2015 Spark with 22k miles is dead (Propulsion Power Reduced)

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muadib69

Member
Joined
Jun 3, 2015
Messages
16
Been randomly getting "Propulsion Power Reduced" when starting car. Once this message appears car will not move at all. I turn the car on/off several times and it finally goes. Well today, this message appeared again but after over 10 times starting/restarting, no luck. Car is stuck in my driveway. Had to call Chevy roadside assistance and towed it to the dealer. The Spark had been reliable from day 1 but now its dead. It's a leased car with 9 more months left. Currently has almost 23,000 miles. I am awaiting what the dealer find out.
 
muadib69 said:
Been randomly getting "Propulsion Power Reduced" when starting car. Once this message appears car will not move at all. I turn the car on/off several times and it finally goes. Well today, this message appeared again but after over 10 times starting/restarting, no luck. Car is stuck in my driveway. Had to call Chevy roadside assistance and towed it to the dealer. The Spark had been reliable from day 1 but now its dead. It's a leased car with 9 more months left. Currently has almost 23,000 miles. I am awaiting what the dealer find out.

My bet is the 12 volt battery needs to be replaced. Other Spark EV drivers have reported weird things happening that eventually were traced to the 12 volt battery going bad. I have a trouble-free 2015 Spark EV too and, should this happen to me, the 12 volt battery will be the first thing I check. You can use a good voltmeter to measure the voltage across the battery terminals. It should measure around 12.5 volts or higher.
 
MrDRMorgan said:
muadib69 said:
Been randomly getting "Propulsion Power Reduced" when starting car. Once this message appears car will not move at all. I turn the car on/off several times and it finally goes. Well today, this message appeared again but after over 10 times starting/restarting, no luck. Car is stuck in my driveway. Had to call Chevy roadside assistance and towed it to the dealer. The Spark had been reliable from day 1 but now its dead. It's a leased car with 9 more months left. Currently has almost 23,000 miles. I am awaiting what the dealer find out.

My bet is the 12 volt battery needs to be replaced. Other Spark EV drivers have reported weird things happening that eventually were traced to the 12 volt battery going bad. I have a trouble-free 2015 Spark EV too and, should this happen to me, the 12 volt battery will be the first thing I check. You can use a good voltmeter to measure the voltage across the battery terminals. It should measure around 12.5 volts or higher.

Thanks for the info. The car is at the dealer and I am really curious to know what their findings are.
 
muadib69 said:
MrDRMorgan said:
muadib69 said:
Been randomly getting "Propulsion Power Reduced" when starting car. Once this message appears car will not move at all. I turn the car on/off several times and it finally goes. Well today, this message appeared again but after over 10 times starting/restarting, no luck. Car is stuck in my driveway. Had to call Chevy roadside assistance and towed it to the dealer. The Spark had been reliable from day 1 but now its dead. It's a leased car with 9 more months left. Currently has almost 23,000 miles. I am awaiting what the dealer find out.

My bet is the 12 volt battery needs to be replaced. Other Spark EV drivers have reported weird things happening that eventually were traced to the 12 volt battery going bad. I have a trouble-free 2015 Spark EV too and, should this happen to me, the 12 volt battery will be the first thing I check. You can use a good voltmeter to measure the voltage across the battery terminals. It should measure around 12.5 volts or higher.

Thanks for the info. The car is at the dealer and I am really curious to know what their findings are.

Please let us know when you find out. My wife drives our 2015 Spark EV and I want to make sure she knows what to do if the car quits. So far, it has been absolutely trouble-free and a pleasure to drive.
 
FYI ...

