First problem (12V battery dead)

[wizkid057]

So, left for the weekend on Friday, plugged in the Volt, and took another vehicle on a road trip. Returned Sunday, slept, got up for work Monday.

Well, the Volt didn't listen to the key chain remote when I told it to unlock the doors. Door buttons dead too.
Popped the door with the physical key (for the first time ever) and power button was unresponsive, no lights, etc.

Figuring that the 12V battery had died, I popped the hood and threw a 30A charger on it. After a few moments things started coming to life again. After a bit (~15 minutes), I hit the power button. The screen stayed on the "Initializing..." screen for quite a while (minute maybe?) then I heard the ICE attempt to start, and everything died again.

So, I left it sit a little longer, tried again, and it fired up this time. ICE started (because the hood was up) and I disconnected the 12V charger and the J1772 charger and closed the hood. ICE stopped after a few moments, gauges showed a full EV battery.

Check engine and red battery shaped indicators were on. Pic:

2012-05-14 06.19.15.jpg

Called OnStar, they said that I had a few trouble issues and I scheduled service for that afternoon.

Car drove fine.

Dealer said they were going to order a new 12V battery for me, and cleared the trouble codes.

Left the 12V battery with a trickle charger on it last night just in case, since the new battery wont be installed until Wednesday.

Well, this morning I had the check engine indicator on again. OnStar told me three issues this time. Got the codes for two of them... P1E00 (Something about the Hybrid electrical system not functioning adequately), P04C4 (Fuel Filling Door issue?), and another code from Vehicle Integration that for whatever reason he wasnt able to supply. Forwarded this info to the dealer, since I'm going there tomorrow anyway.

Not sure on the whole Fuel door thing... haven't refueled in over two weeks, so, no idea whats going on there. I opened it, opened the cap, closed etc and they say its still troubled.

Plugged in my cheap ELM327 ODBII USB interface and used ScanMaster to check the various ECUs reported, but, no useful data since the codes aren't recognized by ScanMaster. (Same data OnStar gave, basically.)

Just wanted to share my first problem with the Volt. I assume its nothing major, probably just a faulty mini-12V battery... which in my opinion is undersized...

-wk

[DonC]

You're not the first person to report a dead battery. Was the Volt plugged in when you went on your trip? And did you notice whether everything on the center console was off? It might be your battery but we've had several people with dead 12v batteries who definitely didn't have a bad battery. Could be an exception though.

Note the battery is probably not undersized given that starting doesn't involve cranking. (I think the Leaf battery is so small you can't use it to jump start another car).

[saghost]

Actually, the Volt's battery is 60 Ah - exactly the same as my VW Eos. We're also told that the Volt has one of the lowest power off drains in the industry. As mentioned above, there have been half a dozen incidents on this forum of people finding the 12V battery dead - neither we nor GM are sure of the cause. Some of the earlier incidents appeared to involve Bluetooth calls that may not have ended properly.

A few questions, to try to find common patterns:
Which model year/what month of production is your Volt?
Nav? Non-Nav? My Link?
How long have you had the Volt?
Do you have a Bluetooth phone linked?
Were you on the phone the last time you drove the Volt?
Did you do anything different on the last trip or before leaving for your roadtrip compared to your past habits (that you remember)?

WopOnTour watches these forums fairly closely, and can give out definitions and explanations for your trouble codes. As I remember from past discussion, P1E00 is a "master caution" type - it sets in addition to the other codes whenever there's a problem in the hybrid system. He's also mentioned in the past that a low 12V battery can result in a lot of codes, which may not in fact be problems, but merely false errors resulting from the low Bus voltage.

[wizkid057]

Going down the list...

Yes, I had the car plugged in to the 240V charger all weekend... although I've read that this doesn't help the 12V battery.
When the car was dead, yes, everything was off. No lights, no LCD glow, no indicators, no blue power button light, nothing. No response to any buttons, etc.

As for model, I have a 2012 with Nav, Bose, etc. (See sig). Not sure the year/month of production. Voltstats shows me as #2012-09289.

I've had the car about 2.5 months. I've racked on 7400 miles in that time frame due to my lengthy commutes. (I do get to charge at my destination, usually, and sometimes using 240V).

