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Spark front tire blowout: Car disabled

14K views 13 replies 11 participants last post by  flyingsherpa 
#1 ·
There is a curious post here: Blown tire spark EV, and here: Dead Spark EV, where a Spark EV owner hit a pot hole and blew out his right front tire.

The Spark EV shut down (actually he reported it would not shut down and would not initialize). He had it towed, dealer could find no error codes. Once a new tire was put in the car, it started up and ran fine.

I can't find anything hinting of this "feature" in the owners manual.
 
#2 ·
The most telling post in that thread was from the OP.

But I must say when I bought the car in California and ship to Texas the dealer warned me that dealers around the country are not obligated to fix the spark EV outside of California and Oregon. Therefore I'm treading carefully. If changing the tire does not do anything I need their volt technician to figure out what else happen to car.
 
#4 ·
I drove a regular gas Spark loaner for a few days, and it had a tire pressure monitor system on it. So I would expect the Electric one does too.

Maybe the Spark shuts itself down when it gets a zero reading on one of the tires for safety.
 
#6 ·
All cars can have a tire blow out.

All cars cannot be driven with a flat tire. (Unless you want to destroy the suspension and rims.) Or you have run-flat tires.

I fail to see anything unique here... Other than the car shuts off if it sees that there is zero pressure in one of the tires. Fix the tire and I bet you can drive again.
 
#8 ·
I can't imagine it would shut down from a flat. What happens if it loses comm with the TPMS, it would just shut down? This would be a bad design.

My guess is the impact tripped a HV contactor and the power was cut to the HV system. Maybe the dealer did something to reset this?
 
#9 ·
There is nothing in the Spark EV owners manual indicating the car can't be started if there is a flat tire. Just the opposite, it warns you not to drive on a flat tire, implying the car will not simply shut down based on tire pressure.
 
#12 ·
Or if you got a flat and put on a spare, the TPMS for the flat tire in your trunk would still be zero.

Or if you installed run flat tires, then you could drive at 0 PSI for quite some distance.

There is no logical reason why a car shouldn't let you drive if a TPMS reads 0.
 
#13 ·
This all seems weird to me, too. But if you read the posts at the links I gave in the original post above, you will see the owner reported that all the dealer did was replace the blown tire. I posted here (in the Spark EV forum) because it doesn't make sense to me, and I thought other Spark EV owners might want to be on the lookout for the issue.

BTW, Fulgerite, Volts CAN be driven with a flat tire. Just ask my wife ;) Didn't destroy the suspension or rim, but it did destroy the wheel well liner. This fiasco only cost me about $800. She made it about 7 miles and got up to 70 mph before the tread flew off:



Oh, and the Volt DOES NOT shut down after a blowout. :cool:
 
#14 ·
This all seems weird to me, too. But if you read the posts at the links I gave in the original post above, you will see the owner reported that all the dealer did was replace the blown tire. I posted here (in the Spark EV forum) because it doesn't make sense to me, and I thought other Spark EV owners might want to be on the lookout for the issue.

BTW, Fulgerite, Volts CAN be driven with a flat tire. Just ask my wife ;) Didn't destroy the suspension or rim, but it did destroy the wheel well liner. This fiasco only cost me about $800. She made it about 7 miles and got up to 70 mph before the tread flew off:
Oh, and the Volt DOES NOT shut down after a blowout. :cool:
That's... impressive! Was the TPMS not yelling at her?!?! I had a fairly quick leak (1 psi / minute, so not a blowout) on the highway last year and IIRC the TPMS dinged at me repeatedly once the tire got below 26psi.
 
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