There are 'old-style lunchbox-size' battery jump-starters that you can keep in your trunk for emergencies. Downside: they have always been waaaay too heavy (they were based on lead-acid batteries). The last few years have seen a slew of L-Ion chemistry 'emergency jump-starters' hit the market. While many are borderline (or even useless) for jumpstarting (say) a F250 pickup, they are perfect for EVs (which don't have that massive 3-5 sec amp drain to crank a gas engine). They can be pretty small (the size of a brick) and some have USB ports (for charging phones & computers) and emergency lights or can be used as a L.E.D. lantern. You can hook one up to the 12V battery in your EV, wait a minute or two (to get some current transferred to the 12V battery), turn on the EV, disconnect, and drive to your destination. (The battery will pass the initial voltage test, and once turned on the traction battery supplies over 13.4V to the 12V acc battery, so you should be just fine.) It's enough so that you WON'T get stuck and have to be towed - you can drive to a shop and get a new 12V replacement battery put in.

It is important to make sure that the 12V (accessory) battery in your BEV is fully charged regularly so that it won't go bad. (Older Nissan LEAFs were notorious for destroying 12V batteries in a short time, 6-18 months, due to their horrid 'keep battery charged' logic, which was crap.) Taken/merged from several earlier posts of mine :

If one would like the 12V battery in an EV to last 8-12 years (instead of 1-4 years), I highly recommend a smart 'battery maintainer' to make sure that your battery is FULLY charged at least a couple of times a month. A 'fully charged' (saturated)12V lead-acid battery *should* read around 12.65-12.7V (with NO load). A wet lead-acid 12V battery that is 'low' (under 80%) and frequently under load (even a small load) will start to sulfate (crap sticks to the plates). One can prolong the life of the battery by doing a full charge every now and then, as a FULL (saturation) charge will get (almost) all of the crap that was stuck to the plates to dissolve back into the lead-acid solution in the cells.

Driving an EV only a 'short distance' daily may do the battery in after just a short time (a year or two). Generally, driving an EV enough to require 3+ hours of charging every other night should keep a 12V battery pretty close to full and thus in decent shape (since the 12V is charged/topped-up while the main Li battery is charging). I measured the voltage across the battery terminals in my Spark EV at different usage scenarios (car on 'ready to drive', during L2 charge, during DCFC charge) but I seem to have lost the paper I scribbled the info on. I seem to recall that 13.6V was the voltage provided to the acc battery from the main drive (L-Ion) battery, but I can't swear to it (13.6V is low, IMO, for a charge if the battery needs a real charge - it's fine as a 'float' if the battery is close to full).

I bought a C-TEK battery maintainer, which I use 2-4 times a month to make sure the 12V battery in my Spark is absolutely, fully charged. It is a super-slow, auto-sensing, trickle charger (0.8A) with all the built-in bells and whistles. I used a voltmeter to check on charging behavior, and it is safe for AGM (absorbed glass mat) as I never saw the voltage go over 14.4V in ANY of the 6 charge modes. (The Battery Tender brand unit I tried *did* go over 14.6V, which is fine for old-style flooded lead-acid batteries, but not advised for AGM.) I use a standard 15A "smart" charger if a battery is darn low and really needs a significant charge; the CTEK is simply used to gently and safely top-off (fully saturate charge) the battery. Since the C-TEK has a "maintain" mode (and is pretty much fully sealed, although not safe to dunk) and fully automatic, I can just plug it in and let it trickle charge (as needed) overnight and unplug it the next morning when it shows that is has fully charged the battery and has switched to 'float' (maintain) mode. There are several good ones on the market - I got the C-TEK because it is AGM-safe (and has not only "de-sulfation" "bulk", and "absorption" basic charge modes, but also "float", and "pulse/check" modes, so I could leave it plugged in for weeks)
 
Here is the actual message on the dash. Also the yellow warning light with the exclamation mark has been there for a while now. The dealer finally checked it and it has to do with "automatic air vents" in front of the car, I guess its broken. The dealer will also replace that part.

ErS6fvwl.jpg


NQBxvY2l.jpg
 
muadib69 said:
Here is the actual message on the dash. Also the yellow warning light with the exclamation mark has been there for a while now. The dealer finally checked it and it has to do with "automatic air vents" in front of the car, I guess its broken. The dealer will also replace that part.

