[MalvoliosStockings]

TLDR: new 2023 EUV purchased three days ago has an empty battery coolant tank.

So I picked up my new 2023 EUV on Wednesday. This was a custom order I placed in November, was real lucky to find a dealer with an open allocation that also sold at MSRP! The dealer is about 60 miles away and everything was great on the drive home. Got home with about 68% battery so the next day I decided to try out a local EA station, mostly just to get familiar with it. I did that on Thursday. It charged... really slow, even considering the SoC but I didn't think anything of it at the time. It couldn't get past 15 kW after 20 minutes and it was about 45 degrees out.

Today, Friday, I was just setting some stuff up in the car. I wasn't going anywhere but I turned it on just to fiddle with the settings. Check engine light was on. Got OnStar to do a diagnosis, I got code P1FFE (issue with charging system, service some time) and code P19FF (issue with battery conditioning system, service in 1 day) Well I don't want to drive 60 miles with an error so I made an appointment Monday morning at a much closer dealer.

But I did some Googling and found here and other places some posts about coolant after battery replacements... so I popped the hood to take a look. And yup, the battery coolant tank is empty! The other two are fine (and the cabin heat works great). This isn't a battery replacement, this is a 2023 with a build date of a month ago and an odometer of 70 miles. Yipes!

Really hope someone just goofed and there was an air bubble in the system and I didn't just leak coolant all over the greater Seattle Tacoma area. Or worse, it's leaking into the battery... but I think then it would be throwing more errors? I hope?

UPDATE (1/23): Unfortunately, it wasn't just a bad vacuum fill like I hoped. Turns out a clamp is missing from part of the coolant line and the coolant did in fact spill out. They pointed it out to me on a chart of the coolant system but it was all just a bunch of tubes to me, I will try to remember to get a picture next time I'm there. They are getting the missing part sent overnight so we'll see what happens tomorrow. I never got a "propulsion reduced" error or anything so given the mild pacific northwest winter I'm pretty sure the battery never actually overheated or anything.

UPDATE (1/25): Got the car back from the dealer, appears to drive fine! I went to an EVGo station afterwards and starting from a SoC of ~67% up to 80% pulled a steady 15kW the whole time which still seems low to me, but I did verify that the coolant stayed in the tank this time. It's 45 degrees here so I'm just gonna assume it couldn't heat the battery fast enough until it was throttled more due to charge level (I'm still new at this!). I guess next I'll let it drain down to less than 40% before I try my next charge.

Here's the report from the dealer, I asked if they still had the diagram of the coolant system with the missing part circled but they couldn't find it.

 

[MalvoliosStockings]

It's a 412xxxx. I don't remember the exact build date but it was mid December when the bot on the Chevy site switched to saying that the car had been produced. Then a week ago my dealer said it had arrived locally via train, so it took about a month.

 

[MalvoliosStockings]

Yeah I mean.... since it drove fine and only had the problem after trying to DCFC on a cold day, my theory is that there was just air bubbles in there (improper vac-fill?). So that was probably the first time the car tried to actively manage the battery's temperature in this mild pacific northwest winter. Doing so would "burp" the air into the tank.

Well that's my theory anyway. I'll find out soon....

 

[MalvoliosStockings]

I'm inclined to wait until i have more info to confront the purchasing dealer since I'm getting it serviced at a much closer one anyway (5 miles vs 60 miles). But the codes weren't thrown until well after that 60 miles drive home so I don't think the dealer would have found this with a test drive? I know they didn't try to DCFC it because they only have a L2 charger there (which I did see them use on this car).

 

[MalvoliosStockings]

Odometer read 4 miles when I took possession and drove off so that tracks for a short test drive at least.

 

[MalvoliosStockings]

I have never had an interaction with a service department that didn't last at least half a day, even for super simple stuff. I'm expecting to drop it off and take a Lyft home and hope for the best.

The worst part is... I really like this car! I moved it from my parking spot behind our building to street parking today. No errors popping up, nothing about propulsion reduced or anything which continues to give me hope that the battery itself is fine. I just kinda sat there for a few minutes fiddling with stuff and enjoying the heated seats. I'm coming from a 10 year old Ford Fiesta and this is just so many steps up. Sigh.

 

[MalvoliosStockings]

Thanks for linking that! Sounds like everything resolved for you once everything was refilled properly?

Interestingly one of my reservoirs is also overfilled while one looks normal. The cabin heat has already been used a lot (the dealer was showing off the precondition function quite a bit) and I think that's the one that is lower... perhaps it also burped up some air...

 

[MalvoliosStockings]

So where is the full line? In the middle of the tank below what looks like a book?

On either side of that book is an arrow, both pointing to a line. I believe that is the fill line.

 

[MalvoliosStockings]

i’m a little confused about the DCFC. You said you couldn’t get more than 15 kW was that the amount of output that the EA machine was providing because at 68% you’d probably be somewhere in the 30s. Or in 20 minutes you took in 15 kWh and your EA charges were between five and six dollars? Somewhat confused. Quite interested too because I picked up my new EUV on Wednesday as well. I checked under the hood coolant is full I only have 175 miles on the car but I haven’t charged yet. Thanks

It was ~15kW for 20ish minutes, total delivery was 5kWh. I have the $4 pass so at $0.31 kWh it was $1.55.

I'm assuming what happened was, it was about 45 degrees out (and I don't have a heated parking spot), too cold to charge fast. So the car activated the BMS to heat the battery. But this failed to work correctly so the battery never warmed up and so the charge rate never increased.

 

[MalvoliosStockings]

Was reading reviews of the dealer I'm bring my EUV to tomorrow because I'm bored and anxious and I found a familiar story from a few months ago on a new EUV (with a ridiculous markup, which is why I did not buy from there!)...

Doesn't say if it was a 2022 with a battery replacement or a 2023.

 

[MalvoliosStockings]

Updated the first post but the news is not good! The car is actually missing a clamp on one of the coolant lines. Astounding.

 

[MalvoliosStockings]

Wow. Must be a first around here. Is the working theory that whoever replaced the pack didn’t put this clamp back on?

This is a 2023 with a build date of last month, it never had a pack replaced.

 

[MalvoliosStockings]

So with that missing clamp, the cooling system holds vacuum for a proper fill? Then does it leak coolant out during conditioning and regular pumping circulation? This is a long thread, just looking for a summary of what would happen if a clamp was missing.

Someone with more knowledge of how this system works might know more but I was told that this was a leak and they actually found coolant sprayed out onto other parts of the car.

 

[MalvoliosStockings]

Dealer called back this afternoon and said everything is all good, I'll go to pick up tomorrow morning and probably head right to a DCFC to test it again, but with the hood open this time! Really hope I can put all this behind me and just have a car.

 

[MalvoliosStockings]

Hopefully the final update in the first post! Car is back, seems fine. Life resumes.

 

[MalvoliosStockings]

I got a notification from the app saying that my car has a problem with my battery and needed service and I almost had a heart attack! Opened the app and it was fine, went to the car and turned it on and it was fine. Just old data bonking around the system I guess. Thanks terrible app!

 

[MalvoliosStockings]

For fun, I looked up the part!