Volt won't charge after charging in public.

[Marc Lee]

However the problem does in fact seem to lie with the car now, and not the house.

I wonder if anyone else has used that charger at the dealer that "seems" to be associated with your problem. Might be advisable to give them a heads up. There does seems to be some occaisional wonkiness between the Volt and non-SPX chargers.

As you point out, this may be due to the Volt's strict adherence to the J1772 standard.

[Roadburner440]

Alright so we have the verdict! The wonderful people at Hampton Chevrolet called to inform me that it is in fact the water intrusion issue. It got down into wherever, and that it needs to be replaced. They are unsure how long this will take, so I know have the famed rental. What an unpleasant experience it is to drive that.

So needless to say with the Leaf leaving us tomorrow the Prius is going to go back in to main stream duty. It is weird to go back to a full ICE after driving hybrid, PHEV, EV for so long now. It is very slow to respond, the shifting, and all of that. So it is going to sit in the driveway unless we absolutely need it.

We will see what happens. Now that I know it is water that got down in to the harness area I think it is just coincidence that it happened when it did, and driving over all the pot holes on I-64/664/tunnels just aggrivated whatever had already happened. So we shall see. Hopefully it is back by the end of next week. I am just glad I can stop running around the house checking everything.

[dwl]

Answers are good! Even if they're sometimes annoying.

[Roadburner440]

Just wanted to follow up. I have had my car back since Tuesday (yes I know, I am writting this on Thursday, busy busy!). Anyway apparently it was not getting in to the fender like I had originally thought. The charge controller (box on the right front part of the bumper) was getting water in to the connector where the charge plug harness hooks in. So according to the write up on the paperwork they replaced the charge plug harness, and passenger head light harness. Car works good as new again! Volt Advisors called not even 15 minutes or so after I got it home. So congrats to Jim Goslee and the Volt team at Hampton Chevrolet. A 3 business day turn around in my mind is outstanding considering I expected to be without the car for over a week.

On a side not my venture with the rental car was TERRIBLE.. They gave us an Impala. So we had it Saturday till Tuesday, and only drove it just a hair over 30 miles. It cost 10 dollars to put that sucker back up to full, after only 30 miles!! That is almost half my electric driving for an entire month.. So needless to say I am happy as can be to have the Volt back. Hopefully the new parts incorporate some type of fix to prevent this charging issue from happening again. If it does happen again hopefully it is after our Leaf gets here.

I will comment though as I know the Volt people read this that in the future maybe we could at least ensure we get a hybrid or something as a rental. I know this is me being extremely picky, BUT it is quite a shocker when I have not put gas in any car since November and prices have gotten as high as they are to put gas in a car again. Is just a side note. I don't think GM controls this either, but if it is a process that can be improved in the future that is my input to it. Other than that the whole rental process was extremely smooth, and I am very happy to get my car back.

[Krellion]

Great to hear that everything is back in working order!

Too bad they wouldn't let you use the red Volt they have on the lot as your rental, but I think that's the only one they have at the moment, and of course they need that for test drives.

[Marc Lee]

"The charge controller (box on the right front part of the bumper) was getting water in to the connector where the charge plug harness hooks in. So according to the write up on the paperwork they replaced the charge plug harness, and passenger head light harness. "

Um yeah, how in the world is water getting in there? Seems to me that replacing the harness does nothing to address how water infiltrated in the first place.

[Roadburner440]

I was told GM working on a fix for it that will be rolled out to the cars. They sent my parts back to Detroit to be analyzed. Replacing the connector would fix the issue if it is insulated properly. One the aircraft we have many rubberized connectors that insulate against the elements very well. Using something like that would stop water intrusion, but it would definately be expensive. I think simply using sealant on the exterior or "wet sealing" the connectors like we do in aviation would go a long way to preventing the problem. Not to mention it would be cheap and easy to implement, so it would save GM quite a bit of money. If I wind up buying the car out in the end I most likely will wind up wet sealing all the connections to prevent this from happening in the future using non-Acetone RTV (You want to use Acetone free to prevent corrosion! If it smells like Vinegar do not use it!). While the car is under warranty though I will not be messing with anything.

[GIJoeHole]

Thanks for all the updates Roadburner440, glad I didn't have the same problem but it's good to follow along in case something similar happens to mine in the future!

[JoE2012]

Hi, I have the same problem. how did you Reboot the Volt?

[coreyod]

Roadburner,

Saw your posts here regarding a Volt that would not seem to charge either at home or at the dealer. I am having the same issue on my 2-day old Volt...

I'm curious how long it took to fix, how difficult the fix was, and whether it left any visible/residual effects on your vehicle. Being that my car is only 2 days old, I'm quite concerned that it needs this level of repair.

I brought the car in to the dealer today and verified that it would not charge using either a 240 connection or a new 120 charger. They couldn't fix it today and asked that I return it tomorrow. I was hoping that they could fix it in a day; was that your experience?

When plugging in, the charger flashes Red on the B (!) LED and the car's charging indicator briefly shows yellow before going off entirely.

Any tips for what I should say/ask of the dealer tomorrow?

Thanks,