I do have a Bluetooth phone linked, but, I had not made or received any calls on it prior to parking it for the weekend.

Didn't do anything different, really. Just plugged the car in as usual and let it be.

I do have a charging schedule set for Time-of-Use metering to charge in the late evening, but, I doubt that's related.

As for the battery being undersized... *shrugs* Just my opinion. Not sure what could have drained it so quickly. From the time I plugged it in on Friday to the time I got up to leave on Monday was only about 64 hours.

-wk

[saghost]

As for the battery being undersized... *shrugs* Just my opinion. Not sure what could have drained it so quickly. From the time I plugged it in on Friday to the time I got up to leave on Monday was only about 64 hours.

-wk

Our current belief is that the center console screen and some of the driving electronics aren't shutting down for some reason. IF that's the case, discharging a battery in 12 hours wouldn't be hard, let alone 64.

I don't have any answers, I'm just hoping that if we put enough of these incidents together we'll find enough commonalities for GM to find the bug.

[wizkid057]

did you notice whether everything on the center console was off?

Little under the weather today... I interpreted this as if you were asking if the center console was off when I found it dead.

As for if it was off when I stopped the car, yes. I actually hit the power button habitually to turn off the radio/nav/etc when parking the car and it stops at the Volt logo screen, which disappears when I open the driver's side door after powering off.

Our current belief is that the center console screen and some of the driving electronics aren't shutting down for some reason. IF that's the case, discharging a battery in 12 hours wouldn't be hard, let alone 64.

I don't have any answers, I'm just hoping that if we put enough of these incidents together we'll find enough commonalities for GM to find the bug.

Yup, thats why I figured I'd share.


Seems there should be some software-based fail-safe for this problem, especially when the car is plugged into AC power. For example, logic defined as: If the 12V battery voltage drops below a threshold AND the charge cord is connected, activate charger and the DC-DC converter to boost the 12V battery and possibly throw a trouble code stating that this had to happen.

Just an idea...

[dwl]

I always thought it would make sense to use that big old battery in the Volt to jump the little battery in situations like this. But maybe the circuitry would be more complicated and/or bulky than I think it would be.

[saghost]

I always thought it would make sense to use that big old battery in the Volt to jump the little battery in situations like this. But maybe the circuitry would be more complicated and/or bulky than I think it would be.

It's a catch-22. The big battery is locked out for safety behind a set of contactors (high powered relays) and only allowed out to play when its nanny computers says it can. But the nanny computers are powered off the 12V battery, so they can't decide the battery is safe and open the contactors to deliver the 12V power.

What I'd like to see (and don't know for a fact isn't present, actually,) is the ability to slave off of A/C power. The charger module has its own 12V source, generated from wall power, which could potentially unlock this mess and allow the car to start.

Next time a car is found dead near a plug, before trying anything else to start it, unplug it (if it was plugged in,) and plug it in again. If the designers were as clever as they were in so many other corners of the design, it might wake up.

[dwl]

Or that. Just so much electricity everywhere. Seems like such a strange problem to have.

[mikeg3]

Seems there should be some software-based fail-safe for this problem, especially when the car is plugged into AC power. For example, logic defined as: If the 12V battery voltage drops below a threshold AND the charge cord is connected, activate charger and the DC-DC converter to boost the 12V battery and possibly throw a trouble code stating that this had to happen.

Just an idea...

The charge port on the left side of the car is connected to an On Board Charge Module on the right side of the car. The OBCM has a high voltage output to charge the main battery and a separate low voltage output to charge the 12V battery. However, when the main battery is fully charged, the OBCM stops completely and the 12V battery is on its own.

There is a path from the main battery through the Auxiliary Power Module to the low voltage rail to the 12V battery. However, the APM is not used to maintain the 12V battery in a powered-off Volt.

Each device that can connect to the main battery, the APM, the OBCM, and the Traction Inverter, can only connect through contactors that keep the high voltage under computer control. Without low voltage, the computers can't operate, and the contactors stay open. Supplying power to the jumper terminals under the hood provides low voltage so that the computers can operate. At that point, pressing the Volt's power on button will close the APM's contactor so that it can power the computers and start charging the 12V battery.

See the Volt Owner's Manual page 10-81 (2011) or 10-70 (2012).