Error: Electrical System. Stop!

[dparson]

Really too bad about all of this, love the car but it seems like VW isn't quite ready to handle maintaining their electric vehicles, at least not this model. And I'm seeing now that maintenance cost savings are much less of a guarantee. Here's the story:

My 2015 eGolf with 79K miles had an "Electrical System Error: Service Required" error. The car would still drive but would not charge. VW replaced the 12V battery and that did not fix the problem, and that is all the dealership's personnel could do. A special electric car tech was sent for further troubleshooting and one of the main battery's sub-modules was found to have failed. Parts had to be ordered from Germany (car is in California) and 3.5 weeks later the repair was complete. I was told the fix would have been $5000 to $6000 if not for the warranty, which expires at 100K miles (corrected).

My thoughts are that this should have been an easy repair since the battery is modular and parts should at least be on hand somewhere within the US. Due to this experience, I am going to warn friends and family about purchasing an electric vehicle from legacy manufacturers for now. Since we're dependent on dealerships to maintain these vehicles, and since they have little to no experience with them, parts may not be in stock and the technical expertise will be missing for years to come. And the maintenance cost savings idea fails if a simple sub-module replacement costs that much.

 

[f1geek]

Thanks for info. Isn't battery pack warranty 8 years or 100k miles? I think "easy repair" is relative. Dropping the pack doesn't look that easy to me. But I suppose Tesla would replace the entire pack instead of changing modules for Model S or X, but maybe not for Model 3 or Y.

Did you use OBDEleven or another OBD II software to look at cell voltages? Which module was replaced?

You might want to warn people away from cars with passively cooled battery packs, but I bet the vast majority of cars with liquid cooled packs do not have failures like this.

 

[dparson]

You're right, I saw 100K listed online as well and called the dealer and they confirmed, thanks! The service consultant gave me the incorrect 80K mile warranty figure.

I don't have any diagnostic hardware but the service consultant said 1 of the 27 battery pack modules that make up the battery was replaced. The modular nature of the battery was a selling point VW made, and they explained how easy it would be to service the battery should any issue arise. Ironically the service consultant was mentioning this same selling point when I asked what it would have cost if not under warranty, and she reconsidered her statement when she looked up the price. It was a sobering moment for the both of us.

Unfortunately the type of battery cooling is not my concern, it's reasonable to think something drivetrain related will break and need to be replaced no matter the technology. It's really about manufacturers and their dealerships and whether or not they have access to parts, equipment, and training to service their electric cars for a reasonable price. Once VW got these 3 things in place, it actually took them less than 1 day to diagnose and fix the car. The problem is it took 3.5 weeks and $5000-$6000 to get there. I once helped replace an engine transmission and that was a relatively difficult job compared to what VW had to do, this job took 3 hard days and was half the quoted price of this comparably simple battery module replacement. I went into the purchase having been told maintenance will be cheap and easy, but this experience obviously shows otherwise. If the warranty had expired, this 1 simple issue would have cost more than all the maintenance of my previous gas car money-wise, and it did cost more time-wise than all the maintenance of my previous car. That was an eye-opener. So my warning is legacy manufacturers, at least VW, need more time to get service time and costs under control. Be prepared to help them with their transition on this front as well.

 

[BayAreaeGolf]

I do believe within the next ten years electric cars will be cheaper to build and significantly more reliable than gas cars, besides being obviously cheaper to run. Clearly VW missed something when it came to reliability testing for the eGolf, which might be why it was discontinued. The fact that dealerships don't have the ability to quicky diagnose and address these issues is a big problem, as the previous post said, and VW is responsible for that.

 

[f1geek]

I do hope it takes much less than 10 years for OEMs to get equivalent repair times as ICE (2-3 years, I hope). I agree cost and time are way too high. Consumer Reports found Nissan Leaf is the most reliable car you can buy, but of course those oil teat suckers then said it’s not exciting enough to drive. A well made EV should have much lower total cost of ownership and let’s hope the latest batch from Ford, Hyundai, VW, etc. are designed and built well.

I had hoped to get 150,000 miles out of the e-Golf but if I start commuting by train, due to my job moving locations, it may sit unused quite a lot.

