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Update: I test drove one and like the car, now I'm looking for a price I like.

The more I hypermile, the more frustrated I get with the limitations of my current Civic LX. I recently noticed I would pretty much break even if I traded up to an HCH II with about 30k more miles on it. I'm considering the swap, but have a few questions for those of you who have driven one.

Much of my driving is in hilly areas. One of my big gripes with the automatic transmission on my current car is its eagerness to unlock the torque converter and/or downshift when going up hills. I'm wondering if I'd have the same frustration with SoC management in the HCH. In hilly areas is it a constant battle to stay out of assist?

Even if I can somewhat manage assist by using the various techniques (DWL, shifting to S, etc), my wife won't, and she drives the car a fair bit too. It sounds like frequent charge/discharge cycles will shorten the life of the battery. Although I've heard the battery is expected to last the life of the car, this doesn't tell me much. What's the anticipated life of the car?

Has anyone driven both an automatic transmission and a hybrid version of the 8th gen Civic? If so, I'm curious how they compare. Are the glide distances in neutral similar?

How smooth is re-engaging the trasmission from neutral to drive and how long does it take? (IIRC Wayne mentioned a ~4 mph slowdown as the CVT spins back up to speed).

Acceleration: 0-60 in 12 seconds with a full SoC. ~16 seconds with a depleted SoC. I've never timed myself when merging onto the freeway and don't have a good sense of what those times mean. Is acceleration adequate for safely merging with a depleted SoC?

I think that's it for now. I've read through the various HCH focused articles and stickies in the forum, but these questions remained. I was hoping answers might tell me whether it's worthwhile taking one for a test drive.

Thanks!

To me it sounds like a worthwhile trade, but Kacey green or Msantos should be able to give you some good advice.

Hi fanamingo;

Lets tackle a few, shall we?

...I'm wondering if I'd have the same frustration with SoC management in the HCH. In hilly areas is it a constant battle to stay out of assist?


Well, it takes a fair amount of patience and to put it mildly it can be quite challenging for some and exciting for others. In other words, hills and rougher topographies are not kind to the HCH-II (or any other hybrid for that matter). In fact, if this is the most relevant detriment I would consider a diesel as my next option.



Although I've heard the battery is expected to last the life of the car, this doesn't tell me much. What's the anticipated life of the car?


Yes, you heard right. But I can also tell you that tougher topographies are a veritable battery killer too and on that note I would say that so far, the trends point to a battery life that will be much shorter than that of the car. The effective life of the car is often pegged at 15-16 years but the battery life will likely be much lower than 8 years in harsh mountainous driving unless you manage the SoC with some reverence.



Has anyone driven both an automatic transmission and a hybrid version of the 8th gen Civic? If so, I'm curious how they compare. Are the glide distances in neutral similar?


Yes, and in neutral both cars will glide with the same ease with the HCH-II edging the non-hybrid depending on road conditions and tires used. If you buy a used HCH-II make sure it sports LRR tires as it should. The HCH-II also has a much lower CoD which helps a great deal too.

However, you do NOT want to glide the HCH-II in neutral. Instead consider using its soft glide feature (built-in) via the accelerator pedal, or simply evoke a neutral FAS if you want the best possible glides. With soft glides you can also tap in the EV-Glide (electric only) feature specially when it pays the most dividends (though you'll want to avoid this in most cases...).


How smooth is re-engaging the trasmission from neutral to drive and how long does it take? (IIRC Wayne mentioned a ~4 mph slowdown as the CVT spins back up to speed).


In my experience the slowdown is negligible but it also depends on a few factors.

It primarily depends on how you drive and the effective outside air temperature. When you first get the car, make sure you re-initialize the PCM so that it can re-learn to better match your driving habits. Then, learn to recognize the warm-up stages and leverage the car's features according to what it can do at each stage.

Lastly, a cold transmission means the CVT solenoids and valves will operate with a slight delay and if you do not rush the setup with aggressive driving then it should be pretty smooth. Religiously changing the CVT fluid is the best guarantee for a long, smooth and trouble free life for the transmission.

So far, in my experience the HCH-II transmission has been literally a joy, not only in its seamless-ness but also in its smoothness, quietness and dependability even in -45F weather over 3 winters. In the end it all comes down to how we drive it but we'll once again remark that the HCH-II is the proverbial antithesis of a sports car and it needs to be treated as such to really shine.




Acceleration: 0-60 in 12 seconds with a full SoC. ~16 seconds with a depleted SoC. I've never timed myself when merging onto the freeway and don't have a good sense of what those times mean. Is acceleration adequate for safely merging with a depleted SoC?


