I have a 2012 Honda Fit and I forgot to turn off the interior light one evening and I found the battery was that two days later I have her charge the battery and it works fine. However status indicator still shows that it needs to be charged it has a red circle inside surrounded by the white circle. It worked fine before this happened and I don't know why didn't change back to the charged status. Can you check on your battery to see what that indicator looks like? Thanks.

 

I'm assuming that you found the battery dead two days later. Did you have the battery charged or just jumped? It can take several hours to fully charge a dead battery. Likewise, if you only jumped the battery to get the car running, it can take several hours of driving before its fully charged. You can take your car to most places that sell batteries and have it tested. (The modern testers are much more sophisticated than the old ones.)

 

hook it up to a battery manager until it floats.

 

what I discovered the battery was dead it wasn't completely dead the light was still on in the cabin I took it to my house in the charged it overnight with the flow charger and then another 30 minutes at a faster pace so it was charged enough to obviously start the car how and then I drove it for two days without any problems but the indicator still shows that it is in need of being charged that's what's bothering me. So can you guys report what your indicator shows on your original battery? Thanks.

 

blue. my 09's battery (original) is still showing blue. my '12 is also blue.


you need to charge it full until it floats. not just a quick charger and some short trips.

 

thanks for your reply. I noticed that it is finally showing as fully charged today. This is after 2 days of driving back and forth to work. My Dr office 30 minutes or 25 miles one way. On highway. Okay, I guess now its all good thanks.

 

Honda makes the alternator "turn off" to 12.3 volts of charging power while in "economy" mode.

Hence why it took quite a while to show up as fully charged.


I recommend the purchase of a battery tender, some of the chargers available today assume its a bigass truck battery and requiring hours and hours of charging, and may overcharge the battery somewhat, then stop charging, then keep pulsing back and forth.

a small <$100 battery tender will keep the battery in excellent condition if you dont use the car for say, at least a week for something

 

I am definetly in favor of small chargers/mainteiners.
In fact, I used the float charger that I got from Harbor Freight for $4.99. It puts out a maximum of 0.5 amp and up to 13.8 volts. So it's more than sufficient to charge up just about any battery given enough time.
I bought it to use with my scooter's 6 amp battery primarily but it did its job to charge up the fit's battery when it was plugged in for about 12 hours. It's just that I had to go to work and had to unplug it before it had the chance to probably get fully charged. I did top it off with 6 amp rate charger for about 20 minutes and another 10 minutes at 2 amp.

I don't know where you got about 12.3 volts as the resting voltage of the battery is 12.66. Every time I measured alternator's voltage it was 13.4+. Of course that's during idling, so I am not sure if it could be different during the "economy" mode you are mentioning.
In either case, I was happy to finally see the indicator show full charge again. It's a 1 y.o. battery and I was always super gentle on it, hoping that it will last 5+ yrs.

My commute to and from work is about 20 miles on the freeway, which gives the battery a perfect opportunity to do gentle charge cycles per day.

My previous car 2010 fit did the same commute for 3 yrs and never showed a single sign of battery weakening. My dad drives it now (at nearly 4 yrs old), the battery still performs flowlessly. He did forget to turn headlights once, jumpstarting it about a year ago.

Southern California climate is a lot gentlier on batteries than say, Minnesotta or Florida. I really am hoping to see some long use out of mine.

Btw, I looked at the electrolyte level and it was perfect. I intend to keep checking that about once a year, and willing to take the sticker off to add distilled water if level becomes too low.