Friday, October 30, 2009

Reply to a Matt's question - Updated

i purchased a reconditioned battery from The Battery Clinic last year to get my car back on the road, which it did and ran great after fitting it. I was told that the battery computer would have to be replaced to get rid of the triangle as the computer gets damaged from overcharging.
Patrick i see that you're now able to have the battery computer repaired, do you know if there is any way to check for sure that its damaged also im guessing that driving the car with the computer in this state could cause damage to some cells? If so im hoping i can replace the damaged cells myself and get rid of the triangle with a repaired computer,
Matt

I nearly gave up repairing the battery and as luck would have it I found a company with an S2000 scanner who were able to clear the error code encoded in the battery computer. The triangle error is cleared but the problems which caused the battery to fail are still there.

Firstly the HEV battery is already more than 10 years old and wear and tear has reduced the battery's capacity. Reconditioning only replaces dead cells and increases the capacity to a working battery again but it will never have the full 100% capacity of a new battery. The advantage is that the hybrid car does not need a 100% capacity to operate at full power. It only need the battery to hold it's voltage for the short burst that is required of it.

The Air Flow Meter has probably never been changed since new and it should be replaced every 100,000 Kms. If this equipment is not functioning correctly it will cause the battery to fail. This is more important as the capacity of the battery is not 100%.

The spark plugs should also be changed every 10,000 Kms. These are just standard spark plugs and are not expensive to replace but will improve the performance of the ICE motor.

You can try to change the cells yourself by taking out the most suspect cells looking at the voltage. I can supply good cells. This is still not fullproof as some cells show good voltage and collapse only under high load. It is all relative so unless you know how much charge a cell has to start with you can't be sure if a cell collapse because it is bad or has low capacity.
After you have had it fixed then you must ensure that other problems with the car are not contributing. Usually the air flow meter.

Your battery is still under warranty so you could send it back to be reworked.

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