Electrical system failure: Stop!

[JoulesThief]

Update: Dealer called and after talking to VW it needed a part replaced which they should have by Friday. Hopefully that will fix the issue. They also offered to give me a rental car

What is the part, part number and description?

 

[sfsoundguy]

So because it was the service advisor calling to update me and not the technician he did not know the actual part being replaced. I will post a full diagnostic once the car is returned operational again with all details including parts & parts numbers.

 

[JoulesThief]

So because it was the service advisor calling to update me and not the technician he did not know the actual part being replaced. I will post a full diagnostic once the car is returned operational again with all details including parts & parts numbers.

Glad they are now on it to get it repaired and back on the road again.

 

[miimura]

According to others that have had this problem and reported the repairs on the Facebook group, the most likely repair is to replace the Power Electronics Module (JX1). The main function of this module is the drive inverter that propels the car.

 

[JoulesThief]

According to others that have had this problem and reported the repairs on the Facebook group, the most likely repair is to replace the Power Electronics Module (JX1). The main function of this module is the drive inverter that propels the car.

Off the top of your head, how many of these have been problematic /replaced?

 

[miimura]

According to others that have had this problem and reported the repairs on the Facebook group, the most likely repair is to replace the Power Electronics Module (JX1). The main function of this module is the drive inverter that propels the car.

Off the top of your head, how many of these have been problematic /replaced?

I've only been watching e-Golf forums since March, but if I had to guess, I would say about a dozen in the US. Of course, this depends on what percentage of people go to an online forum to report/complain about it. There are people who have had the problem, they Google "e-Golf Electrical System Failure Stop" and end up here, never having considered going to an EV forum before.

I think the DC/DC converter may also be inside this module. I have only seen one that appears to have failed in the DC/DC section, the rest seem to have been for the drive inverter.

 

[JoulesThief]

I've only been watching e-Golf forums since March, but if I had to guess, I would say about a dozen in the US. Of course, this depends on what percentage of people go to an online forum to report/complain about it. There are people who have had the problem, they Google "e-Golf Electrical System Failure Stop" and end up here, never having considered going to an EV forum before.

I think the DC/DC converter may also be inside this module. I have only seen one that appears to have failed in the DC/DC section, the rest seem to have been for the drive inverter.

I believe these are those big aluminum boxes with those 4 orange high voltage wires running to them, sitting on top of the electric motor, and on the passenger side, under the hood?

Do you think that maybe full throttle applications on the electric motor, with maximum amperage draw is overloading these boxes and burning them up? Or just normal driving wear and tear? Blue smoke electrical events usually occur when something is operated repeatedly outside of it's design limits, until it fails. I've seen plenty of smoked circuit breakers helping an electrical contractor friend out up at the ski resort of Mammoth Mtn... invariably when city folks show up in the rentals and crank up all the electrical space heaters to make the rental condo almost sauna like in temperature so that they can run around in their shorts in the middle of winter during a cold snap. Too much amperage, voltage drops, exacerbating the situation, something then burns up, wiring or circuit breaker, sometimes the whole electric panel and buss bars.

 

[miimura]

Yes, I assume it is the aluminum box with the big orange wires going in. I don't think it has anything to do with how the vehicle is used. Some of them fail in the first 1,000 miles, so to me that is normal electronics infant mortality. The only thing they (automakers in general) can do to reduce field failures of these modules is to build them from components that have more thorough burn in or do more extensive bench top burn in before installing it in the car. For modules that fail after a longer period of use, they could also have issues with the quality of assembly. Imagine that one of the power transistors does not have thermal compound correctly applied or it's not correctly secured to the heat sink - it will eventually fail due to operating outside its thermal design envelope. It could be easily repaired just by replacing the failed transistor, but they don't want dealer technicians dealing with this component level repair. I think they want the engineers to see all the failures so that they improve the design and processes. They will have to build a whole lot of these in the future for all electrified (BEV, PHEV, HEV) vehicles, so now is the time to figure out how to make them well.

Circuit breakers and electrical panels would have a whole lot fewer problems if they did not use snap in friction fit interfaces and were actually screwed in.

 

[sfsoundguy]

I would add that my car is a 2015 SEL 3 month's old with only 1,399 mile on it. It is driven to and from San Francisco a 34 mile round trip.

I pretty much drive it in B/eco mode in rush hour traffic so it rarely drives faster than 60mph.

It's software was updated by the dealer the week before thanksgiving because it stopped charging

The day this happened as I drove across the bay bridge about 10 minutes before it shutdown in Oakland I did notice two very fast split second juking/pulling/shudder motions I had never felt that before they happens about a minute apart I wonder if the others who have had this happen also felt this as perhaps thats the sign its about to breakdown.

 

[sfsoundguy]

Update from Dealer: the part dose indeed have to come from Germany 5 to 7 days to get here so should be here by next Friday

Why would they not have the part here in N America since this seems to be a recurring issue with the eGolf hopefully they will get it and installed and working

They said it was the feasted shipping time available... Hope this is not the start of a lemon... I have also reported it to the NHTSA case # 10809311

 

[JoulesThief]

Call to the parts manager and ask them to "red order" the delivery of the part... that should get them to overnight ship the part, instead of the slow boat from the Motherland Germany. If VW doesn't want to warehouse the part in one of their 5 or 6 warehouses here in North America, let them ship it on their dime "Just in Time" to get it to the dealership. This is completely unacceptable, no spares in the USA.

 

[sfsoundguy]

VW just called and said it will take a week to get the part & that it was being sent "RED TAG" or the fastest way possible. They said they would touch base with me again on 12/17/15

 

[JoulesThief]

According to others that have had this problem and reported the repairs on the Facebook group, the most likely repair is to replace the Power Electronics Module (JX1). The main function of this module is the drive inverter that propels the car.

