It could well be the water heater. It may not be possible for the water heater circuit to be 'detected' whether it is on or off, so the only way it can tell is if a driving cycle meets the conditions and it goes from pending to confirmed (EG, conditions met, turn heater on, wait 5 minutes, did the temp rise? no - raise fault).
It would be good to know if the water heater is HV powered (I suspect it is), which creates extra difficulty in sensing its circuit voltage safely. Under the bonnet there are the 6 big orange cables labelled A to F , I think there was a key somewhere as to where they went...
Power System Problem dash warning
It’s been at the dealers since the bank holiday weekend, they spent a while trying to reproduce the error I was seeing on their end by driving it and draining the charge. They sent info from the cars computer to Honda Germany, and received a response today to push a different charging software update in response to the error. From whatever tests they’ve done, they don’t seem to think there is any hardware issue.
So waiting and seeing, fingers crossed
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So waiting and seeing, fingers crossed
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Deleted User 473
Doesn't sound very reassuring! I had a similar experience with the radar sensor in the civic. They cleared the fault. It came on again so I took it back, they cleared it and said no fault. On the drive home it came on again, I took it back. I said drive it as much as you need to until its fixed, if it comes on again we'll return the car. Turns out the radar bracket was bent, so the alignment procedure wasn't working properly, so it would always have been wrong, it would fail after about 25miles (when it couldn't correlate the camera input to the radar input). Annoyingly the bracket most likely got damaged as the result of an accident which wasn't disclosed, but there you go, second hand cars for you.
I suspect they haven't driven it long enough to trigger the fault?
I suspect they haven't driven it long enough to trigger the fault?
I’m not that reassured either, mainly because this particular warning on standard AC chargers hasn’t been seen on the forums at all, and naturally that makes me think it’s a hardware issue (whether minor or major) with my particular car.
The service technician I spoke to also said that this particular update was a new one they were building that would also pushed to other owners, because it addressed the similar but different DC charging error that all the other users have reported on here, my random car being the first to receive such an update seems like it’s a bit too good to be true
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They have driven the car enough to trigger the P0E12 error again, but I’m not sure if they’ve driven and/or charged it enough to make the amber light turn on, which it does if that error holds long enough. But it’s intermittent so it’s difficult and it can come on and go away, I can’t be leaving the car with them indefinitely after all, it will soon be two weeks!
It also doesn’t help that it’s hard to get information about what the softwares updates are doing, it’s a black box explanation, you don’t actually know what’s wrong or how it was fixed, even in layman’s terms, just that the update, if it works, stops the error from showing. For all I know an update could just be blocking the error from showing on the OBD/dash instead of fixing anything and the end user would be none the wiser until something serious breaks down years down the line.
I am going to give the same suggestion, that they keep the car long enough after pushing a fix to ensure that this isn’t going to repeat, and to re-iterate that they take a thorough look / do tests beneath the bonnet, which I believe they have done.
All that said still hoping for the best
The service technician I spoke to also said that this particular update was a new one they were building that would also pushed to other owners, because it addressed the similar but different DC charging error that all the other users have reported on here, my random car being the first to receive such an update seems like it’s a bit too good to be true
.They have driven the car enough to trigger the P0E12 error again, but I’m not sure if they’ve driven and/or charged it enough to make the amber light turn on, which it does if that error holds long enough. But it’s intermittent so it’s difficult and it can come on and go away, I can’t be leaving the car with them indefinitely after all, it will soon be two weeks!
It also doesn’t help that it’s hard to get information about what the softwares updates are doing, it’s a black box explanation, you don’t actually know what’s wrong or how it was fixed, even in layman’s terms, just that the update, if it works, stops the error from showing. For all I know an update could just be blocking the error from showing on the OBD/dash instead of fixing anything and the end user would be none the wiser until something serious breaks down years down the line.
I am going to give the same suggestion, that they keep the car long enough after pushing a fix to ensure that this isn’t going to repeat, and to re-iterate that they take a thorough look / do tests beneath the bonnet, which I believe they have done.
All that said still hoping for the best
After the two software updates and a coolant flush/refill, the dealership has tested it again by driving it from full to low to see if any fault codes are still being stored after clearing, but P0E12 continues to be logged. They've spoken to Honda again and now they believe it's a hardware fault, they are going to replace the heater/cooler itself. Now waiting for that part to be delivered and installed next week. I have asked whether the loop itself has been checked / examined in any other way, in case it's just some gunk in the pipework or something simpler, but it seems like they are convinced that the heater unit itself needs to be replaced.
All in all, still progressing so that's good.
There is something about the modular nature of these repairs that is disconcerting though, and I haven't owned a car like this one, but it seems like if there is an issue, the first port of call appears to be replace instead of repair. It's like the door handles glitching, maybe they just need some lubrication, but dealerships will probably advise a replacement instead. Maybe this is an internal circuit failure though and a replacement is essential, I don't know. Slightly worrisome for the long term when this car goes out of warranty and parts become increasingly scarce.
All in all, still progressing so that's good.
There is something about the modular nature of these repairs that is disconcerting though, and I haven't owned a car like this one, but it seems like if there is an issue, the first port of call appears to be replace instead of repair. It's like the door handles glitching, maybe they just need some lubrication, but dealerships will probably advise a replacement instead. Maybe this is an internal circuit failure though and a replacement is essential, I don't know. Slightly worrisome for the long term when this car goes out of warranty and parts become increasingly scarce.
The heater unit has been replaced and the dealership is driving the car to test it again as they did to diagnose the fault before. They’ve done around one cycle and recharge and no fault is logged so far. They’re going to do another one at my request just to double check.
So fingers crossed it looks like the issue is fixed… going to be a few days in any case until I’m available to go and collect the car.
Hopefully this is the end. If it is then I think the dealership has handled this well overall. It was slow but I get it because of the intermittent nature of this fault.
So fingers crossed it looks like the issue is fixed… going to be a few days in any case until I’m available to go and collect the car.
Hopefully this is the end. If it is then I think the dealership has handled this well overall. It was slow but I get it because of the intermittent nature of this fault.
Repair done, car collected. Have to drive it and charge it when it gets to low to see if the problem is gone but they are certain of it. Car needed to be driven by the dealership around 400 miles in total in the process of diagnosing, repairing and verifying the repair. A photo of the main replaced component is attached, it's the HV heater unit. There is also another smaller secondary heater that was replaced but I didn't see that old part. Total cost of parts and labour would be >£3,000 if this were out of warranty, which would be effectively a write off of the car for me. Noteably I was informed that this component is not considered part of the HV system for the purpose of the longer 8 year warranty, that applies solely to the battery.
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