ErS6fvwl.jpg


NQBxvY2l.jpg

OK, I'll bite! The car is parked on your driveway and will not start. How did the broken "automatic air vents" kill the car? Did something over-heat while the car was parked? I do not know anything about the automatic air vents other than they are electrically operated. Perhaps, being broken, they were stuck and kept drawing 12 volt power even with the car powered off. If true, this would eventually drain the 12 volt battery and kill the car.
 
MrDRMorgan said:
muadib69 said:
Here is the actual message on the dash. Also the yellow warning light with the exclamation mark has been there for a while now. The dealer finally checked it and it has to do with "automatic air vents" in front of the car, I guess its broken. The dealer will also replace that part.

ErS6fvwl.jpg


NQBxvY2l.jpg

OK, I'll bite! The car is parked on your driveway and will not start. How did the broken "automatic air vents" kill the car? Did something over-heat while the car was parked? I do not know anything about the automatic air vents other than they are electrically operated. Perhaps, being broken, they were stuck and kept drawing 12 volt power even with the car powered off. If true, this would eventually drain the 12 volt battery and kill the car.


Sorry for being vague about my post. I'll try to explain better:

For months before the spark "died", I have had that yellow warning light on the dash. Been ignoring it and postponing a trip to the dealer until about a month ago I had to take it in because of the "airbag issue". Aside from the recall, I told dealer to check what the warning light is about.

Once I got the car back on the same day, the recall was performed and the dealer said that the warning light is due to a malfunctioning "Active Grill Shutter". To explain what this is: [In order to improve the aerodynamics and maximize thermal efficiencies the Spark EV employs an Active Grille Shutter system. The system includes a motorized actuator that closes louvers at the front bumper to enhance vehicle aerodynamics in driving situations where cooling and A/C loads are relatively low and high levels of front end airflow are not required. The engine control module determines shutter state based on various vehicle conditions such as vehicle speed, coolant temperature, fan state, refrigerant system pressure, A/C compressor state and ambient temperature. If high levels of airflow are required the active grille air shutter actuator opens the louvers.]

The dealer did not have this "part" of the active shutter available and told me to come back once they order the part. Last week, I was getting "Propulsion power reduced" randomly. The car would still start after several on/off. Finally yesterday, I was trying to back out of my driveway and got that message again. But this time it won't start anymore no matter how much I did the on/off cycle -All electricals still worked (headlights, radio, etc). That is when I finally called roadside assistance to get it towed to dealer.

So the car is on its second day at the dealer and haven't heard from them yet. They are to do two things: Check why the car won't start anymore and also install the new "part" for the active grille. Is the broken active grille responsible for the no propulsion? I don't know, but I am leaning more to both things as a coincidence.

Ill post updates once I hear back from dealer, hopefully today.
 
muadib69 said:
MrDRMorgan said:
muadib69 said:
Here is the actual message on the dash. Also the yellow warning light with the exclamation mark has been there for a while now. The dealer finally checked it and it has to do with "automatic air vents" in front of the car, I guess its broken. The dealer will also replace that part.

ErS6fvwl.jpg


NQBxvY2l.jpg

OK, I'll bite! The car is parked on your driveway and will not start. How did the broken "automatic air vents" kill the car? Did something over-heat while the car was parked? I do not know anything about the automatic air vents other than they are electrically operated. Perhaps, being broken, they were stuck and kept drawing 12 volt power even with the car powered off. If true, this would eventually drain the 12 volt battery and kill the car.


Sorry for being vague about my post. I'll try to explain better:

For months before the spark "died", I have had that yellow warning light on the dash. Been ignoring it and postponing a trip to the dealer until about a month ago I had to take it in because of the "airbag issue". Aside from the recall, I told dealer to check what the warning light is about.

