Joined
·
2,514 Posts
Or, The First Signs Of A Dying 12V Battery!!!
Our 2013 Volt was 3 weeks shy of it's 6th delivery date anniversary and still running on the OEM 12v battery. A few weeks ago, I had a couple of occurrences of the charging system not initializing after being plugged in.
The first few were vague in that unplugging and reinserting the EVSE cord quickly solved the issue. The last occurrence before things went south was me plugging in and walking away from the vehicle to check my mailbox without hearing the beep that things were working. When I returned, the dash indicator was flickering on amber. I unplugged it and reinserted the EVSE. I got the beep that time.
The next day, I pulled out of the garage but needed to go back inside for something I'd forgotten. When I came back to the vehicle, it wouldn't start... No Go!! Error messages about ABS Brake system, charging system, and several other systems that go through a boot sequence, popped up on the display. When I called OnStar, the rep put me on hold while she ran diagnostics. While on hold, the OnStar phone connection dropped. Tried the blue button again...nothing. So I called them back on my cell.
After going through the whole explanation again with the new person, they transferred me over to the Road Assistance folks to get a tow to my nearest dealer. In the meantime the vehicle would not completely turn on or off… taillights were on the whole time …able to move the shifter to any position… driver display is on the hold time… can’t open the trunk lid. Eventually, the display goes dark.
While waiting for a call from the tow driver to confirm what time he’d get to me, I got to thinking about how the vehicle boots up. If all subordinate systems don’t confirm their status, the car never completes a boot sequence and won’t move. So I got my VOM out, crawled in through the back seat to open the battery compartment (hard to do from the back seat, but it can be done) and discovered that the 12v battery was at 9.78 V.
Connected battery cables from my second vehicle (ICE) to the Volt battery and everything worked!! So while I had it jumped, I opened the trunk so that I could get to the battery the easy way. Pulled it out, cancelled the tow truck, then shopped online for a replacement. Replacement is ~30 min. ordeal because of all the things that have to be removed to get in the compartment and to remove the multi-cable array that attaches to the battery plus unbolting the tie-down strap between the battery and the sub-woofer. Without a 10 MM deep socket and a regular 13 MM socket, the job would have been impossible.
~$200 later, I was back on the road again, but the morning was shot to heck.
Bottom line: I believe that the failures to initialize charging (no beep) were warning signs that the 12v battery was dying.
Wait For The Beep before you walk away when charging!!!
Our 2013 Volt was 3 weeks shy of it's 6th delivery date anniversary and still running on the OEM 12v battery. A few weeks ago, I had a couple of occurrences of the charging system not initializing after being plugged in.
The first few were vague in that unplugging and reinserting the EVSE cord quickly solved the issue. The last occurrence before things went south was me plugging in and walking away from the vehicle to check my mailbox without hearing the beep that things were working. When I returned, the dash indicator was flickering on amber. I unplugged it and reinserted the EVSE. I got the beep that time.
The next day, I pulled out of the garage but needed to go back inside for something I'd forgotten. When I came back to the vehicle, it wouldn't start... No Go!! Error messages about ABS Brake system, charging system, and several other systems that go through a boot sequence, popped up on the display. When I called OnStar, the rep put me on hold while she ran diagnostics. While on hold, the OnStar phone connection dropped. Tried the blue button again...nothing. So I called them back on my cell.
After going through the whole explanation again with the new person, they transferred me over to the Road Assistance folks to get a tow to my nearest dealer. In the meantime the vehicle would not completely turn on or off… taillights were on the whole time …able to move the shifter to any position… driver display is on the hold time… can’t open the trunk lid. Eventually, the display goes dark.
While waiting for a call from the tow driver to confirm what time he’d get to me, I got to thinking about how the vehicle boots up. If all subordinate systems don’t confirm their status, the car never completes a boot sequence and won’t move. So I got my VOM out, crawled in through the back seat to open the battery compartment (hard to do from the back seat, but it can be done) and discovered that the 12v battery was at 9.78 V.
Connected battery cables from my second vehicle (ICE) to the Volt battery and everything worked!! So while I had it jumped, I opened the trunk so that I could get to the battery the easy way. Pulled it out, cancelled the tow truck, then shopped online for a replacement. Replacement is ~30 min. ordeal because of all the things that have to be removed to get in the compartment and to remove the multi-cable array that attaches to the battery plus unbolting the tie-down strap between the battery and the sub-woofer. Without a 10 MM deep socket and a regular 13 MM socket, the job would have been impossible.
~$200 later, I was back on the road again, but the morning was shot to heck.
Bottom line: I believe that the failures to initialize charging (no beep) were warning signs that the 12v battery was dying.
Wait For The Beep before you walk away when charging!!!
