Hello all,
My wife has had her 2010 Honda Fit sport for well over a year now, and we both love the car for it's mileage and storage capacity. My Focus hatchback was getting really high miles on it and I felt like a big repair was just around the corner, so last month I decided to get one too. Now we both have 2010 Honda Fits, mine is standard and her's is the sport, they're both blue so we're car twins.
Anyways, I bought it used from a Mitsubishi dealer, since it was a great price, and low miles (20,100), and still under factory warranty. I've had the car for 31 days now, and the battery has already died on me 3 times! I'm using up all my AAA roadside calls for a lame jump start! The first time, the AAA guy tested my battery and said it's still good (300 CCA), jumped me and sent me on my way.
The second time they came out, and said must be your battery, then I showed them the printout from the last AAA guy, so he tested my charging system (alternator) and that came out good. He said their might be some bigger electrical issue and asked if the car had every been in an accident. I told him according to carfax no, but I just got the car. Said I should take it back to Mitsubishi and ask them to look at it since the first payment hasn't even come due yet.
The third time it died was at the Mitsubishi dealer. The battery tested good, and they kept saying they couldn't get the issue to duplicate and then all of a sudden, of course, it finally duplicated for them. They said they would take the car to Honda and have them check it out for me and they'll pay any diag fee.
Today, Honda said oh it's the battery, put in a new battery and will be sending me on my way once I pick it up today after work. Battery has been tested by two other parties who say the battery is good, but Honda says it's bad... Does Honda know something that these other guys don't?

I'm posting this because I have found other people with battery issues for the Fit, on this site and others. The funny thing is my wife has the same car, same year, just the sport version with 19,300 miles on it. In her Fit we've even went to the drive-in and had the radio on for over 2 hours and her car has always started up fine. No issues, ever! I drive my car more often and further than my wife, so I don't want to hear the "you're not driving it enough" response.
I bought a portable jumper/charger, so I won't find myself stranded again and wasting another AAA service (I only get 4 a year). My plan is to keep you all posted on what the resolution to my issue is. Maybe I just got a bad battery, it was a "white case" battery, and the water level was low, but it still was blue when you looked down it, meaning it was supposed to still be good... But if this new battery dies, then it'll be hard for me to believe it was the battery. I really like the Fit, and I'm convinced these are great cars, I'm just wondering why a certain select few have battery issues, and others don't...
Has anyone come up with a concrete answer to this? Some say get a bigger battery. Has everyone that has switched to a bigger battery fix their problem for good? Some say trickle charge it, but I'm at an apartment and can't do that without an outlet. And it seems others have given up on it, or don't post their resolution.

 

I have a 2009 Sport and haven't had any problems but will be following your post in case I learn something and hope the new battery resolves your issue.

 

that's too much read, but you might have parastitic drain. also, it is not advisable to leave your car in acc mode for 2hrs even if it is a drive-in. next time bring a boom box or mp3 player with its own battery and use that instead. hell, i dont think my area even has a drive-in.

unless you use deep cycle your stock battery will not charge to full after a certain amount of cycles. and our batteries are tiny with only 300+ cca.

to check parastic drain, search youtube. it's a painstaking process, but you can do it with a generic ohm meter.

btw, my 2009 just went in for its 4yr 40k mile service and the cca was over 300. checked out fine.

 

Thanks Kenchan,

I haven't taken my car to the drive in, that was my wife's Fit that we took to the drive-in and her Fit hasn't had any issues.

I'll keep the parasitic drain in mind in case this new battery dies as well. I was thinking there must be some sort of open load current still going even when the car is off that is draining the battery... At this point time will tell, and I really hope it was just a dud battery.

 

np, it is very possible that you received a defective battery too. hope your new one lasts at least 4-5yrs.

 

I think it's the battery that came with the car... it must have been sitting for a while and drained/died, and now it can't hold a charge.

I have no issues with my OEM battery, and I've had my 09 since Jan. 2009. I've even leave it sitting for weeks even without starting it, and it cranks right up when I get back (I did think about installing a solar trickle charger when I'm away for a while, but didn't need it). Matter of fact someone who swapped out to an aftermarket battery had theirs die within 2 yrs, and is now going back to OEM battery. IIRC, for those who had problems with their OEM battery there was usually an explanation why (ie. left the dome light on, or left the hatch open, etc, etc.)

If you still have a problem with the new Honda battery then for sure you have a drain somewhere, or maybe some lights are being left on inadvertantly?

 

Thanks FitStir,

Yea I read other posts where their battery was dying because they didn't know how to close the hatch properly, or they left the dome light on.

I checked both of these things after reading those posts after my second jump start, but no lights were on and hatch was firmly closed. I even turned my dome light from "door" to "off" just out of abundance of caution.

When I got the car, I had to put in a radio code that I had to get from Honda. I read this happens if the battery dies or gets disconnected, so I know it either sat around for a long time and died, or they were already have issues with the battery before they sold it to me.

My battery was the "white case" battery. I read on here on another post that those are more likely to die early (don't know if that's been confirmed). Once I pick up the car today from Honda, I'm going to look at the battery to see if it's another "white case" battery.

 

Thanks, yea I hope it's just defective battery too. That's an easy fix ;]

 

well, mines' working fine after 4yrs same with the one that was in the GD along with tens of thousands of other cars using the same battery.

through -10F to 100F+ no issue starting, so i dont see these batteries as what you described. there will be defective ones here and there, but that is just a part of manufacturing.

 

My money would be on a bad battery. Low miles and used could mean that it sat around a lot. Also, I believe that many of the 2010 fits got batteries with a single defective cell. A single cell going bad wouldn't trigger that blue floaty thing because that only monitors a single cell, not all 6.

Regardless, I wouldn't worry about it much until it happens again with the new battery.

 

Just replaced the 2008's battery. Went stock.

 

I didn't know that, thanks for the insight!

And I assume you had no issues prior to replacing? This really sounds like just a few people are getting defective batteries, which is actually very encouraging. With the other posts I was reading, it made it sound like a lot of people have issues with their Fit batteries, so I was afraid it was an issue with the car itself. I'll give this new battery a week then post an update.

Thank you all for your help, it's greatly appreciated

 

I think you had a defective battery and this new one will do the trick. If the new one dies then you know its something like a weak alternator (or loose belt), a light that remains on that you don't know about (like brake lights), or maybe bad or weak battery cables.

 

Stock battery. No issues at all.

 

My battery has been working fine. I actually upgraded my stock battery to a braille light weight battery, only 15 lb. Sorry to hear about your battery and hope it gets fixed. I still have my stock battery in my garage for about 4 months and still holds its charge