Gaining or losing miles after sitting is not unusual. Remember, you are looking at an estimate. So re-calibration can happen. kWh used is also an estimate and can be skewed by many small battery top-off vs. full discharge/recharge.
2013 Volt - Traction Battery Issue
My 2013 Volt with 89k miles had a CEL come on last week, took it to the dealer a week or so ago where they said one section of the battery needed to be replaced. Because they told me this one other time and it ended up not being true I waited for confirmation this time before posting here. I checked in with the service department today and they said that GM is sending a replacement for one section of the main traction battery. The service rep said there were bad cells, but I haven't seen that written/confirmed anywhere. He did say the battery is ordered, but it will take 3 weeks to get here. Oh, and tonight when leaving work another CEL came on stating something like "Service high voltage charging systems" and the car will not accept a charge at all.....Soooo, off to the dealership again in the morning, getting really tired of this car......love/hate relationship with the Volt, great car when it is working, but I have never in my life had so many issues with a vehicle.
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Thanks for the thoughts Steverino...... I've driven this car for 90k miles, I have a really good idea what is usual/unusual, gaining 4 miles and a bar after parking for 3 hours is certainly not normal in my car(never ever gained any miles ever, period)....sure as heck like gaining instead of losing 6 miles which is what was happening before the battery switch-out. These messages are posted to help others understand their Volts if they encounter similar issues, to marginalize these "issues" due to homerism is not helpful to anyone. I will report back after a week of driving to see how she behaves.Gaining or losing miles after sitting is not unusual. Remember, you are looking at an estimate. So re-calibration can happen. kWh used is also an estimate and can be skewed by many small battery top-off vs. full discharge/recharge.
Things seemed to be working fine until leaving work today and the dreaded CEL came on again. Get to go back to the dealer once again tomorrow, this is getting ridiculous now.....in fairness, I have no idea if the CEL is relative to the battery replacement, but if I was a betting man.....
When I was getting ready to leave for work this morning, I noticed that the Volt charge light on the dash was blinking as if it were fully charged(like usual), but it stopped 2 bars early. I unplugged and plugged it back in and it began to charge again, I had to leave before it was completely charged. Not sure if this might be related to the current CEL or possibly the recent battery replacement. I did drop off the car at the dealer this afternoon.....more to come.
My 2013 volt with 30K mostly electric miles threw a cel in mid Feb. I took it to the dealer 2/20 and found out today, mid March that the battery section is on order but I am 43 in line. The chevy volt factory rep did not know when it would ship. Do you think 3-4 weeks is to be expected?
My first battery replacement took less than 3 weeks.....I say first replacement as I just got back from the Chevy Dealer, they said my CEL was due to a 2nd section of the battery going bad, that's right, 2 bad battery sections and 1 week after another, I have requested that the 3rd section be replaced too, this is not good. This time it is section 2, section 3 was replaced already, they are waiting on GM tech to give a definitive answer on what to do. I guess the good news is I will have 2, possibly all 3 sections replaced, but I feel like I have a ticking time bomb with this car.My 2013 volt with 30K mostly electric miles threw a cel in mid Feb. I took it to the dealer 2/20 and found out today, mid March that the battery section is on order but I am 43 in line. The chevy volt factory rep did not know when it would ship. Do you think 3-4 weeks is to be expected?
This is my 1st GM vehicle ever and I am 56 years old, the only way I would ever consider driving another one is if GM bought me out of this one and I could consider a gas model....maybe this situation doesn't warrant such a discussion with GM, but that is where I am relative to GM and future ownership.
Yeah I hear you Gregg.. I got the same feeling, after driving this 4+ years no problem now in the shop glad to have the warranty, but think will need to consider keeping it since the value is so low, I will probably drive till 7.5 yrs up and get rid of it.
About the milage gain.. just before i got a cel I had 3 miles more on the charge than anytime ever. I never got above 41 or so and then suddenly was 44 every day for a week or so before the cel.
