Sunday 28 July 2013

Keep a diary...

Friday 26th July 2013, I collected my Chevrolet Volt from the garage where it has spent the week as they try to track down a problem of my car spontaneously losing several miles of battery range or going into 'propulsion power reduced' mode unexpectedly because there is insufficient charge remaining in the battery for normal driving. The bad news is that they haven't managed to find anything, but worse Chevrolet UK are denying that the behaviour I am seeing is anything out of the ordinary and point to page 5-44 of the car manual as proof:
The garage admits that they saw the issue when they had the car previously, and that their demonstrator car hasn't shown the issue. I pointed out that I've also asked online at gm-volt.com and nobody there thinks my car is behaving normally. All the garage can suggest is that I keep a diary for the next few weeks so they have some hard figures to put to Chevrolet UK.
So here it is, my Chevrolet Volt diary where I intend to keep a close record of miles covered, range estimated and achieved, and any strange goings on such as dashboard information messages.
First a brief introduction to the problem as I see it. This is what I posted on gm-volt.com just over a month ago:
I have an issue with my Volt that several times now when I've parked with the battery range close to 0, when I return to the car and start it I get 'Propulsion Power Reduced' and the engine revs madly for the next few miles. So far I've seen it happen at least 3 times. The first time the car showed 5 miles battery remaining when I parked it and then 10 minutes later it was PPR. In all cases I haven't been driving up any hills.

So far as I can tell it doesn't happen again when the car has been running on ICE for a while: it's just an issue around the changeover point from battery to ICE.

The garage has looked at it and can reproduce the problem when they drained the battery. They say though that they aren't sure it is a problem and perhaps all Volts do it. Their demonstrator is out on loan at the moment but when they get it back they'll see whether it does the same.

I don't believe that 'all Volts do it' or I suspect I would see some comment about it on this forum. My question is, has anyone else had a similar problem (and if so did you resolve it and if so what was the resolution)? Alternatively, if there's anyone who regularly runs the battery down to close to zero but doesn't have this problem, please can you say so that I can show the garage that it's not 'normal'.
and a bit later:
I think my Volt has had the PPR message 7 times in total:
First time was when I was driving along with more then 20 miles estimated range remaining. I called the dealer from whom I bought the car and they collected it a few days later.2nd time was when they were driving it back to the garage (they're about 100 miles from me). They replaced the battery.
3rd time was when I was driving up a steepish hill in the Chilterns. There's no way you would consider the Chilterns to be mountains, but some of the roads are steep and go up and down a lot. PPR surprised me here, but I have no particular complaints.
Now the ones that concern me:4th time I came off the A34 (so 70mph) and parked with 5 miles estimated remaining. PPR came on when I returned to the car. No significant hills in the area. Link to google maps
5th time was near Redruth in Cornwall. I'm not sure what range was remaining as my wife was driving, but it was pretty flat.
6th time was back in Oxfordshire. Again no mountains nor even hills in sight: Link to google mapsThat time I had been trying to drive carefully in the hope of breaking 50 miles, but I reached my destination after 49.8 miles with an estimate 0 miles remaining.
7th time was whatever the garage (new dealer: they're only 9 miles from me!) were doing with the car today. I've no idea where they were at the time, but they're based here, so I doubt many hills were involved: Link to google mapsThey said they ran it down to 2 miles range remaining then turned it off and on again to trigger the PPR message.
Steve-o: yes, it is when starting the car, PPR comes up instantly. Turning it off and on again at that point doesn't seem to help, driving a few miles and then turning off and on again clears it.
I'll see what the garage says when they've tried to reproduce the problem with their demonstrator and when they've managed to get a response from Chevrolet. 

No comments:

Post a Comment