[PrivatePilot]

1 week of volt ownership as of today. Love it so far.

However, experiencing oddities with the precondition feature. Yesterday morning I couldn't get it to trigger but I thought perhaps I had left one of the windows cracked a bit or something. Came home last night, parked, plugged in, tested precondition right away and it worked fine - parking lights came on and I could hear the pumps and relays doing their thing under the hood. .

This morning, got up and hit the precondition sequence again in the exact same order as I did the night before (Lock, followed quickly by holding the remote start button), and had the same result as yesterday - the lights flash to acknowledge the lock command, and then the lights flash again when I press the precondition button, but then they go out and nothing happens. Tried about 5-6 times with no joy.

Should I be taking it back to the dealer and getting them to look things over? I'm afraid that being as how this is clearly an intermittent issue it's going to be one of those "could not duplicate customer concern" things as given my luck it'll work perfectly when it's there.

Trying via my phone/Onstar isn't possible as the dealer didn't tell me before buying the car that the Onstar hardware was no longer functional (outdated because of the CDMA network shutdown here in Canada) and I'm unwilling to spend the $400+ cost of the hardware upgrade. Stilll irked about that, but that's another story.

Advice appreciated.

 

[2VoltFamily]

After pressing the lock button, press and hold the start button a bit longer, perhaps until it starts. If that does not work you should get the dealer involved. You could just need a new battery in the keyfob.

 

[TSquare]

Just to cover all the bases. The car will only do 2 remote starts before you are required to actually use the car's start button.
Also some other things that will prevent a remote start:
. An open hood.
. The RKE transmitter is in the
vehicle.
. The vehicle is not in P (Park).
. Vehicle propulsion system fault
conditions, including an
emission control system
malfunction.
. High voltage battery fault
conditions.

 

[caskConditionedAle]

I think somebody also discovered that you need some gas in the tank.

 

[Fourdoor]

Also, just because you don't hear anything doesn't mean the car didn't start. If you tell it to pre-condition and ambient conditions are near your desired cabin temperature it may not fire up anything other than the blower motor for the climate control.

Keith

 

[TSquare]

Also, just because you don't hear anything doesn't mean the car didn't start. If you tell it to pre-condition and ambient conditions are near your desired cabin temperature it may not fire up anything other than the blower motor for the climate control.

Keith

The parking lights should be on with a successful start.

 

[2VoltFamily]

Also, just because you don't hear anything doesn't mean the car didn't start. If you tell it to pre-condition and ambient conditions are near your desired cabin temperature it may not fire up anything other than the blower motor for the climate control.

Keith

Lights (not headlights) will come on which I believe the OP referred to were not coming on.

 

[canehdian]

-Max 2 since vehicle turned off
-Max 1 if "low fuel" message is active (even if plugged in with full battery - not ideal)
-None if MIL ("check engine") is active

The fact that you see lights flash is good - you confirm it's acknowledging your command. It's just saying "nope, can't start right now".

 

[PrivatePilot]

Thanks everyone. I can confirm it had a 100% full tank of gas (we ran 260KM of all electric Sat, Sun, Monday but I gassed it up Friday evening), it had not been remote started more than once (Just the trial I did the night before, so this morning should have been #2), no MIL/CEL, Hood wasn't open, no fob in the car, and yes, it was in park.

Like I said, it acknowledged the precondition button being pressed, but didn't actually do anything. I know that a successful precondition does indeed turn on the front clearance lights - it did last night when I tested things, but this morning...just a flash, then out, and nothing. Ambient temp this morning was lower than what the HVAC was set for so it shouldn't have been a "nothing to do here" situation either.

I'm going to test it again tomorrow morning and will report back - it's supposed to cool down tonight as well so the ambient temp issue should be removed from the equation.

 

[llninja]

Just confirming... press lock, then press and hold the precondition button on the fob and release when you hear all the whirring.

 

[PrivatePilot]

This morning...I tried it the same way that worked perfectly the night before and got nothing. After the lack of success, I've tried a variety of sequences on the precondition button including press and hold until the parking lights flash, as well as (when that failed) press and hold indefinitely hoping it would do something.

No joy.

Last night "Press lock, immediately press and hold precondition button until the parking lights came on and stayed on & car started to make noise" route worked perfectly. This morning, the exact same sequence resulted in nothing except a parking light flash.

