Hi guys. I am new here so i hope you guys will be able to help me out. i live in montreal and we have very cold winters here. We always have a hard time starting our honda fit 07 when temperatures go below -15 c. Its been 6 years and always had the same problem. I purchased a brand new battery last year and this morming the car still wouldnt start. I want to mention that we have a remote starter/alarm on the car so we are wondering if the problem is that. Some people said that its possible that the starter is draining juice from the battery. Lets say in the summer we dont use the car for 2 weeks then the car will not start neither. So is the problem here the starter? Or is it that the 151r battery is very weak in the cold? Or is the starter +151r battery the problem? Finally i was reading about the 51r battery but dont know if its worth it spending the money if that wont solve the problem. Anyways thank you for your help.

 

Wrap a heat tape around the battery to keep it warm on these cold nights. that will keep her starting in this cold weather.
You still have something draining your battery if it dies in the summer.
GL and let us know if that works out.

 

That's what I do I put a heat wrap around it. But is it normal for a new battery to still do that? Should I put the 51r??

 

I can not think of a scenario where the starter would drain a battery. The 151r is a very small battery but you are alsol startign a very small engine. My daughter's 2009 started at -19 F (-28C) a couple of weeks ago on a 5 year old 151R. I honestly did not expect it to.

I am assuming when you say "won't start", you mean won't crank or cranks very slowly.

If something is discharging the battery you need to find out what is causing the problem. Did you add any aftermarket electrical items? If hooked up incorrectly the Electronic Load Detector not fully charge the battery.

You might want to get a voltmeter and plug it into the accessory socket and see what the voltages are first thing in the morning. Based on that reading we can determine if the battery is being drained or not.

The Equus 3721 is a good one for about $20.00

If you want a real cheap one, get one out of China for about $5.00 delivered .
LED 12V Cigarette Lighter Voltage Meter Monitor Tester for Auto Car Battery | eBay

A fully charged battery will read 12.6 in the morning. Anything below 12.2 on a cold morning means the battery is not fully charged or has deteriorated. I have a 5 year old battery in a Colorado that is reading 12.1 on cold mornings (below 0 F.). I'm hoping it will last through the winter. I have one of those cheap Chinese meters plugged into into it and look at it almost every time before I start it.

We need to know some voltages before guessing what is going on.

I just found this URL in another thread on this site. It explains how to use the Equus or any other voltmeter.

 

lol, you guys need to read his post "did you add any aftermarket electrical parts"? He just said he has a remote starter. I also live in Montreal and yes the 51r will end all your woes.

I also have a remote starter and I'm pretty sure it drains battery. There is an antenna and I suspect some sort of receiver must receive power for it to work. I've only noticed an issue when I've left my car parked for 2-3 days in ultra cold conditions. I got my 51r from Costco at Marché Central for 65$ with an 8 year warranty. It's battery #11.

My car starts up every time no matter the weather. I got 500 CCA instead of the ridiculous 330 CCA! What was Honda thinking?

 

You are correct. I missed the remote starter comment completely.

I wonder how much current it draws.

I also wonder where the hooked it up for +12 volts.

I had a Colorado with a similar problem and it took weeks for me to figure it out. The problem turned out to be the BCM not going into sleep mode. It was not going to sleep because of an add on compass / temperature mirror. Power for the mirror was taken from +12 volts for the interior lights. The BCM saw the current draw on the interior lights and assumed that someone was still inside and stayed awake. Moving the power source for the mirror to an unmonitored source fixed the problem.

I learned from that experience that the BCM in sleep mode should draw less the 20ma.

You could try disconnecting the remote starter or try checking the current draw on the battery after the car has been parked for 10 minutes or so.

 

I think I will buy a 51r battery to solve all the problems. Does it fit in a 07 model? I will also measure battery drainage with a Multimeter. I think that the remote starter combined with 330 cca battery is not good....

 

I'm not trying to talk you out of the 51R but if your problem is drain on the battery you will only get a 52% increase in time before the battery goes dead. On the Colorado that I was chasing the similar problem on, I would drain an 800 CCA battery to the point it would not start the truck in 3.5 days. It all depends on the size of the drain and the capacity of the battery.

During that diagnostic process I contacted GM engineering and found out that their design spec was to allow a vehicle to park for 30 days (1 month) and still start. To meet that requirement they needed the sleeping current draw to be less than 20 ma. and the minimum battery size to be 550 CCA. Mine now draws 18 ma.

I have to assume that a Honda Fit would be somewhere close to the same numbers. VW ships some or all new vehicles with a small solar panel in the front window to keep their cars battery charged while parked on the lot for extended periods of time. These are removed before new car delivery to the customer. You can find these used on ebay all the time for around $30.00. They plug into the accessory plug or the diagnostic plug. These will not fix your problem if you are drawing too much current, but long term parking is an issue with all computer equipped cars which is almost everything these days.

Please measure the current draw when the BCM is suppose to be sleeping and also please measure the battery voltage after the car has been parked overnight.