Owners manual quotes I assume Ken is referring to:
The car will select the appropriate source of power depending on the drive mode you select.
As a result, the engine will automatically start or stop as needed to either charge the battery or provide supplemental power.
Under certain circumstances, the engine may turn on or, if it is already on, it may not turn off.
● You are going uphill or accelerating aggressively.
● The climate control system is in heavy use.
● The Ambient temperature is too hot or too cold.
● The High Voltage Battery state of charge is very low.
● The vehicle is running a system check.
System Check
When the engine initially starts (between the time the POWER button is turned on and turned off), the vehicle conducts a system check.
● While the check is being conducted, the engine may periodically turn on and off. This, however, is normal.
● The curved blue line in the POWER/CHARGE Gauge will not appear during the system check (EV indicator may still turn on).
● Once the engine starts, it will continue to run until the system reaches operating temperature.
The curved blue line in the POWER/CHARGE Gauge will reappear once the system check is completed.
One gallon over the course of 1.5 months isn't very much....though I'm not sure how many miles that represents for you. But that represents a rate of about 8 gallons per year, which in my estimation should absolutely be required for this engine to run, just to get old fuel out of the system and keep things lubricated and functional in the ICE system.
So I guess I'm not too surprised Honda won't acknowledge there is a problem, when the manual has a giant disclaimer such as printed above. They basically tell us all that the engine may start randomly at any time for any reason and is likely to run for a while when it does. And that doesn't even mention the whole braking with near full charge thing...so there may be other circumstances not on the list. So if a customer comes in complaining the engine runs randomly, they can just point to this disclaimer and blow off the complaint.
I absolutely didn't buy this car to use it like an EV 100% of the time...I exceed the EV range regularly, so I absolutely burn fuel. I'd guess in the past 1.5 months I've burned 25 gallons of fuel to Bob's 1 gallon. So it's very difficult for me to compare my sense of what is "normal" for this car, compared to someone who uses the car completely different from me and is expecting the car to stay in EV at all times if there is any EV range remaining. I never had that expectation. My car does randomly start periodically while it still has EV range remaining, and I think when it does so I can look back and see it is usually because of one of the many reasons listed above in the manual...and I'd guess 4 times it just made no sense at all so I chalked those up to maybe just the system check. So I never considered it a defect during the occasional times it does so.
Bob just curious if you ever tried the disconnect-the-battery-thing, to reboot your car, that someone here had some success with when theirs was going a bit wonky?
FWIW I support you 100% in complaining. If you're not satisfied with your product, and Honda's not handling your dissatisfaction appropriately, then you go on and continue to publicly beat them SOB's down! It is the only power you have without going the attorney route and wasting money. Honda is nothing but a giant stupid profit-generating corporation that doesn't truly care one iota about any individual on earth, so none of us should have any loyalty to them whatsoever. So I'm not here saying you're wrong, or trying to defend your car or Honda or anything. Genuinely I'm just wishing you well and trying to help a smidge, in my own inept way, since you seem to be stuck with a car that frustrates you. And that sucks.
