[1RiverMan1]

In mid September, before it started to get colder in Toronto, the battery in my 2013 Volt lost about 25% of its capacity virtually overnight and it has never come back. I have not contacted my Volt advisor for almost four years, so perhaps he is no longer doing this work. The email I sent him, however, did not bounce back and after three weeks I am hoping another advisor will contact me.

Neither my service advisor at Humberview Motors nor I know how to proceed with this warranty issue. Could someone from GM please advise

Thanks

 

[Upper5Percent]

In mid September, before it started to get colder in Toronto, the battery in my 2013 Volt lost about 25% of its capacity virtually overnight and it has never come back. I have not contacted my Volt advisor for almost four years, so perhaps he is no longer doing this work. The email I sent him, however, did not bounce back and after three weeks I am hoping another advisor will contact me.

Neither my service advisor at Humberview Motors nor I know how to proceed with this warranty issue. Could someone from GM please advise

Thanks

How did you determine you lost 25% of capacity??
From the guessometer??
Because the guessometer for Gen1s will continue to go down as it gets colder and you start using the heater...
Our 2013 will give MAYBE 28 miles OR LESS(especially if you are running your heater on HIGH in Comfort Mode... ) of EV driving in the dead of winter...and high 40s in the late Spring through the early Fall...

Your Chevrolet Service Manager SHOULD KNOW who to contact on a warranty action...

 

[jayoldschool]

You haven't lost any capacity. You have lost range. That happens in the cold. You will magically get more range in April. Or May.

 

[Loboc]

Check the capacity on the leaf screen. You are probably using more of the battery for non-driving such as heating the cabin. It only has to get down to 50F(10C) temp at night to lose a bunch of range.

For a 2013, you should have around 10.4 kWh used for a complete battery drain. If it’s less than 8.0, there may be a warranty capacity loss. I’m thinking you would get errors though.

Yes, I had a 2013.

The Volt advisor program has been rolled into an EV advisor program. I don’t know the number.

 

[1RiverMan1]

I tried to be clear. I said "mid September before it started to get cold". I have owned this car through 4 winters, so I know what happens to the range due to cold weather. The weather is NOT the issue. Every summer 87km has been the tops indicated on the dash in the morning. It reached that for a while this year as well. In September this year the highest shown suddenly became 65 km, hence the 25% drop. This has nothing to do with cold weather (we had summer temperatures here in September) or using the heater.

 

[El Dobro]

Just keep harping on GM until you get answers. A squeaky wheel gets the grease.

 

[SVoyager]

87km for a gen1? My guess is the GoM just decided now to show you more sensible numbers. I have a gen1, 2014 and I will get about 65-70km. I managed once to make the GoM go crazy and show me 97km (took a pic of it). Unless you drive at 30km/h all the time, I think the 87km mark you were getting was not accurate.

Did you try to see how much range you actually got with it? Do a full drive 100-0% and record the km's you did?
My guess is that you probably did closer to the 65km that you currently have indicated.

.02$

 

[bentbiker]

Instead of talking about the top indicated range forecast for the charge, how about advising what you actually get on full charge; you can get a forecast of 65 and end up getting 87. I've NEVER gotten anywhere near 87km (54 mi) on my '13. Do you have a new lead-footed driver who's causing your estimate to be lower because they use more kWh/mi than you did in the past?

Edit: SVoyager types faster than me.

 

[scrambler]

I tried to be clear. I said "mid September before it started to get cold". I have owned this car through 4 winters, so I know what happens to the range due to cold weather. The weather is NOT the issue. Every summer 87km has been the tops indicated on the dash in the morning. It reached that for a while this year as well. In September this year the highest shown suddenly became 65 km, hence the 25% drop. This has nothing to do with cold weather (we had summer temperatures here in September) or using the heater.

You should still check the usable capacity versus the range, by monitoring kwh and miles used once the battery is depleted.
If you are still using around 10.4 kWh it would indicate the capacity is still there. Now of course the battery may not be holding it as well, which is more complicated to diagnose without the proper tool, and this is where an official GM evaluation would be useful.

 

[Henry_FL]

In September this year the highest shown suddenly became 65 km, hence the 25% drop..

No issues there, here in Florida my 2013 range is about that ( 41 miles ) for a car that is rated 37 miles

 

[HighlanderICT]

In mid September, before it started to get colder in Toronto, the battery in my 2013 Volt lost about 25% of its capacity virtually overnight and it has never come back. I have not contacted my Volt advisor for almost four years, so perhaps he is no longer doing this work. The email I sent him, however, did not bounce back and after three weeks I am hoping another advisor will contact me.