About the milage gain.. just before i got a cel I had 3 miles more on the charge than anytime ever. I never got above 41 or so and then suddenly was 44 every day for a week or so before the cel.
My first battery replacement took less than 3 weeks.....I say first replacement as I just got back from the Chevy Dealer, they said my CEL was due to a 2nd section of the battery going bad, that's right, 2 bad battery sections and 1 week after another, I have requested that the 3rd section be replaced too, this is not good. This time it is section 2, section 3 was replaced already, they are waiting on GM tech to give a definitive answer on what to do. I guess the good news is I will have 2, possibly all 3 sections replaced, but I feel like I have a ticking time bomb with this car.
I had one section replaced, no issues since (knock on wood). Unfortunately, it doesn't sound like they got to the root of the problem. When I had the one section replaced, it was also due to a temp sensor fail, but my understanding from the research I did is that there could be something else going on in the battery to CAUSE the sensor to fail. *** had a good discussion on it in another thread that I can't locate at the moment. In my case, it seemed only the temp sensor, but in yours--maybe not.
Unfortunately, this car is very "novel" and even a tech saying they've done "plenty" battery section replacements is likely nothing compared to the number of head gasket replacements or other ICE-related repairs at the dealership. There is just less overall experience with these systems and usually only one dedicated Volt tech--so it's not like he can just ask the guy in the bay next to him if he missed anything.
I would definitely bring it up the chain, worst they'll say is no.
Mine took a little over two weeks from order to installation of section #1My 2013 volt with 30K mostly electric miles threw a cel in mid Feb. I took it to the dealer 2/20 and found out today, mid March that the battery section is on order but I am 43 in line. The chevy volt factory rep did not know when it would ship. Do you think 3-4 weeks is to be expected?
GM said I would get section #2 delivered and installed by mid next week....not surprisingly, they will not replace section #1 as it is still operational......for now!!
I am frustrated with this car for sure, and I expect the 3rd battery section to fail at some point soon, hopefully before 100k. I am going to get a quote from the dealer on the cost to replace section #1 out of warranty and see if it makes sense to just drive this thing until everything fails.....lol....I honestly expect other issues/repairs if I keep the car past the warranty, so I am still up in the air about what to do.Yeah I hear you Gregg.. I got the same feeling, after driving this 4+ years no problem now in the shop glad to have the warranty, but think will need to consider keeping it since the value is so low, I will probably drive till 7.5 yrs up and get rid of it.
About the milage gain.. just before i got a cel I had 3 miles more on the charge than anytime ever. I never got above 41 or so and then suddenly was 44 every day for a week or so before the cel.
I got the Volt back, another temp sensor/module in the battery pack #2 that failed. I asked the service advisor to give me a quote on the cost to replace battery section #1 if/when it fails out of warranty, he said approx $4,500. Interesting that the guesstimate mileage available went from 1 left when I parked the car this morning to 5 available at lunch....I drove it at lunch and those extra 4 miles were real and I drained the battery at 11.2 kWh, my average when the car was new was around 10.5 kWh used. The mileage gain of 4 miles is something I never saw until right after the first battery section was replaced, that oddity eventually went away and I settled into about 10.4 kWh....I expect the same thing to happen over the next few days. Hopefully section #1 will fail before 100k, I am at 90k now, section #2 failed a week after Section #3, so fingers crossed...lol
Glad you got the Volt back. I would *hope* that if it fails just out of warranty you could make an argument that they should have replaced #1 when you had the other 2 sections fail within warranty. I'm sure a deal could be made.
I was getting over 11 kWh per charge pretty, but it slowly settled around 10.6 or so, which is about 0.3-0.5 more than what I used to get. I've noticed I can get a little more if I don't stop. I would be curious where this settles down for you. Interesting to get *more* EV range with 90K plus miles. An added bonus for the inconvenience...
I was getting over 11 kWh per charge pretty, but it slowly settled around 10.6 or so, which is about 0.3-0.5 more than what I used to get. I've noticed I can get a little more if I don't stop. I would be curious where this settles down for you. Interesting to get *more* EV range with 90K plus miles. An added bonus for the inconvenience...
