Add a Capacitor to the car, especially if you have an aftermarket stereo.

I've mentioned this before as well and while it won't help with a light left on in the car, I found that it helped with my integra and starting in cold weather. I had a .5 Farad lightning cap for my stereo system in my integra and that car started every time for 7 years on the OEM battery. Never replaced it. After 4 years of ownership, Honda said that my battery was needing to be replaced and I figured, When it died, I'd replace it. Well, I ran another 3 years on that battery with sub-zero winters.

I still have the lightning cap and think I'll put it in the Fit even if the subs never make it in.

~SB

 

oh, turns out I did NOT leave on any visor light. there IS no visor light. so it remains a mystery.

 

Any chance you're not closing the hatch all the way? The light back there isn't obvious if the hatch is just barely open/not fully latched.

 

I just triple checked the hatch: closed.

I must say, it's fun to drive a car that owners love - and love to fiddle with - it is so nice that so many care about each other. Maybe we should take over the country.

 

best of luck!!!!! JJ

 

no donuts or visor light. well at least I feel better.

car batteries are not fine wine; they get worse with age. They do get fickle with age (must... resist... making... metaphors).

Couple things could affect performance intermittently:

As batteries age, material from the plates drops off and collects in the bottom. The plates are raised within the acid bath so they don't contact this material, until enough drops off, or the position of the car is such that the material moves inside the battery and makes contact. The result is loss of power.

Heat or cold can make internal battery connections intermittent. The 1st cold and hot days of the year are heralded with cars failing to start. It could be there is enough of a fault to make a connection after the car and battery have warmed up, but fail after it's sat for a while.

If it were out of warranty it's a no brainer. The car is almost 3 years old, it's almost certainly the battery. It should be replaced as long as the car's charging/starting systems check out. We should have asked you to ask Honda to perform these tests.

If it were me, after batting my eyes at teh service manager and failing to impress him to warranty the battery, I'd negotiate a lower price on a new battery. If that failed I'd probably swing by autozone and pick up their overpriced $132 battery just to spite Honda.

 

happy ending though: car started five times today.
also, while 2009, car is only 1.5 years old (i.e., sat in lot until I bought it in April of 10)

thanks for all the good humor and good advice.

 

Sitting in purgatory on a dealer's lot will do a number on the battery. Infrequent starts, recharging from completely dead after sitting for over a month. Worse than regular driving which maintains the battery near full charge.

 

That's actualy probably a sign that you've got a marginal battery. Dealer lots are bad places for car batteries. Long times sitting, then starting and driving a short distance, then sitting again. It won't always kill the battery but does weaken it.

 

great minds... (or is it feeble minds?)

 

What? No donuts??:d

 

even happier ending.
Well, a week later, after three short runs the day prior, dead again! This time, called for a roadside jump and drove to Honda - 3 miles, so it wouldn't be charged up as it as last time I drove to Honda.
Well, it "read" to their instruments: bad.
They replaced it! All's well now, so it was not "me" afterall.
Meantime, guy said about a car sitting in a lot a year that they keep records and they have to juice it up at least once a month.
No donuts.

 

yay!567890

 

GOOD FOR YOU!!! i knew sooner or later they would have to replace the battery.As for me , I heard Costco has them for less than $90,at the first sign of a defective battery i'm not waiting for Honda to decide by trial and error,I'll make sure the charging system works and using pure logic replace it myself if necessary,anyway,really glad this is REALLY over for you. Stay safe,,JJ

 

I'm late with this, I know. But twice I've left my 2010 Fit Sport in airport parking for a week and come back to find the battery dead. (Fortunately, the second time, I was on the roof level of the garage and was able to push it to the exit and compression start it going down the ramp.) The battery has also gone dead a few times overnight in the driveway on a cold night. The problem: I left the map light on. I was pretty surprised that Honda didn't have an automatic shutoff for the map light; I thought all cars had that sort of thing these days. Despite some of the snide comments earlier in the chain, I think this is a pretty understandable driver error. That's because when you stop the car at night, you turn on the map light to see if there's anything on the passenger seat you need to take in. When you open the door, the dome light comes on, and stays on for several minutes when you close the door and walk away -- making it easy to miss noticing you've left the map light on. I hope Honda fixed this in later models. After 50,000 miles, this is my ONLY complaint with this car, which -- with 5-speed manual transmission -- I refer to as my "poor man's Porsche." I even like the much-maligned lines of the car, which give it the shape of a bullet!

 

Aw man understandable error.

When I lock the doors with my alarm the dome light turns off. The OEM doesn't do this or you don't lock it that way? I have dealership aftermarket remote and alarm so not sure.

 

This was one of my only complaints with the car too, sucks but we just have to all be a little more careful it seems

 

I often wonder..is it possible the FIT is not really a Honda? It lacks so many features my previous Honda vehicles all had ,even the most basic models. JJ

 

Yes, dome light goes off -- but map light doesn't.

 

Map light has a mechanical switch. If you turn it on, it will stay on. Consider the alternative. You might have to stop at night in a place you'd rather not be to read a map or make a call and want to turn on the light while you kept the doors locked. Would you want the light to go off by itself after some interval? It's a compromise, I'm sure.

Of course I can see the car through the garage window—whoops. Left the map light on again.

Cheers.