Off the top of your head, how many of these have been problematic /replaced?

I've only been watching e-Golf forums since March, but if I had to guess, I would say about a dozen in the US. Of course, this depends on what percentage of people go to an online forum to report/complain about it. There are people who have had the problem, they Google "e-Golf Electrical System Failure Stop" and end up here, never having considered going to an EV forum before.

I think the DC/DC converter may also be inside this module. I have only seen one that appears to have failed in the DC/DC section, the rest seem to have been for the drive inverter.

I made the call to the Parts Manager at the number 1 e-Golf seller in all the USA, Sunnyvale VW. According to Mike, a "Red Order" is the highest priority order for parts to VW in Germany, if the part is not in stock and available in the USA. It is usually sent Air Freight Express via Fed -Ex.

Mike indicated he's probably ordered a dozen of this part so far, to be fixed, and that the failure is sometimes accompanied by inability to charge the car also. So it seems this inverter is being used both ways to flow current. That is just at Sunnyvale VW, they of course touch base with other dealerships in the area also, like Capitol VW and perhaps Boardwalk and Redwood City, to get more insight and data on failures like these occurring when new product is just coming out.

So a dozen at Sunnyvale means there's more out there that have failed, that we don't quite know about yet.

VW keeps very, very tight purse strings on inventory of spare parts for VW's. German companies are all about control.

 

[sfsoundguy]

Thanks you for this information it seem like a very high number for one dealer. We all know that up until August VW had sold very few eGolfs in the US and that the US models where slightly different then the model sold in Europe. Heres the question if one dealer has had 12 dead cars how many have they all had? Do we know how many eGlofs this dealer sold and the year of each one fixed, is this failure just limited to the 2015 eGolf's

 

[miimura]

That one dealer has sold/leased a significant fraction of all e-Golfs in the USA. Probably between 10%-20% of the total. How many of them they service is another question since they may be selling into a larger area than what people are willing to drive for service.

 

[JoulesThief]

That one dealer has sold/leased a significant fraction of all e-Golfs in the USA. Probably between 10%-20% of the total. How many of them they service is another question since they may be selling into a larger area than what people are willing to drive for service.

The Parts Manager made a very clear statement that they were the number 1 seller of VW e-Golfs, in the whole country. By how much, I don't know, but it's nothing for them to have 15 to 25 of them on the lot for sale, at any time. That speaks volumes about how comfortable they are at moving the product. 7 or 8 to 12 in stock down in So Cal is a big mover and shaker dealer here. By the same token, there's a lot of movers and shakers there in and around Silicon Valley that have the coin to drop on such a car, also, as well as a ton of charging infrastructure in place already for public charging of electric cars.

 

[sfsoundguy]

When I got mine in September every dealer in the Bay Area had 20+ units and there where about 175 avalilable in CA. I see VW is saying it's sold 3,000+ so far this year 300% up on the same time last year but there is also the LE version now in the US. So if one Bay Area dealer has had 12+ of these cars just lose power there's probably a lot more with this issue we just don't know about. This is a serious problem for a car to just STOP abruptly and lose power on a CA freeway or in heavy traffic. It's just a matter time before someone's involved in a serious accident what if this happened on an busy intersection or a railway crossing. If and when I get it back I for one will not be letting my kids in it from now on that's for sure! :?

 

[miimura]

Sunnyvale has had 50+ e-Golf on hand at various times this year. The inventory goes up and down pretty fast, so they must have pretty good turnover.

 

[sfsoundguy]

I think we are drifting a bit off topic...

"Electrical system failure: Stop!" Really has nothing to do with the amount of units sold or which dealer sells the most eGolfs after all they are just the middle guy.

It has to do with the amount of units that fail due to this potentially catastrophic design flaw.

Is it 0.5%, 1% , 5% of cars manufactured that have this issue and what is Volkswagen going to do about fixing it and notifying existing owners about this issue?

IMHO One car having this happen is an anomaly but 12+ Is potentially a major engineering fault.

 

[JoulesThief]

I think we are drifting a bit off topic...

"Electrical system failure: Stop!" Really has nothing to do with the amount of units sold or which dealer sells the most eGolfs after all they are just the middle guy.

It has to do with the amount of units that fail due to this potentially catastrophic design flaw.

Is it 0.5%, 1% , 5% of cars manufactured that have this issue and what is Volkswagen going to do about fixing it and notifying existing owners about this issue?

IMHO One car having this happen is an anomaly but 12+ Is potentially a major engineering fault.

For the sake of argument, let's presume that 2/3's of all e-golfs sold were sold in California and Oregon, about 2000 out of that 3000 + units sold. Now take a guess, if Sunnyvale has sold the most of these, if they've fixed 12 of these... that the Parts Manager remembers... and multiply that by a factor of 1.5, since a few may have slipped his memory... call it 18. I would be willing to bet that Sunnyvale has sold 3-400 of these units.

I mention "slipped his memory" because when VW first brought out TDI clean diesels, and High Pressure Fuel Pumps started taking out the whole fuel system, contaminated and replaced fuel tanks too, VW USA told every single service manager and service writer to tell customers that they'd "only changed out a few". Yeah, well, it was pretty ironic how the recycle area was littered with contaminated fuel tanks out of numerous TDI's on the premises, they were reproducing like rabbits back there, far more than "a few" the service writers were claiming. There was a lot of denial/playing cover up going on at VW about that problem.

We can speculate, some of you could talk to Parts managers at various Bay area VW dealerships, besides the guy named Mike I talked to over at Sunnyvale VW, to get a better feel for it.