Emerballs' Chevy Volt

EmersonHart13

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Update/cross post from another thread


I had a buddy that switched to real time and then switched back because he was getting raped during the day.

I signed up for Volt Stats that Stink Star Linked, Waiting for it to sync up which is twice a day, will report back afterwards.

I also track my home charging which is nearly all of my charging. Per this meter I have put 6357 kwh through my volt in 25 months. The cost is set at 0.11229 in the app which I haven't checked in a while but would guess is still reasonably accurate. The Volt pulls around 10 per charge so that seems about right as that is 635 fill ups at 10 per.

View attachment 50919
Info from volt stats

View attachment 50971

CS is Charge Sustaining Mode
Since I purchased

View attachment 51001
Since new, original was a lease

View attachment 51002

So first owner did 46,605.5 miles, used 837.7 gallons of gas and got 55.64 mpg.... Aka they didn't plug in very much

Car also decided it needed to visit service. Friday on my way to work I got the reduced propulsion message about two blocks from my house. I never did the recall I was supposed to do so I scheduled that and took care of it today. I know cars also do weird things when their 12v batteries get old so I took a look and mine was original. I took it to have it tested and it tested good, 12.7v and he said it had about 400 of its 600 CCA still left in it. I bought a new one anyway and put that in Saturday.

So Volt life is still good.


Cliffs: literally a post about nothing exciting at all
 

RICH17

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This is nearly the identical load tester I have, and while 400 isn't great, it is still in the safe range. Weak, but safe.


Safe yes, but the car is daily driven and shouldnt be that low.


I wonder if the electric stuff charges the 12v battery since the engine barely runs? Stink Star Stink Star Productions
 

EmersonHart13

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I believe there is a DC to DC converter that recharges the battery instead of the alternator. I think it does so while driving but I don't know if anything happens while is is plugged in.

Edit: it appears it gets charged while plugged in too:



Funny, I just wrote up the explanation below in response to a similar question on ChevroletVoltage.com ... (dont' bother going there, there really is FAR more activity here, and anything new posted there first usually shows up here within hours anyway)

Some of this comes from a WopOnTour post here a while back.

First, some background. Hybrid vehicles like the Volt and Prius have two separate battery systems: the big, high voltage "traction" battery and the small, low voltage "accessory" battery. The traction battery obviously provides the power to move the car, but it also provides the power to start the gas engine.

During operation, the 12 Volt battery's voltage is maintained by the "accessory power module" (APM) whenever the Volt is "ON", and maintained by the main battery charger assembly (On-Board Charging Module) when the Volt is plugged in and charging is ACTIVE (steady green LED). The APM is a DC to DC converter that takes high voltage (380V?) from the Volt's traction battery and converts it to ~13.0-15.5 Volts in order to maintain the low voltage accessory loads (including the Volt's computers and modules). It also charges the 12V system's battery, also know as an "absorbant glass mat" (AGM) battery. The 12V battery's voltage is maintained when the car is running or charging (by the APM or charger, respectively), but not when parked and unplugged.

Both the APM and the 12V auxiliary battery are located in the rear of the vehicle under the removable rear hatch compartment floor.

Someone had asked a question about jumping the Volt. The scenario that you'd need a jump for is when you've somehow managed to drain the 12V battery (e.g. leaving lights on). In that case, you just need to connect to the 12V battery and give it a little juice, to literally boot up the brains so that the car will start up.

Even if it wasnt (plugged in), you wouldn't be able to drain the 12V battery by leaving a door open, map/dome light on, or even headlights on as after approximately 10 minutes the Body Control Module (BCM) will shut down the various fused feeds to these devices via the inadvertent power relay (aka battery run-down protection).

The Volt is also equipped with a "Battery Saver" mode used for periods of storage. The battery saver mode reduces the parasitic load of some of the electronic modules during long shipment or during vehicle storage conditions. This improves the drain time on the battery (up to 70 days without the battery going dead). (more on this here)

You can't jump the car if it has a dead traction battery (the HV battery), but it's nigh impossible to run that battery dead anyway. The accessories don't drain the traction battery when the car is parked, and the car won't let you drive it until the traction battery is completely dead -- it stops at 25% SOC (we think) and certainly well before 0% SOC.

The Volt manual has quite a bit of detail on A) jump starting the Volt and B) using the Volt to jump start another car. See pages 10-72 through 10-76. Note that the 12V battery is in the rear of the car, and you can attach the jumper cables there, but for convenience there are also jump connection points in the front of the car, as shown in this post. However you should only use those front points when jumping the Volt; if jumping another car use the rear points. This is probably because of a lighter gauge wire used to feed the front points.
 
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EmersonHart13

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Agreed. Just saying if he wanted to buy time, he could've for a little while.

I think the weirder thing is that Napa guy didn't try to sell me a battery. LOL

I can use the old battery for a good cause so it isn't wasted funds and I know I didn't skimp. We put a descent amount of miles on this car and its our road tripper so I like to know it'll go fine.
 

Stink Star

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Safe yes, but the car is daily driven and shouldnt be that low.


I wonder if the electric stuff charges the 12v battery since the engine barely runs? Stink Star Stink Star Productions
Yea there’s a DC to DC charger in the trunk that charges the 12v battery. I wanna say it’s pretty weak, like 60amps or something but remember the 12v battery really only runs the lights and stereo and accessories.
 

SleeperLS

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