Another Spark EV Died on the Freeway

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Curyousgee

Active member
Joined
May 28, 2015
Messages
28
Full charge and my GF headed out to Lake Elsinore from SGV. 60 miles in , the car with 20 miles range left cut out and dies.

Radio still works, app shows 2 mile range but FULL battery %. Onstar called and was told 2 hours for a tow truck and $200 fee, "maybe reimburseable" the agent says.

Screw it called AAA and towed 9 miles to Lake Chevrolet, and they were there in 20 min. While there tried charging but would not charge. Battery % still show full, but 2 mile range ,but still dead, wont roll or move at all.

Left at the dealer for diagnostic and they said it needs a new battery. Cannot transfer the car back home, got a rental and will need to drive back to Lake Elsinore if the Spark ever gets fixed.

zegqR6Qm.jpg
 
I hate that the solution is to throw in a new battery pack. It's 99% a software/hardware error somewhere, but instead of doing any real troubleshooting they just replace the most expensive part of the car. :cry:

maybe Chevy has just put out the word to replace the packs when something happens so they can get them back and do some failure analysis on it back at the home lab? One can hope... The Spark is, to some extent, a test run prior to releasing the higher production and more widely available Bolt. Lets hope they are learning from these issues as they happen.
 
Replace the faulty parts, get the customer back on the road as soon as possible, take the faulty unit back to the lab for failure analysis: do you see anything wrong with that model? I don't .
 
The implication that it NEEDED a new battery is problematic because it paints a bad picture to neophytes. It probably didn't. However, if they CHOSE to install a new battery in the interest of expedience, that's great.
 
GeekEV said:
The implication that it NEEDED a new battery is problematic because it paints a bad picture to neophytes. It probably didn't. However, if they CHOSE to install a new battery in the interest of expedience, that's great.

It just paints a bad pictures - two failures in a short period of time - probably more that aren't reported here. That's a fairly high failure rate on a car that has very few on the road (being only sold in oregon and california).

I have one on order - now nervous. If I see one more "it died going down the freeway" here - sorry, but I am "out"...

jeff
 
2014/2015? If these failures are from a particular year, wonder if it has to do with the battery pack, given that it was changed from 2014 to 2015.
 
GeekEV said:
The implication that it NEEDED a new battery is problematic because it paints a bad picture to neophytes. It probably didn't. However, if they CHOSE to install a new battery in the interest of expedience, that's great.

Not getting what you would do differently. The dealer ran diagnostics and the battery pack is being replaced. The battery is a FRU, not field serviceable. It's also unlikely that there are many available software engineers at the dealer service department to recode software/firmware bits on the fly. If they replace the battery and the car is back on the road, then that was the right thing to do. If it doesn't, then it's not.
 
Mine is a 2015 with 855 miles. Mainly charge at Level 2 around 50% remaining capacity.

Another problem is the fact that when I called Onstar I get different responses about picking up the car. Dealer says I need to pick up in Lake Elsinore despite living 70 miles away in LA because that is where road side was directed, to the nearest dealership for repair. Standard operating procedure for cars under wareanty they say. If it broke down in Vegas , do I need to go back out there to pick up my factory defective car? Stupid GM reasoning.

Onstar agreed with dealer, but I dont want to drive that distance again to get the car over 130 miles round trip and 3 hours wasted.

Second call to Onstar and they offered Roadside Assistance Reunite to bring the car closer, so lets see how that works out when the car is fixed

The week prior I was getting charging errors when the car was done charging, didnt think anything of it because it always charge to 100% despite the "charge interupted" message. Thought it was an issue with the charger turning off when the battery reached full capacity. I would also get text message saying battery full charged and never had a problem other than the few random message.

I will keep everyone posted on the issues they find and what they did to resolve it, tired reading up on other similar threads but there isnt a resolution update on them.
 
nikwax said:
Replace the faulty parts, get the customer back on the road as soon as possible, take the faulty unit back to the lab for failure analysis: do you see anything wrong with that model? I don't .

Agreed , figure it out on your own time not mine. Get my car fixed asap and back on the road, do what you need to do with the battery analysis on GMs dime and time not mine.
 
oregonsparky said:
GeekEV said:
The implication that it NEEDED a new battery is problematic because it paints a bad picture to neophytes. It probably didn't. However, if they CHOSE to install a new battery in the interest of expedience, that's great.

It just paints a bad pictures - two failures in a short period of time - probably more that aren't reported here. That's a fairly high failure rate on a car that has very few on the road (being only sold in oregon and california).

I have one on order - now nervous. If I see one more "it died going down the freeway" here - sorry, but I am "out"...

jeff


Definitely dangerous to cut out on the freeway, luckily she was hypermiling on the slow lane and the exit was close enough when it happened to roll off the freeway without too much danger, if she was stuck on the middle lane , it may not have ended so benign
 
Curyousgee said:
Full charge and my GF headed out to Lake Elsinore from SGV. 60 miles in , the car with 20 miles range left cut out and dies.

Radio still works, app shows 2 mile range but FULL battery %. Onstar called and was told 2 hours for a tow truck and $200 fee, "maybe reimburseable" the agent says.

Screw it called AAA and towed 9 miles to Lake Chevrolet, and they were there in 20 min. While there tried charging but would not charge. Battery % still show full, but 2 mile range ,but still dead, wont roll or move at all.

Left at the dealer for diagnostic and they said it needs a new battery. Cannot transfer the car back home, got a rental and will need to drive back to Lake Elsinore if the Spark ever gets fixed.

zegqR6Qm.jpg

I thought tow service was included with the OnStar package?
 
oregonsparky said:
I have one on order - now nervous. If I see one more "it died going down the freeway" here - sorry, but I am "out"...

jeff


Jeff, either stop reading stories on the Internet, or spare yourself the drama and bail out. You'll never buy any motor vehicle if you base your judgement on reported issues in Internet forums.


Contemporary motor vehicles are extremely complex and are bristling with technology. When it fails, the vehicle can be completely disabled. This is actually true for any vehicle for any era. My dad could have told you about mysterious failures in those 1920's cars that he used to rock. And I could bore you with how my expensive Italian motorcycle spent four months sitting at a dealers waiting for parts to fix the parts that another dealer broke.


While these cars are near state of the art, there is something bleeding edge about electric car technology. It's not without risks and it's not for everybody.

This particular issue could be as simple as "on this date of assembly, the connectors were not torqued properly on the battery pack". Sound far fetched? BMW had a recall due to bolts not being torqued correctly on one day.
 
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