tommy- im no expert with batteries but from my many batteries ive dealt with including mine and many of my buddies and their gf's cars, once acid batteries are discharged to a certain point it cant seem to charge to full any longer. if a battery drains to near zero, den the best ure going to get a charge is like 85%. den u drain it again, it goes down to like 70% and so and until ti doesnt charge well any more.

but if u take care of it, ive had factory batteries last over 12yrs with no issue when i sold da car. only thing i did was keep a nice charge, check battery fluid level. even da GE's battery was 'non-maintenance' type but still added water and it easily lasted over 6yrs.

 

Looks like it's too late for me now. Since the indicator for needing charge doesn't go away, i must have permanently done something. Though it is weird -- I don't recall every having any hesitation in starting. No signs whatsoever of a problematic charge.

 

Hooray! After this 2nd weekend of high-rev extended-duration driving, the battery is now back to the healthy indicator colours of a red dot encircled by blue.

 

By the way, I strongly suspect that the charge issue is due in part to the fact that the vents must always be directed at the windshield to avoid fogging, and the A/C always engages when the vents are directed at the windshield (even though the LED on the manual A/C button doesn't show it). I see two design flaws here. One is the incessant fogging, even in ventilation mode (rather than circulate mode). I do not know the cause, but I know that this was not a problem in past subcompacts that I've driven or owned. So I always end up directing ventilation toward the windshield, which leads to the 2nd design flaw: One cannot choose to go without A/C when directing the ventilation at the windshield. I will never know whether directing the ventilation at the windshield would sufficiently avoid fogging without A/C -- that operational mode is not available. Whether it is sufficient probably depends on the external temperature, but at least I should have the choice and be able to try it.

These design decisions mean that whenever I'm driving, mo matter how short the drive, I will always need to direct ventilation to the windshield, and always have the A/C on. A hostile condition for the battery. To compensate, I have adjusted my driving pattern to always drive in high RPMs, i.e. choosing a gear that is lower than I would like to lessen wear on the engine. Basically, a poor design decision leads to a shorter engine life. Or, I can simply decide to change batteries every 3.5 years.

 

For the second generation, at least, it's pretty easy to disable the automatic air conditioner when defrosting feature. If you remove the access panel underneath the climate controls and above the forward cuddy hole in the front of the center console (it pulls down from the back, being secured by some rather strong clips), you'll see that there are two little wire connectors on the airflow direction knob unit. One of these is for its illumination, and the other turns on the air conditioning when in defrost mode. Unplug the latter one from the knob unit and the air conditioner will only come on when you press the air conditioner button. I think the one to unplug is the lower connector, but it's been a few years since I did mine.

 

Thanks, DrewE. A few years back, I got a lot of advice on the honda forums, and found that none of the posted diagrams matched what I saw in my 2013 Fit. So I gave up. I probably give up before mechanically inclined people, but I strongly believe that it is a wise thing.