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So this last week has been hectic. 2018 Volt Premier.
I live in a very small town, the nearest volt certified dealer is over 2.5 hours away from me.
In October of 2020 I received an engine code for P0B9A “Hybrid/EV Battery Voltage Sense “T” Circuit, I took it to the closest dealer who performed some recall work and informed me they did not have a Volt Tech and I would need to drive it to another dealer for that service. About a week later I made the journey to the dealer 2.5 hours away, and was promptly told that the code had already resolved itself and there was nothing to do. (I had them document that I was in for service.)
Fast forward to this last week, as I have had no issues since.
I traveled down about 750 miles to Orange County to visit family and attend a funeral. I was staying at my parents house when disaster struck. My stepfather had been cleaning in their garage, to make room for the model Y they have ordered, when I heard a loud pop and he shouted for me to come out to the garage. I come out there to see my stepfather had destroyed my travel EVSE (Clipper Creek LCS-20). Apparently while cleaning he had inadvertently stretched the cable out in the way of the garage door track by placing some boxes on the cord leading to the car in the driveway. So when he attempted to close the door, it hit the charger and stopped. Being frustrated and tired, he kicked his boxes around not seeing what was stopping the door, and they proceeded to “force close” the garage door. As it came down this time, it ripped the 14-50p plug and wires from the top of the EVSE causing the loud pop and shorting the breaker at the same time.
So I came out to the garage, and see my EVSE in 2 parts, there goes $400. Then, knowing I was only partially charged, I reset the breaker and attempt to charge with the factory EVSE. At this point I knew there was a problem. I plugged in the factory 120/240 charger and the charge indication light on the dash turned yellow, and stayed that way. No well known beep and turn to green occurred. So now I am a little perturbed, and wonder if the EVSE is somehow bad, despite the light on it showing it was good. I get in the car and turn it on, only for it to say “Charging Override/Interruption Occurred,” and notice there is 0 miles on a full charge (it wasn't fully charged). The engine kicked on, so it had entered “Limp Home” mode. So I google it and as expected find an article on here about it, there wasn't much in that particular post other then saying they had to take it to the dealer, and a part was ordered to fix it. So I make the soonest appointment at dealer nearby, for the next morning. Note the app on my phone showed 7 errors when checking status on the Volt
I take it to the dealer and the service writer seems concerned stating “I’ve never seen one with a message like that before.” I ask him if maybe it just needs a code reset as it’s in limp home mode. He doesn't think so. A couple of hours goes by and the service writer texts me that the Volt is ready for pickup. I ask him what was done, they only charged me for a $99 diagnostic fee, he says they just needed to reset it and everything worked fine. I take the car and drive back to my parents and plug it in to the factory EVSE, and it gives the all good ding, so I head inside for the evening. Note it should have finished charging in about 4 hours, but the app on my phone still showed 7 errors. I dismissed this as onstar needing to update its info/delay.
The next morning I get up and the app is showing the car in “Limp Home” mode again. I head out to the car and everything appears normal, other then the fact that only 2 of 4 used bars charged over a 12 hour period, and the check engine light is on. So I check the EVSE and everything seems fine. Plug it back in, it beeps, and says 2 more hours to finish charging. I had to run some errands, and the car drove normally, so I call the dealer and ask them what to do. Service writer says to bring it back.
I drop it off again at the dealer, hoping it just needed reset again. I check in a few hours later to see if it will be ready for pickup before closing, when I get bad news from the service writer: “The code stored is a failure of one of the 96 cells in the main propulsion battery---the next step will be to remove the battery from the bottom of the car and test each cell and wiring until we find the problem----after that parts will need to be ordered---this realistically will take a few weeks to complete based on the current parts delays we are experiencing----“
So here I am 750 miles from home, needing to leave for home in 2 days. The dealer stated they are covering this under the Voltec warranty, and have a Silverado to loan me for the meantime. (Ended up getting a Hertz’s rental, as the dealer didn’t want my dogs in their pickup)
So I mostly wanted to share my experience, but I am not sure what the outcome will be. Do you guys know anyone else having battery issues so soon? (50k miles is not much) How long is reasonable to let them have the car? I know there are some consumer protection laws here in CA that it may be covered under, but since they discontinued the car, there isn’t an option to get a new replacement. For my type of usage there isn’t really a good replacement option for the Volt. What do you guys think?