Yeah, with sections 3 & 2 replaced I figure I have approx. 70% of the total capacity replaced, certainly is nice to have like new range on the car, just concerned about big dollar out of warranty expenses.I got the Volt back, another temp sensor/module in the battery pack #2 that failed. I asked the service advisor to give me a quote on the cost to replace battery section #1 if/when it fails out of warranty, he said approx $4,500. Interesting that the guesstimate mileage available went from 1 left when I parked the car this morning to 5 available at lunch....I drove it at lunch and those extra 4 miles were real and I drained the battery at 11.2 kWh, my average when the car was new was around 10.5 kWh used. The mileage gain of 4 miles is something I never saw until right after the first battery section was replaced, that oddity eventually went away and I settled into about 10.4 kWh....I expect the same thing to happen over the next few days. Hopefully section #1 will fail before 100k, I am at 90k now, section #2 failed a week after Section #3, so fingers crossed...lol
I ended up with 11.2 used today as well, the only difference was I seemed to get extra kWh on the front end, I couldn't even use regen on a steep downhill portion of my commute that I usually can....it is approx 3 miles into my drive, but no regen available....weird...Then when I parked at the office and returned for lunch the guess-o-meter showed 4 miles lost instead of 4 miles gained like the previous day. Still ended up with 11.2 used, just a different path to get there.
A few months have passed since my 2nd HV battery section was replaced. I am having a 4-6 mile loss every day now on the range guess-o-meter after parking in my work garage. It boils down to approx 1kWh loss while being parked, this is exactly what happened before my other 2 HV battery sections failed. I brought it to the dealer, but they could not(would not take the time/steps) replicate the shown loss I have witnessed so I have documented it myself over the last few weeks and will sit down with the Volt tech and service guy next weekend. It is a tough situation as I have a strong suspicion that the 3rd HV battery section is faltering, but I'm afraid it is going to be tough to get any cooperation from GM until it dies completely. I am at 95k miles right now too, which is not a good feeling considering I have a 5k ticking time-bomb in the car. I know some will say the guess-o-meter loss means nothing, but I have enough experience with this car and its previous HV battery failures to know that a daily 4-6 mile loss combined with real kWh reduction is not a good sign.
So, my case has found its way to GM engineering, they have decided that my Volt's battery section #1(only one that has not been replaced) may be out of balance. I believe I understood the service writer tell me it was in excess of 100 millivolts out of balance. They now have to take section#1 out of the car and "balance" it, then charge/drain...charge/drain.....and retest it, so we will see where this gets us. I don't know if this is true, but best I can tell from my limited research is that this out of balance condition can cause battery damage if not corrected. Have no idea if it has effected mine at this point in time, I will say that my kWh usage is down to 9.7 range now and I lose range/kWh every day while being parked.
I thought I would add that my understanding is the unbalanced battery section causes charging inconsistencies.....I immediately noticed reduced kWh/per bar available this morning, and then ended up only getting 9.3 kWh used on a full charge. That is far below anything I have ever seen on my 2013 Volt even when a battery section was known to be faulty. I know I have battery issues, will be interesting to see what GM does here.
That's pretty much how my 2015 went. They replaced every battery module and controller piece, still had a problem, then replaced everything else, AC, HV harness, charger, HPCM2, coolant reservoir, you name it, still had a problem and finally replaced the entire HV battery. took them 3 months.
I made it home and the service HV light was on again...
clench up buttercup.
I made it home and the service HV light was on again...
clench up buttercup.
lol....sounds worse than mine. You have to be a sleuth, and know your car well, or these problems will slip right by you.That's pretty much how my 2015 went. They replaced every battery module and controller piece, still had a problem, then replaced everything else, AC, HV harness, charger, HPCM2, coolant reservoir, you name it, still had a problem and finally replaced the entire HV battery. took them 3 months.
I made it home and the service HV light was on again...
clench up buttercup.
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