Just turning the key on is all you needed to do to make the alarm turn off.

I, too, ran into this when my child left the interior lights on and I had to recharge the battery.

 

Just turning the key on is all you needed to do to make the alarm turn off.

Thanks for that, I wanted to help someone else who might run into this problem.

 

Hi adam1991, did charging the battery work? Does it hold the charge afterward? I too have the same problem with the reading lights left on. Just bought a charger, want to try it instead of replacing the battery. Thanks in advance.

 

Yeah, it worked fine. That incident happened over a year and a half ago, and no problems since.

 

Me too. Happened when the van was a week old. Charged her up, but the green eye didn't come back for another week. A year later, battery is still good!

I think most auto batteries can withstand 2 or 3 deep discharges.

 

Originally posted by manualman I think most auto batteries can withstand 2 or 3 deep discharges. [/B]

My Ody is a year and a half old and I've drained the battery 5 times (finally, this last time getting a PriorityStart). I do understand that the battery is permanently damaged with each discharge, however the battery still appears to work fine. I'll report more as winter approaches and we'll see if cold preformance has been affected.

 

I love this BB the people are so helpful and nice

donlibes, I appreciate your comments and your great mod posts.

Thanks to all, and I hope my post about the horn honking during battery replacement is helpful to ne1 who experiences it and thinks they did something wrong like I did.

 

Thanks for all the replies. Not in my case, I have to replace the battery because when charging it after about 20 min. the charger give a reading of faulty battery (internally short). Paid $60.00+ for a new one at Advance auto parts with double cranking power of the original one.

 

Paid $60.00+ for a new one at Advance auto parts with double cranking power of the original one.

Could there be any adverse effects causing warranty issues when replacing a battery with one with double the cranking power?

 

Could there be any adverse effects causing warranty issues when replacing a battery with one with double the cranking power?

Batteries are rated in "cold cranking amps", which is just a measure of how much power they can put out for 30 seconds with the battery at a certain temperature and still maintain an output voltage over a certain threshold. It really deals with the load capacity of the battery and it won't push more amperage through your car than it can handle.

I'm not sure that CCAs are that important any more, since every modern car uses fuel injection and will start pretty quickly, so the ability to discharge large amounts of current for a long (30 second) time aren't going to be as important as a larger, low-discharge capacity, which is specified in amp-hours, that will help keep all the electric and electronic devices running when the engine speed is insufficient to provide all the power that is needed.

Different types of batteries have different load outputs. The traditional plated lead-acid batteries perform much worse than spiral wound, starved-electrolytic systems, which have huge discharge rates and voltage profiles that are much more similar to nicad batteries. As an example, I once jump started a Honda using an 8 amp-hr battery, the same one that I carry on my bicycle to provide lighting when I ride at night, and which weighs just more than seven pounds. From the looks of it, the Optima batteries might use this kind of cell.

My opinion is that you don't get the largest battery that you can, because it's a lot of eight to have hanging off the front of the car. Just hold one and try to swing it around from side to side and imagine how much of the car's available traction just be used if you have to maneuver quickly.

Wayne

 

Alarm after replacing battery

Guys, thanks for all the info on this thread. I just bought an 03 EX-L last week. Saturday night the kids left the lights on. Sunday morning my battery was dead and a boost didn't work so we took the battery out and hooked it up to a recharger. It recharged in a few hours but when I went to put it back in the horn blared and lights flashed when the connections were made. No doubt very disturbing to my neighbours at 8 pm. I tried putting the key in ignition, then turning to I, then II, then turning the engine on. Nothing stopped the alarm. I came inside defeated and searched this site, found this thread. This morning I successfully reinstalled the battery. The solution for me was not to turn on the engine but to 1. open the hood then lock all the doors manually; 2. reconnect the battery, resulting in the alarm; and 3. press the "unlock" button on the fob. Instant silence. Battery successfully recharged and reinstalled.

Not only did the information on this thread save me countless lost hours and a fortune in towing and mechanics, but it made me feel better that others had been through the exact same problem. I didn't feel like as much of an idiot as I had earlier in the day. I've also learned I have to be more careful with a vehicle that uses so much electricity - don't open the electric doors with the engine off and make wide assortment of lights are turned off at night.