 

[newbiegolfer]

my 2019 sel premium gave me the same error code at just over 40K miles.. had to have it towed from my garage on 12/22, now it is waiting for the dealer to evaluate. the major headache has been that the dealer does not have a loaner car for me to use and vw customer care does not provide loaners, they rely on the dealer to handle that.. so i am out the vehicle indefinitely with no loaner at the moment.. smh

 

[f1geek]

Can you get VW USA to pay for your rental if dealer has no loaner? If car is still under warranty (I'm pretty sure it is), then VW USA owes you compensation for drivetrain and/or high voltage battery system issues. Best of luck!

 

[csbj1980]

I have now had this red error warning "electrical system. stop!" warning 3 times in the past 2 months. THe car will not move. My 2017 e golf has been in the shop 3 separate times for a total of 34 of the last 58 days. On two of these occasions, I had to pay to have the car towed. The first visit to the dealer led to a replaced 12 volt battery at a cost of $667.00. The care then worked for 2 days and the code came back. THe second visit led to them returning the car to me after 2 weeks saying they can't find anything wrong and it is working now so take it back and monitor . (They had cleared the error codes so it ran, but of course that does not fix the problem).. It rain for 4 lr 5 days and then the code came again and now it is been in for 2.5 weeks while they have been unable to diagnose the problem and have waited for some approval or directions on what to do from "Toronto". There is no loaner car as the 4 year warranty is up (but the 8 year warranty on the electrical system is still in effect). Apparently there is only one mechanic trained in e cars at the dealer and he is busy with other e cars so mine might be seen next week. Seems to me that in addition to concerns about lack of functioning e chargers around town and on highways, there should also be serious red flags raised about insufficient numbers of qualified mechanics to service the ecars. A local independent mechanic who we have used for other things , tells us that the manufacturers are not allowing independent mechanics to get training on ecars, so you are stuck with the dealer, who thereby has a monopoly.
On the plus side, my egolf has run just fine for 5 years and since we have solar panels, it has been very inexpensive to run. Still , now that something has gone wrong, it has really gone wrong , as in no car in effect for 2 months. In the few days that it worked over the last 2 months, needless to say, I have been afraid to drive to far lest I get stranded.
If they cannot figure out what the problem is this time, I am really at a loss as to what I am entitled to . If this were an old fashioned gas guzzler, it would be fixed by now.

 

[beatnik]

I bought a used 2017, been driving it for months now. Never had any issues. Did my first fast charge at 50kw/h only to about 65% according to the charger. Got the error message several times when trying to start the car. Spent 20 minutes trying to get through to someone at the local VW dealership ...on a saturday when no EV mechanics are on duty. Murphy's law, once I was talking to a mechanic the car started without the error message and drove fine. Can't tell yet if there was a problem with the battery as range still seems about right. Going to take it in to VW for a diagnostic and at the very least have the malfunction on record. Any one else had any resolutions to their problems?

 

[f1geek]

While the charger may be rated for 50 kW, the car will only pull a maximum of about 40 kW as long as the station can supply at least 117 amps.

Did you try to turn on the car while connected to the DCFC or after you disconnected?

Get an OBDIi dongle and Car Scanner app so you can check cell group voltages in HV pack.

Maybe time to get a new 12 V battery.

Take photos of dash so you have proof for VW dealer.

Best of luck!

 

[beatnik]

I wish I had taken pictures, thanks for the good advice, will check the 12 V battery. Good to know it was likely only drawing 40kw, however, it had this little electrical system freak out after I had stopped the charging process at the "pump". I waited for the charging indicator on the car to go from slow pulsing green to solid amber, unplugged, returned the charging cable, then started the car and that was when I got the error message. Everything seems to be working fine now. Been running like normal for 3 days now. Anyone know if VW would take issue with using a third party OBD device? would it void any warranties? OBD2 or OBD 11? Which is better?

Thanks again,

Anyone else had any resolutions/answers with their system error?

 

[f1geek]

VW has no recourse over who plugs in OBDII dongle - independent service stations use them as do millions of owners. OBD 11 is good, too, but costs more and, in my experience, is much slower to connect, though is a more versatile tool. Also, with a “standard” dongle, ABRP can show live SoC through CarPlay.

I never notice amber on the charge port LED.

 

[beatnik]

Good to know. By "standard" dongle do you mean an OBD2 bluetooth dongle?

 

[f1geek]

OBD Eleven requires a dongle from that company. Most other software works with a variety of typical OBDII Bluetooth dongles.