For many folks it is not.

Fortunately, after 3 years I have yet to be in such a situation and that is because the HCH-II with the latest software updates will manage the SoC more aggressively. In other words, even though low SoC situations (or high temp situations) should remain rare, it is possible for "low" or "no" electric assist situations to occur. If you are exposed to many situations when fast ramp-ups in speed are needed, then maybe the HCH-II is not the better option for you.



Cheers;


MSantos

When you first get the car, make sure you re-initialize the PCM so that it can re-learn to better match your driving habits.


I believe what MSantos means by the above is to disconnect the negative battery lead, for around 15 minutes to be sure, to reset the car's computer, wipe it's memory, etc. Be sure to have your radio code on hand before doing this, you will need to enter it for the radio to work.

FYI, PCM stands for Power Control Module.

Thanks MSantos for the detailed response. You've resolved most of my uncertainties. It sounds like I'll have to drive the car myself to take care of the rest. I've thought of a couple more questions before I do a test drive.

Is there any way to force a hard acceleration with no/low assist? Can I just drain the pack to 4 bars and accelerate during the forced recharge, or would I need a prolonged drain to 0 bars to deplete the pack so that it would be unable to assist?

Should I make a poll? Who thinks a used car dealership will let me reset the PCM before a test drive? I'll ask but will be surprised if they let me. If I end up buying one, that step will come right after topping off the tank and setting the tires at max sidewall. Thanks all!

There is a hybrid battery disconnect switch for safety that allows you to turn off all high voltage lines out of the IMA system. I don't know if the car can be driven in this state?

Hi Fanamingo and Mendel;

The PCM re-learn procedure is a bit different from the usual power reset. In order to do this thoroughly, you must use an HDS station (what the dealers have). Alternatively, there's an alternate approach that is used in the absence of the HDS station. While I have not published this procedure before, I have provided it to a few folks in the community via PM upon request.

When it comes to a PCM reset I would suggest you get a dealer to do it. But for power resets I would suggest this be the thing owners should do.

Hard accelerations without assist are literally impossible when the SoC is at 5 bars or higher, even with the transmission in S. When the SoC drops below 5 bars then a forced regen procedure will begin. If during this forced regen you need a sudden burst of acceleration then electric assist will be provided except the assist affinity will be reduced at the lower rates of acceleration. If the SoC gets too low or the hybrid system is in a managed mode then no electric assist will be provided at all.

Normally, the BCM does not allow pack depletions to that low a level (0 bars). In fact the regen monster rears it head as soon as the SoC dips below 5 bars. ;)

Cheers;

MSantos

Normally, the BCM does not allow pack depletions to that low a level (0 bars). In fact the regen monster rears it head as soon as the SoC dips below 5 bars. ;)


The OP should be aware that it isn't just overt hills that can lead to SOC issues. On drives which are up a long shallow slope on an automatic HCH the assist can be very hard to defeat. (I think on a manual it can be avoided.) My daily drive is like that, slightly uphill 7.5 miles one way, and of course downhill the other. Starting with a nearly full pack and trying very hard to avoid assist I can usually make it into the garage at work with SOC just above 50%. Sometimes not and it ends up in regen mode going uphill. Going home the car is coasting most of the way and the pack is fully charged pulling into the driveway. This is all at surface street speeds, and I would disable the assist for most of this if it was possible, but it isn't.

I suspect the battery is not going to last as long as it otherwise would have with these daily 50% duty cycles.

I have had two different experiences in the hills depending on my commute. My last commute was rolling hills where I was always going up or down for 10 miles. I got very good mileage (55-70mpg summer daily) in this situation. I was able to maximize the gliding MSantos describes above, and I knew my commute very well from a DWL perspective so the uphills didn't hurt too much.

My current commute is all downhill to work and all uphill home for 5 miles. I don't get great mileage (45-50mpg summer daily) with my new commute. The car doesn't warm up fully in either direction, and I rarely get any auto stop. It's really hard to complain about 50mpg, but it has been a little depressing for me since I work hard to maximize and it isn't as effective as it was with my old, longer, more rolling commute.

The car likes to use assist on the hills. If you're running the latest software, it will use 2-6 bars of assist almost constantly up until you hit 4 bars of SoC, after which it will rev to 3-4k RPM to keep going. I used to try to minimize assist as much as possible, but doing so made it very hard to DWL so I now just let the car do whatever it wants to. My battery cycles between hitting 7-8 bars every day when I arrive at work and 3-4 bars when I get home. I'm sure this type of commute will decrease the battery life to some degree, but I have no idea how much. I have the extended warranty so hopefully if it dies, it will die before 100k. I don't plan on owning the car much longer than 100k though so I'm not overly concerned either way....

