Anoop, I can’t speak directly to your issue, but my 2021 RDX had not engaged its AIS in many months. I connected my battery charger and charged it for about 12 hours total at 2 amps/hour, and like magic, AIS instantly reared it’s annoying head. As russianDude suggested, your new battery may simply need a charge.

 

Just picked up the car. He said if it doesn't fix itself in about a month then I can bring it back. What would Acura say then? They might say the ECU has learned that I don't deserve to have AIS!

 

Anoop, do you have a voltmeter? If so, what does the battery voltage read?

My wife's AIS has not worked all that often since she got her 2022 RDX new -- always surprises me when it does. Her original battery is still fine, but not yet 4 years old with about 40k miles on it.

 

FWIW, my car never showed any signs of low battery that I would expect, such it being slow to crank and what not. It was only the AIS that took longer and longer to work (i.e. driving from a few minutes, to 15 minutes, to 30, etc), to it eventually not working at all. With a fresh battery, it's always active and only needs a few extra minutes of driving to be active when the car has been sitting for several days.

 

sad. This is typical Acura service now, keep pushing it off or say that they can’t reproduce hoping you give up. As I said before, I had my battery disconnected and reconnected, and AIS worked the same day. If battery is fully charged and you dont have any other issues it should work immediately, they are just wasting your time
unfortunately…

dont be surprised if in one month you will hear another BS excuse…

 

Do you have the ability to check the battery voltage? With engine off, and fully charged the battery should be between 12/6 and 12.8 vDC. Some guidance at Check battery voltage

The start/stop system will disable itself if the battery voltage is too low to guarantee an engine restart.
[img]data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAP///wAAACH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAICRAEAOw==[/img]

 

No I don't. But I'm assuming if that were the case the dealer would have found it and replaced it again or charged it up. There seems to be some other problem going on.

 

they will only start spending their time on it one month later. What about battery tender/charger? Try charging to max.

 

That's what it's looking like. I have sent Acura an email but am yet to hear back.

Don't have any equipment for testing/charging the battery. I'm a minimalist, so I don't like to buy stuff. I don't mind paying someone to do it if there is such a place (auto parts store?).

Just remembered I haven't yet tried this, so I will give this a shot.
https://acurazine.com/forums/3g-rdx-.../#post17006865

 

I tried this and it didn't help. In the process, I discovered the hood is so flimsy it flexes with the slightest bit of pressure.

I called Acura Client Relations and created a case. The rep there said since per the service advisor Acura has asked to wait for 2 weeks, I should wait till 2 weeks are over and if it's still not working, they'll escalate the case and have someone reach out to me. She asked what is my expected outcome of this. I said I hope they can diagnose it correctly and get it working like it should!

 

Do you take your car for long drives? Short trips might never charge your battery fully…

 

Even though AutoZone/Advance won’t get a battery sale out of this take the car to one of them and have them check the battery voltage while the engine is off and while the engine is running at fast idle. The result won’t positively identify the issue but may point you to the basic fact (alluded her by others) that the battery is just not charged to the threshold needed by the AIS. When the testing is all done, throw the tech $5.

 

What is long? I routinely do 10-12 miles one way (several times a week) and 20+ miles one way a couple of times a week. Trips more than 30 miles one way are rare.

But the question is why would it work for the most part of 3 years but stop now with the same driving patterns?

 

yeah, something is off. I would not rule out that the replacement battery is also bad. They need to do proper diagnostics. I guess you have to wait before they look at it again

 

A thought comes to mind...your sunrise is about 6:50 AM and sunset is about 5 PM. Based on your driving habits how much of your daily commute might be done with the headlights ON? When one looks at general guidance to recharge of a battery 10-12 miles falls at the short side and may not be enough by many guidlines.

 

There are actually a few other things that can inhibit AIS from activating. For example, the brake pedal needs to be depressed firmly, the HVAC can't be in min or max modes, the steering wheel can't be moving, the hood must be closed, etc.

The following is a list of items for my own RDX (as shown on my XTool OBDII scanner). Please note that not everyone of these items may exist on my RDX. What is actually available depends on options and country of use. I would have to click on each item to confirm if it is available, but hopefully you can see that battery condition may not be the only reason your AIS isn't working.

Your dealer should be able to diagnose your problem in a few minutes.

Edit: My car was parked, with the engine not running, and I was not wearing my seatbelt, at the time these screenshots were taken. That is why so many items were shown to be inhibiting my AIS

 

^ Thanks. I guess they didn’t find anything wrong with any of the diagnostics specifically related to AIS. For now I’m just driving it as is. Let’s see what happens in the next week or so.

 

That is only recent. This has been going on for a while. Yesterday, e.g., I put more than 50 miles on the car and AIS did not engage even once. Climate control is set to 76 Auto and I am fully depressing the brake to the point where the "Warming up" message displays.

 

I've never seen that message. Does it occur after or near the end of the 50 mile drive? If so perhaps there is some form of a coolant system problem. After a long drive, can you pop the hood and feel that the radiator is hot?

 

I haven't driven 50 miles straight in months, but it has occured after about 25-30 miles straight.

 

I'm going to back up to here... Have been following your saga with AIS and was hoping that you would have the success with what John from PA calls the "AIS relearn" procedure that I have had! I do a variation of it that has not failed me yet. Have had to do it several times with my RDX, whenever I've noticed over a couple week span that the AIS has stopped working. If what I write doesn't work for you, maybe it will work for somebody else.