 

[PrivatePilot]

I'm not going to try the precondition this evening again as it would count towards the 2 cycle maximum and I want to rule that out as being a potential issue, but I plan on trying again tomorrow morning and I will report back.

 

[PrivatePilot]

Would a low fob battery cause this potentially?

I just went out to the car to reset the trip meter so I could continue to gather stats of my wife's commutes, but when I got in with the fob in my pocket and hit the power button the car was complaining that the fob wasn't present. I pulled out of my pocket and held it closer to the dash and then it recognized it just fine.

Curiously it seemed to work without problem for unlocking and locking the doors forever, and even when I was trying the precondition attempts the lights were indeed flashing indicating it was receiving commands from the fob.

Tomorrow morning I will use my wife's fob instead of mine for the remote start attempt – hers has been working normally. If that works, the following morning I will try mine again and see if I can narrow it down to a fob problem

 

[TSquare]

Would a low fob battery cause this potentially?

Anything is possible, but I would think that, if the fob battery is low, then you would not get the parking lights flashing plus you should get a "Fob Battery Low" message on the dash.
How about the 12 volt battery in the car? It could be showing it's age. If I remember correctly, in the 2012 models, the 12 volt battery only gets charged while the car is running or while the traction battery is actively charging. Maybe the 12 volts is sagging by morning.

 

[canehdian]

If you got the remote not detected error, you might have issues with the fob receiver on the ceiling.
It may be recognizing the first lock and flashes the lights, but it loses signal sometime during the 5s you hold the precondition button, so it doesn't start (it thinks you stopped pressing)

As a first step, replace the fob battery and see if that changes anything. It's like $1, $5 if you get ripped off. CR2032, a common size.

 

[PrivatePilot]

So, I think I figured it out. It's my Fob.

I did the first remote start with my wife's fob this morning and it worked perfectly. When it timed out after 10 minutes I tried to do the second start with my fob...and same result - the lock button registered with a light flash, the precondition button registered with a light flash, but then it didn't actually go into precondition mode.

Switched back to my wife's fob again, exact same button sequence, and boom...it immediately went into precondition mode for the second time without any issue.

It's weird that the buttons on my fob seem to be registering just fine, but don't seem to actually be triggering things correctly.

Is it worth going through the unlearn/relearn on this particular fob by chance? Anyone had anything similar?

 

[PrivatePilot]

And just to add another layer of confusion, this morning it went into precondition mode perfectly using my fob.

Hmmm.

 

[2VoltFamily]

And just to add another layer of confusion, this morning it went into precondition mode perfectly using my fob.

Hmmm.

Have you replaced the keyfob battery yet? If not, perhaps you should take that advice first as the battery cost is small.

 

[Fourdoor]

Would a low fob battery cause this potentially?

I just went out to the car to reset the trip meter so I could continue to gather stats of my wife's commutes, but when I got in with the fob in my pocket and hit the power button the car was complaining that the fob wasn't present. I pulled out of my pocket and held it closer to the dash and then it recognized it just fine.

Curiously it seemed to work without problem for unlocking and locking the doors forever, and even when I was trying the precondition attempts the lights were indeed flashing indicating it was receiving commands from the fob.

Tomorrow morning I will use my wife's fob instead of mine for the remote start attempt – hers has been working normally. If that works, the following morning I will try mine again and see if I can narrow it down to a fob problem

Did you have your cell phone in the same pocket as the key fob when the car said that the fob was not present? Sometimes a cell phone can interfere with the signal.

Keith

 

[PrivatePilot]

So, this issue has returned with a vengeance - it won't precondition whatsoever now in the mornings - using either fob, plugged in or not, standing next to the car or in the house. The lights flash when the lock button is pressed, but then when the precondition button is pressed nothing whatsoever happens.

Oddly a few days ago when I was out driving I tried it in a parking lot away from home...and it worked fine.

Yesterday (and again this morning) I tried everything - unplugged and plugged in again, opened and closed all the doors, confirmed everything was as it should be...and nothing. Took a video to prove it since apparently now I have to chase this issue at the dealership and it seems to be one of those things that will be difficult to reproduce since it seems to work sometimes, and not other times, although mornings (after the car has sat all night) appears to be most problematic.