When we first got the car, it was my wife's, and she isn't in to hypermiling. She is a telecommuter so I drove the car 75% of the time and it used to annoy me when she drove it since the mileage would fall off. Our solution to this was for me to trade in my car, take over the Civic and get her a Mariner Hybrid so now everyone is happy.

My HCHII has exhibited from time to time complete discharge (at least the bars all dissapear). After a few nervous moments it will start recharging as normal. I was told this was just a goof with the software, the battery is not draining to zero. I routinely have the battery drop to 1 bar going to my gym (you guessed it - a slight uphill for 5 miles) and it will charge back to full by the time I get home.
My car has 111,300 miles on it (a 2006 purchased used on eBay with 12,000 miles).
By the way, I used the writeup for the valve adjustment last night (first time the valves have been touched). 5 valves out of spec, but easy to adjust back to the recommened numbers on the writeup. Car runs smooth!!

I've experimented with turning my headlights on when I'm down to 4 bars to initiate an internal regen until the pack is back up to 5 or 6 bars. There is some loss in mileage, but it's much better than having to go through a recal. I've had 1 recal in 2 or 3 weeks doing this versus a recal more than 2 or 3 times a week.

I have lots of hills around here. Fortunately, I have just as many downhills, so I can throw some charge into the pack either before or after the uphill.

Jess

Hi Jess;
Are you running DRL on your HCH11? If not maybe you should make them operational and that way it will look after things automatically? Maybe this is the fix for all those recalls? You will also be more visible?
Cheers,
Hal

Yes Hal I do use my DRLs, but there is no internal regen until the headlights are on, not even with running lights.

Jess

OK I guess that is not the answer. I was hopping you may have stumbled on to something and it sounds as if you may have? Most drivers in the States remove the fuse eliminating the DRL. I guess there is not enough draw on these alone or is the car programmed different for when all the lights are turned on? Hal

Does anyone know if background charging is just triggered by a sufficiently large electrical load? If it is, something like a large stereo amp might pull enough to trigger this behavior? Or flying saucer style underbody fluorescent lighting? Or...

;)

To the OP

A HCHII is dreadfully slow. No way around it! If your driving a 8th gen R-18 LX it will out run a HCHII soooooo bad its not even funny. As for hills,,, they are our enemy. As for coasting. Don't bother. Use the throttle and a SG until you learn the car. Ours is the worse fas'ing / coasting car/truck I've ever driven or owned. It's like it deployed a 4x8 sheet of plywood on the back of the car at hwy speeds. IMHO the CVT is the worse transmission to ever come from the minds of college grads. Ours is so cold blooded now that Its died when putting into R or D first thing in the morning. Since the wreck and all the follow up work the city mpg has come up and the hwy mpg has gone down. I can't figure that out.

The HCHII is a very smooth car to drive. Even after the wreck with some tweaking it is still rattle free and such. It is the lux boat of Civic's, hands down. I grin and thank god every time I drive my MZ3 for a real car.

Everything one needs to know is contained within throttle control. And HVAC control. The HCHII shines in low load steady state driving between 32-62 mph. Get below or above the wide window with any heavy throttle use,,, you loose. The engine is yet another wonderful ICE from Honda. Everything else seems to be a compromise or a failure.

If it were me. I would be looking into a 5MT R-18 Civic or a 2.0 MZ3. I don't even want a CRZ now days with the TDI Jetta or Golf out there.

Have Fun

Thanks to all for the input. As you can tell, I haven't been in too much of a hurry to change my current ride, but I did have a chance to test drive an HCH today and really liked it. It seemed to handle the hills better than my automatic transmission, and it felt like a smoother ride. I loved using throttle control to switch between accelerating, regening, and gliding. The process was much more refined than shifting my automatic. I was surprised how little charge the battery seemed to hold. I brought the SoC up from 4 to 8 bars while gently accelerating down a single hill (150 foot elevation change). Traffic kept me from fully testing out the acceleration while merging, but it seemed adequate.

Next step is to do some price comparison shopping. My wife will have to test drive any likely candidates. The only issue I forsee her having is the sensitivity of the brakes. I'll drop another update if I find something.

Good luck! I really enjoyed it the 2 times I drove one.

I was surprised how little charge the battery seemed to hold. I brought the SoC up from 4 to 8 bars while gently accelerating down a single hill (150 foot elevation change).