Once I got the car back on the same day, the recall was performed and the dealer said that the warning light is due to a malfunctioning "Active Grill Shutter". To explain what this is: [In order to improve the aerodynamics and maximize thermal efficiencies the Spark EV employs an Active Grille Shutter system. The system includes a motorized actuator that closes louvers at the front bumper to enhance vehicle aerodynamics in driving situations where cooling and A/C loads are relatively low and high levels of front end airflow are not required. The engine control module determines shutter state based on various vehicle conditions such as vehicle speed, coolant temperature, fan state, refrigerant system pressure, A/C compressor state and ambient temperature. If high levels of airflow are required the active grille air shutter actuator opens the louvers.]

The dealer did not have this "part" of the active shutter available and told me to come back once they order the part. Last week, I was getting "Propulsion power reduced" randomly. The car would still start after several on/off. Finally yesterday, I was trying to back out of my driveway and got that message again. But this time it won't start anymore no matter how much I did the on/off cycle -All electricals still worked (headlights, radio, etc). That is when I finally called roadside assistance to get it towed to dealer.

So the car is on its second day at the dealer and haven't heard from them yet. They are to do two things: Check why the car won't start anymore and also install the new "part" for the active grille. Is the broken active grille responsible for the no propulsion? I don't know, but I am leaning more to both things as a coincidence.

Ill post updates once I hear back from dealer, hopefully today.

Thanks for the explanation. I will keep following your progress.
 
Took the car to dealer on Monday morning and the finally called me today (Wednesday) and said car is ready to be picked up. They said the issue was a bad ECM/PCM (Engine Control Module or Powertrain Control Module). This is what the ECM does:

"The engine control management computer, also called the engine control module (ECM) or the powertrain control module (PCM), is a modern computer that receives inputs from nearly every system on the vehicle, and instantaneously uses that information to deliver appropriate engine power for operating conditions."

I am glad this car is leased and under warranty.

s-l225.jpg
 
muadib69 said:
Took the car to dealer on Monday morning and the finally called me today (Wednesday) and said car is ready to be picked up. They said the issue was a bad ECM/PCM (Engine Control Module or Powertrain Control Module). This is what the ECM does:

"The engine control management computer, also called the engine control module (ECM) or the powertrain control module (PCM), is a modern computer that receives inputs from nearly every system on the vehicle, and instantaneously uses that information to deliver appropriate engine power for operating conditions."

I am glad this car is leased and under warranty.

s-l225.jpg

Thanks for posting this problem and fix.
 
muadib69 said:
MrDRMorgan said:
muadib69 said:
Here is the actual message on the dash. Also the yellow warning light with the exclamation mark has been there for a while now. The dealer finally checked it and it has to do with "automatic air vents" in front of the car, I guess its broken. The dealer will also replace that part.

ErS6fvwl.jpg


NQBxvY2l.jpg

OK, I'll bite! The car is parked on your driveway and will not start. How did the broken "automatic air vents" kill the car? Did something over-heat while the car was parked? I do not know anything about the automatic air vents other than they are electrically operated. Perhaps, being broken, they were stuck and kept drawing 12 volt power even with the car powered off. If true, this would eventually drain the 12 volt battery and kill the car.


Sorry for being vague about my post. I'll try to explain better:

For months before the spark "died", I have had that yellow warning light on the dash. Been ignoring it and postponing a trip to the dealer until about a month ago I had to take it in because of the "airbag issue". Aside from the recall, I told dealer to check what the warning light is about.

Once I got the car back on the same day, the recall was performed and the dealer said that the warning light is due to a malfunctioning "Active Grill Shutter". To explain what this is: [In order to improve the aerodynamics and maximize thermal efficiencies the Spark EV employs an Active Grille Shutter system. The system includes a motorized actuator that closes louvers at the front bumper to enhance vehicle aerodynamics in driving situations where cooling and A/C loads are relatively low and high levels of front end airflow are not required. The engine control module determines shutter state based on various vehicle conditions such as vehicle speed, coolant temperature, fan state, refrigerant system pressure, A/C compressor state and ambient temperature. If high levels of airflow are required the active grille air shutter actuator opens the louvers.]