Neither my service advisor at Humberview Motors nor I know how to proceed with this warranty issue. Could someone from GM please advise

Thanks

Everyone seems to get Dan Reynolds as their advisor in Toronto (everyone I spoke to anyway). He emailed me this weeek after my car got towed. will send you a PM with his details.

 

[DonC]

I think I've lost some range though not 25%. I also changed the tires which can radically change the electric range, at least at first. I also found that, when looking at OnStar, I was only charging to 94%. This happened after taking in the car for some work so it's difficult to know how much was due to the tires, the charging, or an upgrade.

 

[TheBlueFlash]

OP still hasn’t said how many kWh he’s using before ICE kicks in. I’d like to see that.

 

[Neromanceres]

I tried to be clear. I said "mid September before it started to get cold". I have owned this car through 4 winters, so I know what happens to the range due to cold weather. The weather is NOT the issue. Every summer 87km has been the tops indicated on the dash in the morning. It reached that for a while this year as well. In September this year the highest shown suddenly became 65 km, hence the 25% drop. This has nothing to do with cold weather (we had summer temperatures here in September) or using the heater.

You haven't given any information that would lead me to believe that this is battery degradation. In fact I would be 99.99% certain it isn't.

What is your actual range on a full charge?
When you fully deplete the EV range what does the car register as the KWh used?

Then you should look at things like tire pressure. Did you get new tires?
Are the brake calipers sticking?
Possible problem with a bearing or wheel hub causing increased frictional losses?
Did the dealer do a software update that reset some of your settings to default and turned the auto defog on?
Alignment issues?

When it comes to "actual" decreased range there are several things that are likely the cause before battery degradation. GM has never had to replace a battery pack due to battery degradation yet on a Volt. And their battery cell failure rate is one in 2 million. But if a cell had failed your check engine light would be on and it would be throwing a number of codes.

 

[linkim]

The GOM is not the best indicator of battery degradation. I have direct experience with battery degradation in my 2011 LEAF. I have a Bluetooth Elm 237 dongle that connects to the OBD II port and an app to read the battery capacity (Ah), as well as other parameters. I started collecting data on 7/11/13 when I got the dongle and the Android app. The results collected to 9/7/17 clearly show the degradation of the battery capacity. The initial capacity was about 66 Ah but by 9/7/17 it decreased to less than 50 Ah. Of course, the actual EV range has dropped to somewhere around 55 miles. Since I drive the LEAF for only short distances, I don’t have a good idea of the actual range. Bottom line, if you want to see degradation, check out an early LEAF. I have not tried to use the dongle on my Volt because I don’t expect to see much change in the battery – maybe later when I get tired checking the LEAF battery.

 

[1RiverMan1]

Thank you HighlanderiCT. The email address I have for Dan must no longer be in use. I would appreciate knowing what you have for him.

 

[Fyodor]

I tried to be clear. I said "mid September before it started to get cold". I have owned this car through 4 winters, so I know what happens to the range due to cold weather. The weather is NOT the issue. Every summer 87km has been the tops indicated on the dash in the morning. It reached that for a while this year as well. In September this year the highest shown suddenly became 65 km, hence the 25% drop. This has nothing to do with cold weather (we had summer temperatures here in September) or using the heater.

I don't know your driving profile, but I have never, ever, seen anywhere near 87 km on the guessometer. About 70 is what I normally see, and I usually meet or exceed that in reality. Yes, mine is a 2012 but the effective difference in battery capacity is actually very small.

There are other reasons for a sudden drop in actual range. If you haven't been regularly servicing the brake calipers I would start by looking there.

 

[VoltenRock]

GM dealerships have access to a specific battery capacity measurement device. I had it used on my '13 when I had strange battery issues (addressed in another thread). However, it's an expensive piece of equipment that usually is loaned to dealerships--it's highly unlikely any dealership would have this device laying around. They would need to request it and jump through some hoops with corporate in order to justify borrowing it.

I only got this special attention after documenting my actual range (full charge to empty) for 30 days as a spreadsheet. Maybe you'll have better luck with less work, but it won't hurt to start keeping a log.

*** referenced it in another thread, you might want to go through some of the older threads on battery issues.

 

[Loboc]

Still haven’t seen the actual kWh used...

 

[CCIE]

Significant battery degradation in our cars is unheard of. Cells/Modules do rarely fail, but that should set some codes and light up your CEL. So, if you're going to claim degradation, include some pictures showing the miles and kWh used during a full discharge cycle.

Usually these issues are people who haven't fully discharged their car in a long time. Partial discharges confuse the car over time. You need to fully charge and fully discharge it a few times to get that lost range back.