 

Comment: In the past I read - somewhere - that each time the battery is totally discharged, it takes away about 1/2 of the remaining life. That may or not have been true then and I know not the validity with todays batteries but it probably doesn't do them any good. With today's vehicles starting so quickly, you don't get much (if any) warning with a weak battery. My recent clues have been the voltmeter reading around 11 to12 volts. Not much help with an Ody. If the lights on the instrument panel start to get weird-continously, you are probably past the point of a restart, so get to a destination ASAP. I seem to get decent life from our car batteries, but am wondering if a new battery after 5 years might be a "warm and fuzzy" policy. Suppose one could turn on the headlights for 10-15 min. and then see if it will crank vigorously.

Question: Wayne maybe you can address.
With all the loss of info in the computer when changing batteries, is there a procedure to avoid the computer memory loss? Ie. hook up a second battery or a charger to the cables prior to disconnecting and reconnecting the new battery so there is power to the vehical during the battery change. Being careful or inslulating the Pos. side from accidental grounding of course.

Don't think running the engine without a battery -while replacing- would be a good idea, Seems like that was/is a definate no-no for some vehicals.
(Did find this bit with the "Search")

 

help!!!

i tried all advised above, and horn still blares, constant blare.

what else can i try?

 

Use the fob or the key in the driver's door and unlock. I personally do not find that using the key in the ignition will stop the alarm. It seems that a continuously sounding horn would not be the alarm, but a bad or sticking horn relay. The alarm horn sound is honk,honk,honk.

 

When the security system begins alarming soon after hooking up that new battery (or for any other alarm "trigger" condition), it will send power in simultaneous bursts to the headlight and horn relays. You should hear "honk.....honk.....honk...." as egads noted, but not a constant & uninterrupted blare.

First, I'm assuming that your battery is still disconnected due to the blaring horn. Keep it disconnected for now. It's no fun working under the hood with that horn operating. The following is based on egads' assumption that the horn relay is stuck (I'm in full agreement with his diagnosis).

Make sure the steering column stalk mounted headlight switch is in the "off" position.

That horn relay is in the underhood fuse box. After you open and secure your raised hood, look toward the passenger side of the engine bay, in the far corner. Unlatch and lift up the cover on that black plastic box.

There will be the usual fuses and some little plug-in modules, black and rectangularly shaped (those are relays). Starting at the fender side, and counting inward, the third one away from the fender is the horn relay (the first two, located closer to the fender, are headlight relays, one each for each headlight). If in doubt, look at the top of the fuse box cover, as it has a diagram.

Remove the horn relay, put it in your right pocket, and reconnect your battery. If the security system begins alarming, you should hear clicking of the headlight relays, and see the headlights flashing on, and off, and on, etc., until you reset the alarm by unlocking the doors with the key fob remote transmitter or by unlocking either front door with the key (or just wait 2 minutes, and the system auto resets). This is per the owner's manual (wish I'd known this for the first 3 times my kids killed a battery). Go ahead and reset the alarm system, since you don't need it in "alarming" mode for this check.

Remove the headlight relay next to the now-empty horn relay socket (that's the left-hand headlight), and plug it into the horn relay socket. Nothing should happen if it's only a stuck horn relay. Tap the steering wheel to beep the horn (it should work...this verifies the circuitry from the steering wheel to the horn relay is a-ok). If the horn blared upon inserting this headlight relay into the horn relay socket, you have a problem with wiring between the relay and steering wheel, or a steering wheel horn button is stuck.

Either way, remove the headlight relay you plugged into the horn relay socket, and drop it into your left pocket.

Now, remove the horn relay from your right pocket and insert it into the now-empty socket for the left-hand headlight.

If the horn relay you now plugged into the left-hand headlight socket is stuck (which I assume it is), the left-hand headlight (driver's side) will turn on and stay on. Assuming you have already reset the security system, the right-hand headlight (passenger's side) will remain off.

If the left-hand headlight came on, remove that stuck horn relay again, and drop it back into your empty right pocket (the left-hand headlight will stop illuminating). Remove the left-hand headlight relay from your left pocket and plug it back into its respective socket. If in doubt, the empty socket in question is the middle one of the three relay sockets. If in further doubt, use the diagram on the fusebox cover.

Now, do a quick function check of your headlights by turning them on then off using the stalk-mounted switch on the steering column.

If all went as written (and it should), go buy a replacement horn relay.

My apologies if I make it sound overly simple, but I've worked on cars a while, and I've misplaced similar-looking electrical components. Luckily, I've caught myself. Now I label things with masking tape and Sharpie markers. .

This verifies whether or not the relay is at fault. If this does not work, PM me

v/r, OF

 

Looking for a career change...

