Washing engine bay / disconnect high voltage check?

[Aus1]

If you wish to detail the engine compartment - ie quick wash,
I take it for safety reasons the high voltage battery will have to be shut down?
Using the GM procedure.

Having the car OFF with no transmiters inside the vehicle, PULLING the manual disconnect
in the centre console and waiting 5 minutes - However this does NOT garantee the power is really disconnected as one of the contactors in the main battery MAYBE stuck ON !

* So is there any other wayto make sure the voltage has dropped from the 380V to the recommended 3V WITHOUT taking the enginge heat sheild of to disconnect the power connectors to the gearbox/electric motors ?

PS Wear the GM recommended safety glasses and high voltage leather gloves, 1 hand for working prefered
otherwise it may the last time you work on a Volt. - It's going to be interesting if local Australian dealership let their apprentices loose on Volts as it could be a case of natural selection.

Every fuel source has it's own dangerous petrol - lpg and locally we have had plenty of Darwin award type people who were not alive to collect there respective trophies by blowing themselves up, I wonder if electric powered cars have caused similar yet ...?

Cheers,
Martin

[Henry_FL]

Absolutely NO, pull that disconnect and your looking for a flatbed to the dealer!

There is no special requirements, you can hose down the engine compartment all you want, everything is sealed and perfectly safe.

[analog_pal]

I wondered about that this past weekend. Ended up using my air compressor to blow out the cracks and crevices clean. It was crazy the amount of leaves and twigs that collect in there after 2.5 months.

[CarZin]

Dear God. WOP is going to beat you with a noodle when he sees this thread. Don't touch that MSD. There really is no good reason to be flooding the engine bay with water. All it takes is a few rags, some degreaser (I use aircraft degreaser as it won't corrode parts), and a little time. Since the engine isnt run much, there shouldnt me a lot of grease and other crap floating around the bay to clean up.

As mentioned above, an air compressor will also work wonders. I wipe and blow mine with an air compressor about once every 2 months, and it stays very clear. Don't expose all those electrical connections to water. It just isnt worth it.

[Fulgerite]

DO NOT TOUCH ANY ORANGE WIRES OR CONNECTORS.

You do NOT need to disconnect anything to wash the engine compartment. I have cleaned mine several times without incident. It's all water resistant connections.

If you were to disconnect the main... you will need to have the car towed in to the dealer to have it re-activated.

[saghost]

Pulling the MSD would guarantee the HV is harmless - it breaks the series stack, so you're left with two half voltage sets each with one end floating - no way to complete a high voltage circuit. However, as others have mentioned, the computers set some errors when the MSD is pulled that have to be reset by a dealer computer before the car can be driven (these are different from the codes you can reset with any old OBDII scanner.)

Without a major component failure (which I'm sure would trigger a MIL itself,) the HV lines are all dead when the car is off anyway - there's a set of large relays inside the battery case called contactors, which are energized by the 12V system. Until they are connected, there's no HV outside the battery. (This is why a dead 12V battery can stop the car, but necessary for safety.) Remote start and battery charging each enable smaller contactors, but the main one to the power electronics for the traction motors remain open.

[dcsulkis]

This is another in a series of weird posts by people with imperfect English raising "unusual" concerns with the Volt.

I'm not usually a conspiracy theorist, but . . .

[ewiggins]

I have hosed off the engine compartment with no problems, just to get the dust off. I know it is not the same, but in the Volt testing, GM did run the Volt through several inches of water so I would think a little water in the engine compartment would not be harmful.

[Steverino]

There is a sign molded into the black plastic cover on the right side of the engine bay. No pressure washing. It's your car, I suppose you can ignore the sign. But I figure it's there for a reason.

I wipe down the accessible areas weekly, including the underside of the hood. I also remove any leaves and twigs caught by the screens.

[mikeg3]

Think risk-reward.

At best, hosing your engine, compared to wiping down exposed components, gets you an engine compartment with cleaner unseen parts.

At worst, you fry yourself and embarrass the rest of us.

In between, you damage something and have to drive an ICE vehicle for a while, perhaps with a repair bill at the end.

Not a good bet IMHO.