Charging after sitting for 1+ years.

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Lparvin

New member
Joined
Jun 8, 2022
Messages
3
Friend has a 2016 Spark EV that's sat for over a year. Won't take level1 charge. Can I boost charge the battery pack to condition the battery to "wake it up" so it will take and keep a charge again?
 
The 12V battery under the hood is most likely 'Dead'.
After this amount of time being dead it's not likely to recover.
Do you have a multimeter? Go see what the voltage is on the 12V battery under the hood.
You can jump start it with another 12V just like any car, but then the car will try to charge up that dead battery and that might not be good.


In my opinion, any small 12V battery can be used. The original replacement will be expensive.... Just mount it securely which ever way you go.

The Big High Voltage Battery is fine. Li-ion batteries have very little 'self discharge'.
But all the other systems in the car operate on 12V and the 12V battery needs to boot up the system before anything else can be done.

If you get to drive it, hold on with both hands before flogging it !!! :shock:
It's a quick little POS EV!!! :cool:
 
Thanks for that information. I do have a multimeter and will check that battery out and replace if necessary and go from there. I hope it works because if it does it'll be my new daily. Save some serious coin only driving my ICE full size SUV when necessary.
 
I agree with NORTON. My approach would be to first check the surface voltage with a multimeter. Then trickle charge it. Ideally it should read 12.6 v. Then see if the car turns on note the SOC for reference.

Then go ahead and charge the high voltage battery.

Also, depending on how long your daily commute is, you may or may not be able to get away with L1 charging. If L1 is your only option, then at least go into the charging settings in the car and set it to 12Amps (it defaults to 8amps every time you plug it in)
 
Changed the 12V Battery. Car is just fine after sitting for a year. Put a new set of tires on it and gave it a much needed bath inside and out. Charges and runs well so far.
 
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