For those who don't want to hunt back in old threads, the gist is that one of the many conditions for AIS to work is that the system thinks "all is secure". But due to a suspected software glitch there can be times where the system thinks the hood is open (so obviously all is not secure), could have been opened during servicing or whatever but it did not get the message the hood was closed. I see in the great list that RDX-Rick posted that hood open is a condition of AIS not working. Also seatbelt unfastened is in that list. In my procedure I've incorporated fastening the seatbelt, due to instinct? but now that I see it in the list maybe I'm on to something.

Here's what I did the last time it worked, which was TODAY! Needed to top up the washer fluid and thought I'd kill two birds with one stone and do The Procedure again:

- Hood open, engine off (like you would if you were topping off washer fluid!)
- Get in the vehicle, close driver's door, fasten your seatbelt
- Start the vehicle
- Oops, hood is open. You'll see the warning message on the dash
- Keep the vehicle running! Get out and close the hood
- Get back in, close driver's door, fasten your seatbelt again
- Shut off the vehicle
- Get out
- Lock the vehicle

Now everything should be in a state where the AIS will work at the earliest opportunity of conditions being met. Sometimes when I do this it works immediately. Today it didn't so I turned AIS messages on and instead of the dreaded "System charging" message it had the much easier to deal with "Adjust climate control" (or something to that effect). So I turned the temperature down a degree so the fan wasn't working as hard, and that did it. (Later as the car warmed up turned the temperature back up and the AIS was still working.)

If this works, you're welcome!

 

^ I had just returned home after driving more than 20+ miles (40+ miles round trip, but there was a grocery stop for about 20 min in between the 20+ mile trips). Did the above and went out for a test drive and it didn't work.

 

There is a good summary of AIS at AIS and it might be worth reviewing. One thing I see is the system wll not work when certain driving modes are activated. What mode are you using?

 

Comfort mode.

 

That is too bad. Cold morning here and my AIS is still working, though it took a while to kick in, it waited until the cabin pressure warmed up enough. Only other variable I can think of in the procedure I followed yesterday is that I had the electronic parking brake activated where I was parked. I don't remember if it didn't work if/when I hadn't done that though, so I'm grasping at straws here.

I remember early on when the battery was "new" (and not fully charged due to sitting at the plant for who knows how long) that trickle charging the battery till fully charged did the trick.

That's all I've got, nothing more than others have already suggested. Hope you get this resolved eventually.

 

​​​​​​Most mechanics will scan a car for trouble codes, when looking for a problem. These trouble codes occur when something abnormal is detected in the cars computer systems. For example, the air/fuel ratio is out of normal range, or the crankshaft sensor is not providing a signal. Your dealer probably scanned for trouble codes, and found that none existed, and then sent you on your way.

The screenshot from my earlier post shows the various inputs that determine when AIS is enabled to operate. They include things like seatbelt buckled, HVAC set to maximum, or steering wheel being moved. If the HVAC is set to maximum, that's not abnormal, and therefore will not create a trouble code, but it will create an inhibit message for AIS operation.. The same applies to most of the items in the screenshot, no matter what their value, they aren't considered a problem, and won't be displayed when performing a scan for trouble codes.

There are literally several hundred signals available in a car, which feed about 20 different computers in our RDX (triple that in the fancy cars). I feel it's safe to say that most mechanics aren't aware of a lot of the so called "Live Data" that is available, and will simply perform code scans. I only discovered those AIS parameters while searching for some non-related data in the engine computer.

 

They get no reimbursement from warranty for diagnostic time, they dont want to fix it.

 

My dealer charges $125 to do the “diagnostic” test.

 

thats when you are out of warranty, warranty they cant charge you

 

An interesting thing has started happening the last couple of days and today. AIS kicks in at the very first time that I come to a complete stop after I start the car. Thereafter, it never kicks in for the rest of the drive. Not sure what to make of it. Let's see if it changes within the next 2 weeks or so. Otherwise, I plan to contact both Acura (have a case open already) and the dealer.

 

Yeah, that doesn't sound right at all. AIS never activated on our car until the engine was up to or darn close to normal operating temperature. I have a feeling you're going to be contacting Acura again.

 

Let us know if contacting Acura corporate does anything, many say they are pretty useless

 

An interesting article on AIS at AIS no longer working

 

Since the last couple of days or so, it appears AIS has started working as expected. So it looks like the service advisor was correct and the system does go through some learning before it starts kicking in regularly.

Initially, it never kicked it (about 2-3 weeks).
Then, it started kicking in only the very first time that I came to a full stop (about 1-2 weeks).
Now, it's started kicking in at most stops as expected.

If something changes and it seems to not be working right, I'll come back and update this thread.

 

Then how to explain when I disconnected and reconnected my battery,
AIS worked the same day?
there is something more than just battery disconnect

 

What year is your car? Could it be that they made changes after the update in MY2022? Mine is a 2023.

 

2020, its possible its different, I dont know

 

This worked for my TLX thank you! It usually doesn't work but it worked the same day right after I followed your steps

 

I would love for my AIS to stop working, or have a way to disable it. I always disable it, unless I forget. Unnecessary wear on starter and engine, its stupid.

 

Isn’t the starter beefier than on models without this feature? When the feature was new, the BMW 3 series (F30) was said to have a starter that had a life 6x more than in the model it replaced (E90). Battery was bigger as well. So I think the components are all engineered to handle the extra load.