I got this:

this morning.

There wasn't any lights left on. The van is 1 week old.

I note from your car seat cover post that you installed the seat covers last night - taking 3 hours.

My guess is that the interior lights were on for the full 3 hours along with the stereo system?

I bet if you drive the car for a couple of hours, the battery will gain a full charge on its own.

 

I started when it was still light outside, so i only used the inside lights for maybe 20 minutes, max. No stereo, I was iChatting with friends, lol.

Yeah, i had to drop off some paperwork and it seems to have went away, after 15-20minutes of being on this morning. whew.

 

I started when it was still light outside, so i only used the inside lights for maybe 20 minutes, max. No stereo, I was iChatting with friends, lol.

Yeah, i had to drop off some paperwork and it seems to have went away, after 15-20minutes of being on this morning. whew.

I think the battery in these vans have allot of drain demands put on them. Power doors, power rear hatch, interior lights, nav system, 650 watt stereo system. It seems that the vans on display in the dealership always have low or dead batteries (the vans with toys, that is).

While you may have started working during daylight hours, I assume the van doors were open? So while you may not have noticed the interior lights shining, they were on were on weren't they? Unless there is some way to turn them off - and you did.

Glad things are back to normal though.

 

Im in your boat! Our van is about a month old and got the same message once yesterday and once this morning thus far (EX 2011 van). We have not had the doors opened for extended times or left any lights on so I was a bit surprised to see this message with normal local city driving.
Unfortunately, we do not take long trips in the van to charge it for a couple of hours so I will have to see what the dealer has to say.

I got this:

this morning.

There wasn't any lights left on. The van is 1 week old.

 

Re: Re: Battery charge low?

Im in your boat! Our van is about a month old and got the same message once yesterday and once this morning thus far (EX 2011 van). We have not had the doors opened for extended times or left any lights on so I was a bit surprised to see this message with normal local city driving.
Unfortunately, we do not take long trips in the van to charge it for a couple of hours so I will have to see what the dealer has to say.

I got it again this morning, and NOTHING was left on, it barely started. sigh. I'll be talking to our dealer also.

 

Re: Re: Re: Battery charge low?

I got it again this morning, and NOTHING was left on, it barely started. sigh. I'll be talking to our dealer also.

Please let us know what the dealer says. Hopefully the problem is just with a few vans and doesn't represent a design error with a battery that doesn't have enough capacity or an alternator that can't keep up.

I recall a similar issue with BMW's 8 series. The car was fine in most markets, but in NYC all owners were having a problem with drained batteries. It was remedied after BMW fit a second alternator to the vehicles to keep the battery charged.

I think the problem was high battery drain because of on board systems along with slow driving in city traffic and relatively short trips.

I'm sure Honda will sort this problem out.

 

Re: Re: Re: Battery charge low?

Gave the service dept a call, the rep said he had not heard of this before and of course to bring it in for a look-over. I plan to do that when I get some time. In the meantime, shot an email off to the asst. service manager to see if he has heard anything from Honda or the such yet. I am guessing his reply with be to bring it in

I got it again this morning, and NOTHING was left on, it barely started. sigh. I'll be talking to our dealer also.

 

Same problem here. Only couple days off the lot and getting intermittent battery low message. It has been in the freezing temperature range here, but it has been garaged since we picked it up. Just general use of power doors, with very limited poking (< 5 min) around with the Navi system.

 

Same problem here. Only couple days off the lot and getting intermittent battery low message. It has been in the freezing temperature range here, but it has been garaged since we picked it up. Just general use of power doors, with very limited poking (< 5 min) around with the Navi system.

Oh Oh .. do I sense a trend??

 

Take the car to an autozone or other auto place that tests batteries for free. When I test drove my '09, the sales guy went through 3 vans on the lot, all with totally dead batteries due to someone leaving lights, etc. If that's the case, the car battery is most likely damaged and should be replaced.

Many dealerships just recharge the battery and hope no one notices.

 

Take the car to an autozone or other auto place that tests batteries for free. When I test drove my '09, the sales guy went through 3 vans on the lot, all with totally dead batteries due to someone leaving lights, etc. If that's the case, the car battery is most likely damaged and should be replaced.

Many dealerships just recharge the battery and hope no one notices.

Yah, that's what I'd do, take it to some third party and pay them to load test the battery and check out the charging system.

No, wait, I just remembered that I have a 3 year 36,000 mile warranty. I can take it to the dealer and ask them to investigate the problem and fix it free of charge!!

If the problem persists, I can take it back. doubt that running a battery down (if that is what happened) will damage it permanently. It is true that it is not good to deep cycle a battery repeatedly, but one or two events are not likely to ruin the battery.

My advice. you paid for a car with a warranty. Let the dealer take care of it.

 

Yah, that's what I'd do, take it to some third party and pay them to load test the battery and check out the charging system.

