The dealer said something about the battery chemistry changing since the model I have which requires a full replacement instead of just a section. Any ideas if that's BS worth calling out.
B.S. or ignorant dealer. What was once true is no longer. TSB 19-NA-242 GM Gen 1 Battery Pack Refurbish Kit
The GreenTec batteries come with a 3 year, unlimited mile warranty. For those who travel a lot, it may be a good deal to swap and then sell before the warranty ends. May provide 80k or so of driving which is a good chunk of life and the car may still hold some value.
Was the battery almost at zero range when the car died? I ask because maybe "bad" cell isn't dead but merely lower than the rest and there's a chance you could clear the codes and run the car in mountain mode for a few months.
I'm not aware of any reason it can't be driven like that longer than a few months. Maybe others do.
Clublife (see post #6) tried that, and reported that it worked for a time, but the battery eventually gives out. It's appears to be a temporary band-aid verses a long term fix.
Tech could not clear the permanent P0AFA code because he couldn't get the car to turn on. He had the secret code to use to clear the code, but the car has to be ON to do that. But you can't turn the car ON because the contractors are open, isolating the HV battery. A catch-22 situation, sounds like to me.
Needs to read the manual. The car doesn't have to be ON on to clear these codes. Service mode with proper 12v support is the right way to do this.
Just saw the use of peddle.com for selling your car (running or not it seems)
www.gm-volt.com
Mine originally had issues like these but the dealership put it on “life support” with a 12V charger and was able to clear the code. But it did get towed around a few times before I went to the dealer (first to my home, then via another tow totaling 65 miles). It might have just been a low battery voltage due to all the towing that caused mine to not initially reset, who knows?
My 12V battery was still good, but the dealer claimed they could not clear the code because the car would not turn on due to the failed HV battery.
I'll bet the Volt tech who worked on my car didn't know how to do that. The 12V battery was still good even though the HV battery was dead. Who knows, we might have been able to clear the code and charge the battery back up. I'll never know now, the car is gone.