From what I've read, neither end of the bar graph display represents an extreme of charge state, ie: full charged or discharged, and the computer might even shift the display over time, ie: todays "full" might be different from "full", a year or two down the road.

Update: I test drove one and like the car, now I'm looking for a price I like.

The more I hypermile, the more frustrated I get with the limitations of my current Civic LX. I recently noticed I would pretty much break even if I traded up to an HCH II with about 30k more miles on it. I'm considering the swap, but have a few questions for those of you who have driven one.

Much of my driving is in hilly areas. One of my big gripes with the automatic transmission on my current car is its eagerness to unlock the torque converter and/or downshift when going up hills. I'm wondering if I'd have the same frustration with SoC management in the HCH. In hilly areas is it a constant battle to stay out of assist?
{/qoute]
I don't want to work that hard. The cruise control is CERTAINLY not optimized for best mileage. But, if you don't mind taking over, it is not a BATTLE, but fairly easy. If you take over BEFORE the hill, you can usually manage to power up the hill with minimal assist, letting the ICE handle most of the work as you let the speed fade a bit.
[quote]
Even if I can somewhat manage assist by using the various techniques (DWL, shifting to S, etc), my wife won't, and she drives the car a fair bit too. It sounds like frequent charge/discharge cycles will shorten the life of the battery. Although I've heard the battery is expected to last the life of the car, this doesn't tell me much. What's the anticipated life of the car?

Well, I hung on to my last car 19 years, I doubt the IMA battery will last that long. Honda has a specific extended warranty on the battery.

Has anyone driven both an automatic transmission and a hybrid version of the 8th gen Civic? If so, I'm curious how they compare. Are the glide distances in neutral similar?

My last 3 cars were manual transmission, so I was worried about an unfriendly transition, but I actually LIKE the way the CVT works most of the time. Really, my only complaint is with the cruise control, it works fine when using your foot.

How smooth is re-engaging the trasmission from neutral to drive and how long does it take? (IIRC Wayne mentioned a ~4 mph slowdown as the CVT spins back up to speed).

I have never done this maneuver, so can't comment.

Acceleration: 0-60 in 12 seconds with a full SoC. ~16 seconds with a depleted SoC. I've never timed myself when merging onto the freeway and don't have a good sense of what those times mean. Is acceleration adequate for safely merging with a depleted SoC?

No problem there at all, but I'm a cautious, somewhat "timid" driver. My style fits the HCH-II very well. Other drivers' style may be a real bad fit.
I did have a funny SOC once a couple weeks ago, the IMA system was basically shut down for most of a day. Finally, it did a recalibrate and went back to normal operation. I did notice some weirdness, especially as it would start to regenerate every time I hit the brakes and then abruptly cut out. Anyway, whenever the battery pack is really cold, like 40 F or below, the IMA system shuts down, so you can feel what the car feels like with a low SOC. I certainly notice the difference, but it isn't bad. I don't think I've ever tried a highway merge in that condition, however.

Jon

T It seemed to handle the hills better than my automatic transmission, and it felt like a smoother ride.

Well, ther is not going to be anything smoother than a CVT, except a pure electric vehicle.

I was surprised how little charge the battery seemed to hold. I brought the SoC up from 4 to 8 bars while gently accelerating down a single hill (150 foot elevation change).

You have to realize this is basically 100 D-cell rechargable batteries in series.
The cells are a little larger in capacity than a Ni-MH cell you can get for a flashlight, but not much.

The only issue I forsee her having is the sensitivity of the brakes. I'll drop another update if I find something.
Yes, there is this transition when it switches from regen to friction brakes. I'm surprised that Honda didn't come up with a way to finesse this better so ou don't feel that changeover. But, you get used to it pretty quickly. It is fairly predictable when it will do it, so then you hardly notice it.

But, there's one thing that I was not prepared for, and I ought to mention.
I was at a stoplight, first in line, the engine was just warm enough to have auto-stopped. Suddenly, it decided the engine was too cold and needed to go back to warm-up mode. With no warning, the engine restarted and went to a higher, warm-up fast idle! I had to really JAM on the brakes to keep from flying out into the intersection. After that, I try to remember to keep a firm foot on the brake when the engine is not fully warmed up. It would have been real nice if they had the computer issue a beep or something to announce the engine was going to restart.

Jon

I have not been bothered by the lack of power with my HCHII. If I wanted power I would have purchased a completely different car. On the same not - my wifes HiHy actually has more horsepower than the non hybrid version. With Toyotas the electric motor adds 68hp (OK, 50kW for you folks who live with rest of the real world!). Her HiHy gets an average of 25mpg, way better than the 19mpg the non hybrids get.