No, wait, I just remembered that I have a 3 year 36,000 mile warranty. I can take it to the dealer and ask them to investigate the problem and fix it free of charge!!

If the problem persists, I can take it back. doubt that running a battery down (if that is what happened) will damage it permanently. It is true that it is not good to deep cycle a battery repeatedly, but one or two events are not likely to ruin the battery.

My advice. you paid for a car with a warranty. Let the dealer take care of it.

Well if you read the post that you quoted he said take it to auto zone where they test your battery and alternator for FREE.

 

Same problem with our brand new 2011 Odyssey EX-L - it started displaying "Low Battery See Manual" when the weather turned very cold few days ago. Took it to a dealer this morning - they just called that the car is not ready. The battery tested ok, but they are still trying to figure out why the message keeps coming on.

 

Well if you read the post that you quoted he said take it to auto zone where they test your battery and alternator for FREE.

I only read as far as I'll take it to autozone". Maybe he should buy his car there too.

 

This has happened to ours as well. It is random when it happens... I can't say it is any worse on really cold days.

Definitely not leaving on any lights, and the car starts up just fine, so the error hasn't made much sense to us...

 

I only read as far as I'll take it to autozone". Maybe he should buy his car there too.

It doesn't hurt to get 2nd opinions especially when they're free.

 

Perhaps this gen isn't imune to the crappy Honda batteries either. But Honda might have added in the voltage check so combining the bad batteries Honda uses and the additional voltage check, perhaps a few of these errors are popping up on colde days.

 

Hi all,

First Post! (If you browse other Honda forums, you may recognize me as an admin from ClubRSX)

I have this problem too, especially after short drives. The warning pops up that the battery charge is low and sometimes it'll nag me to turn off all electronics and lights.

My family just took the van in to have a look at this.

Dealership Testing Results
The bad news: They didn't fix it.

The good news: They tested everything for us. The battery is rated at 550 CCA, it tested at 719 CCA at the full 12 volts. The started tested normal, and the charge system tested normal.
So everything is okay.

The only conclusion we could come to is that "in theory"... maaaybe... if you take a drive in which more energy is used than is recovered, that the "advanced" battery monitor system warns you.
So a short drive, you've opened and closed the doors, if you are like me, you've used the radio and DVD (for the kids), and you've driven all of 10 minutes, leaving the battery slightly more depleted than prior to your drive.
However, if you drove 20 minutes, this gives enough time for the alternator to recharge the battery, hence we don't get the warning on longer drives.

Doesn't really make a whole lot of sense, and I suspect Honda will have to issue some sort of update for the battery system.

In the mean time, the good news is that even with the warning, the battery performs above it's rated ability.


Edit: We've put 400km (uhh... 240? miles on it already)

 

2011 Battery Issue

Same problem here too. Just purchased the 2011 and low battery came on after driving it home. Maybe I should have waited to purchase.
Dealership checked the battery and looks fine. They told me to drive it 50 miles and see what happens. No change, low battery still comes on after the drive. What a pain in the you know what.
I hope this problem gets fixed! Only owned it for 24 hours.
Plan on contacting the dealer in the AM.
I do believe in Honda and the problem will be rectified!

 

Low Battery

The Honda dealer had the vehicle for 6 hours and checked out the battery and charging system. All checked out fine. They claimed they "reset" the "Battery Management System" and updated the software. So far all appears to be working.

I will keep my fingers crossed!

 

Same story for us. Honda dealer said they "reset the computer" and we should be good now. It worked for the first couple rides, but the message came up again on the same day we took the car home. It's going back to the dealer tomorrow.

 

Low Battery

Keep me posted on your progress. Honda will eventually have to address the issue if it keeps returning. So far, we have driven the vehicle 2 short trips in town since being "reset". So far so good! Thanks..Nick

 

Got the car back last night. This time dealer said they had to disconnect a sensor for 10 seconds and then reset the computer. So far so good, but then it's just been one ride home from the dealer. I did turn the car off and on a few times and also made sure to use seat heaters, audio, lights, etc. So maybe it's fixed. Or maybe they just disabled Battery Management System completely hoping my battery lasts longer than the warranty .

 

Okay, so now we're having this problem, and we don't have anything running other than the DVD player when the kids are in the vehicle.

We just called the dealer, and he said, "We're just learning about the 2011s, so we'll need to put our heads together to figure this one out."

That really instills confidence.

Taking the Ody in on Friday morning. I will keep the group posted.

 

Got the car back last night. This time dealer said they had to disconnect a sensor for 10 seconds and then reset the computer. So far so good, but then it's just been one ride home from the dealer. I did turn the car off and on a few times and also made sure to use seat heaters, audio, lights, etc. So maybe it's fixed. Or maybe they just disabled Battery Management System completely hoping my battery lasts longer than the warranty .

Did you lose all of your radio station presets?