Wow, with all the moving around of relays you have a real chance to land a job as a juggler

 

You have no idea how many times I've screwed up this type of work on other cars!:stupid:

Seriously, if I'm looking at a fuse/relay box, and I remove two adjacent relays, the one on the left goes into my left pocket, and the one on the right goes into my right pocket. If I keep it simple, even I can't mess it up....I hope!

I just wrote it this way, since this is a way for anybody to verify function. As for me, I'd use my multimeter, but not everyone has one of these...and even if they did, I just don't have the faculties to write a good multimeter troubleshoot check that would make sense to anybody.

v/r, OF

 

Not to diminish the excellent info in this thread but another way to not run the battery down is to have the master cabin light switch on the dash in the OFF position all the time. I had to learn the hard way.

 

When the security system begins alarming soon after hooking up that new battery (or for any other alarm "trigger" condition), it will send power in simultaneous bursts to the headlight and horn relays. You should hear "honk.....honk.....honk...." as egads noted, but not a constant & uninterrupted blare.

First, ....

thank you so much to you and egads for your wise comments.

2 fuses blew when i tried to start up the van using my jeep unlimited's battery :stupid:

i had drained this ody battery 3-4 times before. my wife does short-trip driving...a lot, most of it. I tried charging the battery using a trickle...and got 12v on the handheld meter....alas,

when i read i could get a new battery for 62dollars wally's, i jumped. frankly, this battery is 3yrs old, started living in Michinan and is now in FL, doing short trips....it's life...well, will be short, and I dont want to risk it leaving my wife, our 4yr old and 9 months old stranded in some Fl road...people don't stop here to help like in michigan...and even road side assistance REALLY sucks.

We hate Florida and are moving to the midwest in 08. anyways, i digress :stupid:

so i decided that $62 was small potatoes for peace of mind, it's cheaper than marriage counseling if the old thing does fail (and i mean the battery, no the wife ...dont tell her i said that, i would be in fear for life)

so i bought the new battery and the 2 fuses...the ody started right up....turns out, using my Jeep's battery, i had blown the only 120W fuse known to mankind ....ok, AutoZone and its competitor's...I found a 100W and gonna order the 120 from dealer this week....should be in stock.

ty guys, this board delivers, b/c of guys like you

<3

 

...and I keep learning new things in turn, as well. I didn't know that Honda uses a 120 amp fuse for the battery feed.

It's outstanding, because back in the day, automakers used "fusible links". Actually, most still do. Oooooh, it always made me grate my teeth when I had to help somebody replace one, because I always felt that cutting and splicing in a new fusible piece of feeder wire wasn't the answer (even though the manuals said to do it this way).

We'd finish up, start up the car, and if the overload condition repeated (i.e., we couldn't find what caused it), another blown link, and I'd have to cut and splice again. I've seen cars with as many as five of these sticking out of the clamp on the positive side battery post, mostly on older American cars. I'm glad automotive engineers are thinking of better ways to do it.

A replaceable battery feeder fuse like on the Odyssey makes such good sense! Keep the 100A fuse once you get that fresh 120A fuse...you can use it for an emergency backup, since it's a lower rating than what the manual calls for.

New Dad New Van has the answer (his ounce of prevention is worth a ton of cure)...master light switch to "off". Have learned this the hard way many times, too. Just glad I can make a battery last 3 years after having it suffer a few total discharges. I've got the Wally World batteries now, too!

v/r, OF

 

An Ody battery lasts three years if you're lucky. The dealer we use tests them on all services. (we usually just get the cheap oil change) Both vans needed batteries after three years. My wife's even failed their test within the warranty period. I even replaced my daughter's Civic battery just because I figured it had done it's time and replacing it before I got called to the stranded place would be well worth the money.

 

Hello, I have an 04 Odyssey and we have experienced a problem today. lights were left on and drained the battery. When I tried to charge the battery, horn started beeping, etc. I let the car charge for awhile and when I returned I had no power?? I also tried to jump start the vehicle but I'm getting nothing?? I looked at the fuses and all seem to be OK?? Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

 

Did you charge the battery while still connected to the van? That's a no no. And has been since vehicles had computers. If you are lucky, a new battery will solve your problems. The one you have has done it's time. I don't even want to think about what it might be if you are unlucky...

 

Change out the battery. Consider every 4 years to be the replacement cycle of the battery. At 4 years, trying to recharge a fully discharged battery is only going to get so far anyway.