Blown tire spark EV

It's official. If you blow a front tire the car will shut off and won't start. I picked up car at dealer today and they explain the reason. Once they found the right tire and put it on the car started again. Don't blow a front tire and try to start vehicle. Won't work. Dealer said it by design not to damage the vehicle motor.

First: You might want to post your findings to your original thread here: Dead Spark EV

mickeybiosense said:

It's official. If you blow a front tire the car will shut off and won't start. I picked up car at dealer today and they explain the reason. Once they found the right tire and put it on the car started again. Don't blow a front tire and try to start vehicle. Won't work. Dealer said it by design not to damage the vehicle motor.

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Really??? What if it blows and you need to move the car off a road? Kind of a weird feature.

I searched the owners manual, and I could not find any mention of the car shutting down. It says on page 10-48:
"If a tire goes flat, avoid further tire and wheel damage by driving slowly to a level place, well off the road, if possible."

If the car shuts down, how could we drive slowly to a level place???

You can't start car. I could not move the car it would not start after tire was blown and could not push it either. I asked the dealer to check error codes nothing was found. Fact is once the damage tire was replaced car started fine. I will repeat another user message, why not pump the tire with air and again the tire was blown up from sharp pot hole and tire was cracked in half.

mickey, I am not doubting you at all. I am just commenting on the bizarre decision by Chevrolet to prevent the car from starting. If the car can't start, you probably can't even run the air compressor to try to reinflate the tire.

I am tempted to try completely deflating the tire on my Spark EV to see if I get the same result.

Do both of the key FOBS battery work ok. There's no chance a battery was dead in one of the key fobs when the tire was flat and then the key FOBs got switched out and the good FOB happened to be in the car when the tire was repaired???

So, what if you put a SPARE on it. Wouldn't that have worked? Or another tire that was not the stock tire but the same size ?

I wish they had tried it to find out.
Maybe someone has a spare (I know it doesn't come with one) and try it while they are at home

No spare in this car only pump. There was only one FOB second one was home.

I also have a hard time understanding this one. I'll pull a valve in the tire next time I'm at the shop to see if I can replicate this...sounds bizarre, like something else happened (such as a loose 12V battery connection that was jarred the same time the tire popped).

Bryce

Nashco said:

I also have a hard time understanding this one. I'll pull a valve in the tire next time I'm at the shop to see if I can replicate this.

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Please do. I'm sure we all would appreciate confirmation on what, to me, seems a safety issue.

A few months back I got a hole in my tire after accidentally jumping the curb. It wasn't patchable but would still hold some air for a bit. I think my levels got to like 10 or 12 psi before I reinflated it and limped over to the nearest tire place, reinflating it twice on the way. lol

The signal from the TPMS must be essential in the front tires. I'm a little shocked it doesn't go into limp mode so you can get to a safe location. I assume it wouldn't shut down at speed, but that's still alarming.

I just had the unfortunate experience of running something over which puncture the side wall of my right rear tire. It's about an inch gash which blew the tire, but I was still able to drive the vehicle to a stop and it never shut down. I'm also having a hard time getting a replacement, no one has them in stock, and everyone is quoting 5-7 business days for the 195/55/R15 Bridgestone Ecopia EP150 because they have to order directly from Bridgestone, even the dealers. Unfortunately it's my only vehicle during the week, and need a vehicle, so was able to hunt down a donut spare from a 2011 Chevy Aveo for a temp fix (craigslist $20). Mounted up perfectly, tracks well, and appears to have a similar contact placement, but only a 14" rim (rim and tire are about an inch smaller in height compared to stock). My Spark starts up and let's me drive it even though tpms is reading zero. I'm only going about 10 miles and on roads with 45mph or less posted speed limits, so wouldn't recommend it unless you're in a bind or want a temp fix but seems to work ok.

I'm still not sure why they would program something like this into the car. The Spark EV has a special TPMS that is aligned with each tire of the car. It can even tell you the tire pressure of each wheel.

Being a FWD platform, the rear wheels are basically just for suspending the car and forward tracking. Being an EV doesn't actually change their function, so I don't think they would be concerned about the rear. I'm not even entirely sure why they are concerned about the front.

I think they are just very paranoid about the driveunit either destroying itself or some other component of the car. A lot of AWD systems can't operate properly with a flat or donut, but I've never heard of a manufacturer disabling the car until it was repaired.