Online discussion at Accord Plug-in Hybrid Forum

So my Hybrid batter is pretty much done. Bought my care in late 2016 for about 15K. Had the car for about a year and it was amazing. My office is 8 miles from my house and I have a charger there. Grocery stores and my kids' schools are around a mile from my house. Between charging at home at night and charging at work, I could go weeks without ever using gas, I felt like I was driving the worlds most luxurious golf cart.

Anyway, after about a year. Range started deteriorated rapidly. I was getting 16.1 miles. I'm in Miami and everything is flat and using drive 35-45mph on surface roads. The one day all of a sudden my range was about 12 miles, and the battery range indicator started acting funny (it would stay at 16.1 or 15.3 for the first half mile and then within 10 seconds fall to 10 miles range. Eventually I'm down to about 6 or 7 miles range and the bars start dropping to 0 every now and then and the hybrid power is completely gone usually for about 3-5 minutes before it recharges. If I run the A/C while driving around surface roads, I'll pretty much cause the battery to drop to 0 after about 5 miles.

Honda said take it to the dealer. The dealer say "no error messages, nothing we can do". I took the car several months latter for something else and they said the battery was still fine.

Finally, about a year later I get the P0A75 error message, which means "Hybrid Battery Pack Deterioration". I'm hoping I can get a new battery. But Honda will not tell me anything about the warranty over the phone. Calling the main Honda number, the people don't even seem to know what a hybrid is, and they kept telling me "the battery has a 3 year warranty". Yes, that's for the 12v battery. When I explained that, they acted like I was from another planet. Completely useless. Called the dealer and they won't tell me anything about whether this is covered over even what the warranty is, which apparently "varies by state and part". So I have to go pay the $120 diagnostic to get someone to run the same code that I got. I remember when this car was being sold they said you had to take it to a specially authorized dealer, hopefully the situation has changed now that the Clarity is out.

I would like to get a Clarity, but if this is the way Honda treats hybrid customers, maybe I'll look for other options. Apparently they treat the battery as a big black box. If there are a few bad cells giving you 60% power they will do nothing for you unless the error message comes on. Anyway taking the car in tomorrow, can't wait to see what happens.

Okay couldn't wait and had to take the car in today. That little "check engine" light and code POA75 made all the difference. Dropped the car off. Two hours later got a car from my service rep that the car needed a new battery and that it was under warranty. Said he assumed that I wanted it, but had to verify with me because it was going be expensive and take a while to locate the part. Went in to pick up the car an hour later and he said he located the part in California and it will take a week to get here.

The was not unexpected. I had a little unfortunate incident with parking curb and it took a week to get my new front end parts ... "from California". So anyway, I'm thankful that the replacement batteries to do exist in this country ... you never know when there's only 1000 cars.

So maybe secretly I was hoping Honda would make me some awesome trade-in deal on a Clarity, but I'm pretty happy with the results so far. Can't wait to see what this "new" battery will perform like, hope the cells are not 5 years old, but I'm not counting on that.

Well, I got my car back and it seems pretty much like new again. Battery said it was getting 13.1 miles on first charge. After a few complete cycles its' now saying 14.3-14.6. And actually I just drove it today 15.1 miles purely on electric. So it's like I said it's pretty much like new.

Dealer had to keep the car overnight. Took the tech a total of 6.5 hours to swap it out. Service advisor said they car looked like he basically took the whole trunk off the car. Was very happy with the result, every looks just like it did before and total cost ... $0, so I'm definitely keeping the car another 2 years or so. Because of my short commute I barely use gas at all, I still love the car, and I'll see what the state of electrics is in 2 years.

I don't think the hybrid battery pack ever gets prorated (not positive since it seems to be impossible to find the actual terms of the warranty. I think that would violate California law, and maybe others. The batteries are supposed to last at least 8 years, if it fails you get a new one.