My 2014 Spark EV is completely dead

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pv4evs

Member
Joined
Oct 4, 2014
Messages
6
Started off with a full 101 miles of range. Drove 45 miles mostly down hill with 89 miles of range remaining when I reached my destination. Stopped at a restaurant on the way back with 23 miles remaining. When I returned to the car after eating, my range dropped from 23 miles down to 14 miles from just sitting in the parking lot. Assumed it was due to the heat 93 F.

While on a level portion of the freeway after only about a mile, my battery indicator suddenly jumped to a full battery with only 14 miles of range indicated. Then within seconds it dropped down to two yellow bars with only 8 miles left. Then back to a full battery with 13 miles left so I stopped at a level 2 charger.

I plugged the charger in and my dash indicator turned yellow and stayed that way. While plugged in, my range went from 4 miles up to 9 miles within 5 minutes. And then it went from 9 miles back down to 4 miles, all while the charger was plugged in. The dash indicator never turned green.

Then all of a sudden the dash gave a message saying "Unable to Charge". So I unplugged the charger and tried to limp home at 25 to 30 miles per hour. While driving downhill at this point, the regen never kicked in. Finally after about 5 miles, the car slowed to about 2 miles per hour. I pulled into a parking lot. And no matter what gear I put it in the car wouldn't budge.

Called Onstar and they said they would send a tow truck. After about 15 minutes I tried putting it back in gear and I had power again. I drove about another 2 miles and then the car rolled to a stop showing that I had 4 miles of range left with 200 feet left to my driveway. Called Onstar again and was towed home. Plugged my Level 2 charger in light on dash turns yellow and after about 5 minutes it turns off. Won't charge. Message on dash says. "Unable to charge"

I think the computer has lost its settings or who knows what. Will wait till next week to have car towed to dealer during business hours. I only have 2,700 miles on the car and bought it in February. My experience has been flawless until now ?
 
Since the odds of us knowing what the problem is are low, please come back here and give us a good description of what they find and what they do to resolve the situation. They may not volunteer a lot of info, so you may have to pry it out of them a bit.
 
Update: Last night about 2 hours after my Spark was towed home, I tried again to charge it with my level 2 EVSE. This time I heard the relays click and the dash light turned green and the horn honked. After about 1 minute though the dash light turned off and that was it. My cell phone's RemoteLink app showed that my battery was 100% full with a range of 5 miles.

Thinking that it might be a thermal issue or current sensing issue in the charger, I then tried my 120 volt EVSE and again only got a yellow dash light that turned off after about 5 minutes.

I let the car sit till this morning and again tried the 120 volt EVSE and had success. The relays clicked, the horn honked, the green dash light went on and has stayed on for the past few hours. My RemoteLink now says that my battery is at 14% (instead of 100%) with 14 miles of range and shows that the car is charging. Big mystery ?

If the charge cycle completes, then next week I'll attempt to drive the car to the dealer instead of having it towed. Luckly, I took videos and pictures of all the weird behavior displayed on my dash, just in case the dealer tries to claim that there's nothing wrong.
 
Look up the thread about the disconnect of the 12v battery.
It may be just some weird fault.
Maybe it just needs to be cleared?
 
I think there is a software glitch because a few months ago during a very hot period my mileage dropped from 95 miles to about 30 miles within maybe 15 seconds or so while on the freeway.

Been normal since.
 
This definitely sounds bad but not completely irreparable. Since the car has been working fine there's probably no major damage to the hardware, which probably means it's a software problem. I'd highly recommend taking the battery off (negative first) and waiting for a few minutes. I'd also try and take it into the dealer and have them do any software updates that are available.
 
A problem I had with my spark in the first 2000 miles was that there was a faulty connector to one of the leads of the 12v battery, which prevented the car from even starting or charging. I'd make sure that those leads are secure just to rule out that as being a problem.
 
I finally got my Spark to fully charge using a level 1 charger and drove it to the local Chevy dealer. They've had it now for a week and are saying that they can't find anything wrong with it. They said that they suspect that when my Spark rapidly dropped from about 14 miles down to 7 miles of range remaining that this might have scrambled the computer, causing it to act so erratically. I don't buy it. I've been driving EVs since the mid 90s and know full well that the motive battery is not tied directly to the on board electronics.

So for all it's worth, I'm going to take the issue up with General Motors Corporate. Here's a video of what my Spark was doing throughout the incident. Please note in the beginning of the video how the battery state of charge indicator kept rising and falling. http://vimeo.com/109513322
 
DID you ever TRY and do the battery disconnect and see if anything changed ?

Seriously, do it and let us know if anything changes
 
I didn't try disconnecting the battery but I was advised today that the dealer has ordered a new propulsion battery which might explain all the strange behavior. If the battery had an intermittent open cell in the pack, that would explain why the battery indicator in the dash display kept going up and down while the car was being driven as shown in the video http://vimeo.com/109513322 and might also explain why I got the error message saying "Unable to charge". Before all this happened, I got several text messages from the car telling me that my charging had been interrupted.

I just hope that they don't try and replace the battery with a used pack or one of the new lower capacity lighter weight packs.
 
I would try the disconnect and see what happens. Since the Dealer will be replacing something.
This way others will know if this Trick works or not for future issues.
:)
 
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