The dealer did not have this "part" of the active shutter available and told me to come back once they order the part. Last week, I was getting "Propulsion power reduced" randomly. The car would still start after several on/off. Finally yesterday, I was trying to back out of my driveway and got that message again. But this time it won't start anymore no matter how much I did the on/off cycle -All electricals still worked (headlights, radio, etc). That is when I finally called roadside assistance to get it towed to dealer.

So the car is on its second day at the dealer and haven't heard from them yet. They are to do two things: Check why the car won't start anymore and also install the new "part" for the active grille. Is the broken active grille responsible for the no propulsion? I don't know, but I am leaning more to both things as a coincidence.

Ill post updates once I hear back from dealer, hopefully today.

I had to laugh today. I had previously commented on this post. So....today, on my way home, the Yellow Service Vehicle Soon warning light came on but nothing showed up on the display - very similar to what I read above. I had OnStar do a scan but nothing showed up although the OnStar person said something about an electric motor.

Both my 2014 Spark EV and 2015 Spark EV are currently charging in 100 deg. F heat. The Active grill is OPEN on the 2015 Spark EV and CLOSED on the 2014 Spark EV with the fan(s) running.

I will take the car in tomorrow and have them check out this problem and I plan to mention that it might be the shutter motor or the ECM. I will update when I get the answer.
 
MrDRMorgan said:
...Both my 2014 Spark EV and 2015 Spark EV are currently charging in 100 deg. F heat. The Active grill is OPEN on the 2015 Spark EV and CLOSED on the 2014 Spark EV with the fan(s) running.

I will take the car in tomorrow and have them check out this problem and I plan to mention that it might be the shutter motor or the ECM. I will update when I get the answer.
Yeah, that can't be right.
If it was not covered by warranty I know I'd MacGyver those shutters permanently open. :lol:
 
NORTON said:
MrDRMorgan said:
...Both my 2014 Spark EV and 2015 Spark EV are currently charging in 100 deg. F heat. The Active grill is OPEN on the 2015 Spark EV and CLOSED on the 2014 Spark EV with the fan(s) running.

I will take the car in tomorrow and have them check out this problem and I plan to mention that it might be the shutter motor or the ECM. I will update when I get the answer.
Yeah, that can't be right.
If it was not covered by warranty I know I'd MacGyver those shutters permanently open. :lol:

This morning I checked the grill and the shutter was still closed. I powered on the car and the Service Vehicle Soon warning light was now off. I backed out, left the car powered on and checked the grill again - the shutter was still closed. So, I drove 17 miles to the dealer, talked to the service advisor and set up an appointment for Thursday. Then, I drove home and checked the grill again - now the shutter was open and seems to be working correctly. I will have to keep an eye on this to see if the shutter continues working correctly.
 
Just wondering if replacing the ECM/PCM solved all the issues. My 2016 spark is now randomly showing the "reduced propulsion" message even though there's plenty of charge remaining. I'll be taking it to the dealer next week, but was just hoping to get better idea as to whether replacing that module will take care of it.
 
yesngo said:
Just wondering if replacing the ECM/PCM solved all the issues. My 2016 spark is now randomly showing the "reduced propulsion" message even though there's plenty of charge remaining. I'll be taking it to the dealer next week, but was just hoping to get better idea as to whether replacing that module will take care of it.

Did you end up having the same source of the issue?
 
They told me the battery pack was bad, and they're in the process of replacing it now. It's been almost a month since they've had my car. In the meantime, I'm forced to drive around in a Chevy Equinox loaner. I'm trying to figure out how much compensation to ask for when they finally do complete the repair.
 
yesngo said:
They told me the battery pack was bad, and they're in the process of replacing it now. It's been almost a month since they've had my car. ...
Dang, how long does it take to ship a container from the warehouse??
If you bought this new ,, The Lemon Law Clock is running....
If not, sit back and relax, while buying that smelly stuff for your loaner.
 
Just wanted to give an update. They ended up replacing the entire battery. The new battery seems to have a little better range than my old one did when it was new. It's been about 4 months now, and no further problems. I asked for them to compensate for my gas during the time my car was out, and they did.
 
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