somewhere that suggests the 12V battery does not receive a charging voltage when the car is driven under certain conditions. I’m not certain, but it may have been in HV Mode with the headlights in the Auto position. Seems odd, but we are talking about a Clarity.

As to the premature deaths of the 12V, I’d hang my hat on a manufacturer defect that results in an internal failure. Granted, it isn’t much of a battery. It also isn’t subject to the rigors of a traditional starting battery. There’s no reason that it shouldn’t last
For 7-10 years.
 
I was told by my dealership that my 2018 Clarity 12V battery was slowly failing after 55,000mi. I went to Walmart and had it replaced for $90 with 3 year warranty. Better safe than stranded.
 
If it is an original battery there is a sight glass on the battery. Blue is good and white means needs charging.
There is a chart on the battery. The blue is very conspicuous.
 
Frankwell said:
You need a jump starter as mentioned in previous posts, not a charger. The 12V battery is charged whenever the car is being driven, including driving in EV mode. And the 12V is also charged whenever the car is being charged. Since the car was driven the day before this happened, and charged the night before, it sounds like the 12V battery is no longer accepting a charge. Assuming that jump starting gets the car going, just be aware that you will possibly have to jump start it every time you use the car until you get the battery replaced.


Where are you getting this notification from? Presumably something other than HondaLink, because HondaLink only reports that charging is stopped, it does not report electricity usage.
Click to expand...
The notice is from ChargePoint home charger.
 
Landshark said:
As to the premature deaths of the 12V, I’d hang my hat on a manufacturer defect that results in an internal failure. Granted, it isn’t much of a battery. It also isn’t subject to the rigors of a traditional starting battery. There’s no reason that it shouldn’t last
For 7-10 years.
Click to expand...

I totally agree with Landshark on this. Unless defective, these small batteries should last for many years. But there is definitely a circumstance with the Clarity where you can park your relatively new car for a few hours and come back to find the 12V battery dead. It's happened to me twice over a two year time frame. The solution is not a new battery. The solution is to have a jump starter in the trunk so you can be back up and running in no time, or you can call AAA and wait 45 minutes.
 
Got the jump starter this morning and jump started the car. It started but engine noise was so loud and the dashboard was just full of errors and different lights come on. it's plugged in to ChargePoint right now as it turned out it has 0 charge (I thought it was fully charged the other night). 12v battery obviously needs replacement and I'll bring it to the dealership for replacement (I have the car for 2 yrs. and 10 months now and 23k mi.). Hopefully they'll replace it under warranty.
 
BrianRC said:
Unless defective, these small batteries should last for many years.
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That's not always true, as totally discharging the battery can shorten it's life. Even if this happens just once battery life can be shortened, however by an unpredictable amount. Likely affected also by how discharged the battery got, and how many times it happened. Anecdotally I'm sure many of us have experienced that a battery gets totally discharged but then goes on to last for several more years. Again it's unpredictable how much damage gets done when a battery gets fully discharged.

Landshark said:
There’s a post around here somewhere that suggests the 12V battery does not receive a charging voltage when the car is driven under certain conditions. I’m not certain, but it may have been in HV Mode with the headlights in the Auto position. Seems odd, but we are talking about a Clarity.
Click to expand...
Would be nice to have that verified by more than one owner as that sounds pretty bizarre, and with no obvious explanation for why the 12V battery would not be charged in that situation. If confirmed that it does work that way, that would be an important piece of information to have, especially in situations where someone's car has just been jump started and they need to know for sure that their 12V battery is being recharged. If something as simple (and goofy) as turning the headlights to either off or on will cause the 12 battery to get charged when in HV mode that would be important to know. Or if there is enough range you could either drive in EV mode, or simply let the car sit in READY mode for an hour or two, if there is enough EV range to avoid the gas engine coming on, which you wouldn't want to happen in a garage.

LegoZ said:
If it is an original battery there is a sight glass on the battery.
Click to expand...
The battery that came with my 2018 does not have a sight glass. I wonder if Honda didn't put the same battery in all cars.
 
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