I live in a very small town, the nearest volt certified dealer is over 2.5 hours away from me.
In October of 2020 I received an engine code for P0B9A “Hybrid/EV Battery Voltage Sense “T” Circuit, I took it to the closest dealer who performed some recall work and informed me they did not have a Volt Tech and I would need to drive it to another dealer for that service. About a week later I made the journey to the dealer 2.5 hours away, and was promptly told that the code had already resolved itself and there was nothing to do. (I had them document that I was in for service.)
Fast forward to this last week, as I have had no issues since.
I traveled down about 750 miles to Orange County to visit family and attend a funeral. I was staying at my parents house when disaster struck. My stepfather had been cleaning in their garage, to make room for the model Y they have ordered, when I heard a loud pop and he shouted for me to come out to the garage. I come out there to see my stepfather had destroyed my travel EVSE (Clipper Creek LCS-20). Apparently while cleaning he had inadvertently stretched the cable out in the way of the garage door track by placing some boxes on the cord leading to the car in the driveway. So when he attempted to close the door, it hit the charger and stopped. Being frustrated and tired, he kicked his boxes around not seeing what was stopping the door, and they proceeded to “force close” the garage door. As it came down this time, it ripped the 14-50p plug and wires from the top of the EVSE causing the loud pop and shorting the breaker at the same time.
So I came out to the garage, and see my EVSE in 2 parts, there goes $400. Then, knowing I was only partially charged, I reset the breaker and attempt to charge with the factory EVSE. At this point I knew there was a problem. I plugged in the factory 120/240 charger and the charge indication light on the dash turned yellow, and stayed that way. No well known beep and turn to green occurred. So now I am a little perturbed, and wonder if the EVSE is somehow bad, despite the light on it showing it was good. I get in the car and turn it on, only for it to say “Charging Override/Interruption Occurred,” and notice there is 0 miles on a full charge (it wasn't fully charged). The engine kicked on, so it had entered “Limp Home” mode. So I google it and as expected find an article on here about it, there wasn't much in that particular post other then saying they had to take it to the dealer, and a part was ordered to fix it. So I make the soonest appointment at dealer nearby, for the next morning. Note the app on my phone showed 7 errors when checking status on the Volt
I take it to the dealer and the service writer seems concerned stating “I’ve never seen one with a message like that before.” I ask him if maybe it just needs a code reset as it’s in limp home mode. He doesn't think so. A couple of hours goes by and the service writer texts me that the Volt is ready for pickup. I ask him what was done, they only charged me for a $99 diagnostic fee, he says they just needed to reset it and everything worked fine. I take the car and drive back to my parents and plug it in to the factory EVSE, and it gives the all good ding, so I head inside for the evening. Note it should have finished charging in about 4 hours, but the app on my phone still showed 7 errors. I dismissed this as onstar needing to update its info/delay.
The next morning I get up and the app is showing the car in “Limp Home” mode again. I head out to the car and everything appears normal, other then the fact that only 2 of 4 used bars charged over a 12 hour period, and the check engine light is on. So I check the EVSE and everything seems fine. Plug it back in, it beeps, and says 2 more hours to finish charging. I had to run some errands, and the car drove normally, so I call the dealer and ask them what to do. Service writer says to bring it back.
I drop it off again at the dealer, hoping it just needed reset again. I check in a few hours later to see if it will be ready for pickup before closing, when I get bad news from the service writer: “The code stored is a failure of one of the 96 cells in the main propulsion battery---the next step will be to remove the battery from the bottom of the car and test each cell and wiring until we find the problem----after that parts will need to be ordered---this realistically will take a few weeks to complete based on the current parts delays we are experiencing----“
So here I am 750 miles from home, needing to leave for home in 2 days. The dealer stated they are covering this under the Voltec warranty, and have a Silverado to loan me for the meantime. (Ended up getting a Hertz’s rental, as the dealer didn’t want my dogs in their pickup)
So I mostly wanted to share my experience, but I am not sure what the outcome will be. Do you guys know anyone else having battery issues so soon? (50k miles is not much) How long is reasonable to let them have the car? I know there are some consumer protection laws here in CA that it may be covered under, but since they discontinued the car, there isn’t an option to get a new replacement. For my type of usage there isn’t really a good replacement option for the Volt. What do you guys think?