 

[wkuballa]

I experienced the car stalling while driving only once. That happened in 2017 when I was driving a 2016 eGolf (now I have a 2019 eGolf). I took the car to Boardwalk VW in Redwood City and it took them almost two weeks to fix it. They replaced the entire high-voltage wiring. The repair was covered by warranty and I got a loaner for the time. The repair looked pretty extensive to me:

EGOLF , TECH(S):829
GUEST REPORTS ERROR MESSAGE ON DASH 12 VOLT BATTERY
NOT CHARGING AND CAR STALLED ... CHECK AND ADVISE
CUSTOMER STATES ERROR MESSAGE ON DASH AND 12 VOLT BATTERY
NOT CHARGING AND VEHICLE STALLED WHILE DRIVING. HOOKED UP
ODIS AND CHECKED FOR FAULT CODES P180100 GENERATOR
ELECTRICAL ERROR AND POC0100 DRIVE MOTOR "A" CURRENT HIGH.
HOOKED UP VAS 6161 BATTERY TESTER AND TESTED BATTERY-
GOOD-RECHARGE TEST CODE: 5F424DQl-SO6AV54JA. HOOKED UP
INCHARGE 940 AND CHARGED BATTERY FOR 40 MINUTES. RECHECKED
AND TESTED BATTERY WITH VAS 6161 BATTERY TESTER-GOOD
BATTERY TEST CODE: 4R724DQl-SDZAUK52C. PERFORMED GUIDED
FAULT FINDING AND CHECKED FOR TECHNICAL SERVICE BULLETINS.
AFTER FULLY CHARGING 12 VOLT BATTERY. RECHECKED AND ROAD
TESTED VEHICLE AND DID NOT NOTICE ANYTHING ABNORMAL.
PERFORMED GFF LINALTERNATOR TEST-ELECTRICAL GENERATOR TEST.
THE EXCITIATION CURRENT SHOWS NOT 0K. CALLED TECHLINE
CASE #SX-120114 AND STATED THE GENERATOR TEST WAS
INCONCLUSIVE. PRODUCT SUPPORT AND FACTORY ARE ADVISING TO
REPLACE THE HIGH-VOLTAGE WIRING SET FOR THE E-MACHINE FOR
POSSIBLE INTERNAL SHORT. ATTACHED PHOTOS T0 TECHLINE OF THE
CABLE SET ROUTING THAT IS IN THE VEHICLE. WAS ALSO ADVISED
(CONTINUE STORY ON CORRECTION LINE ............. )
TO REPLACE THE JXl POWER CONVERTER AND JX1 SEAL KIT FOR
INTERNALLY MALFUNCTIONING CAUSING NOT TO CHARGE THE 12 VOLT
BATTERY CORRECTLY. HOOKED UP ODIS AND DE-ENERGIZED HIGH-
VOLTAGE SYSTEM. PERFORMED GUIDED FUNCTION-FILLING
REFRIGERANT CIRCUIT AND HOOKED UP A/C MACHINE AND RECOVERED
FREON FROM A/C SYSTEM. AS PER INSTRUCTED BY TECHLINE.
REMOVED JXl COVER AND PAINTED AND CHECKED TORQUE FOR CABLES
FROM JXl TO E-MACHINE WITH 20NM 0F TORQUE OK. REMOVED AND
REPLACED JXl POWER CONVERTER AND SEAL KIT. REMOVED RIGHT
FRONT WHEEL AND INNER FENDER LINER. REMOVED A/C COMPRESSOR
AND DRIVE MOTOR COVER TO ACCESS DRIVE MOTOR HIGH-VOLTAGE
HARNESS. REMOVED AND REPLACED WIRE HARNESS AND REINSTALLED
DRIVE MOTOR COVER AND REPLACED GASKET. REINSTALLED A/C
COMRESSOR. INNER FENDER LINER AND WHEEL. HOOKED UP ODIS
AND RECONNECTED HIGH.VOLTAGE SYSTEM OK. VACUUMED AND CHARGED
950 GRAMS OF FREON AND TOPPED OFF COOLANT RESEVOIR AND BLED
COOLING SYSTEM. PERFORMED CODING FOR J841 ELECTRIC DRIVE
CONTROL MODULE. ROAD TESTED VEHICLE AND RECHECKED FOR FAULT
N0 DTC'S OK.///JX1 VC-BPV 0R BOSCH ..... JXl SEAL KIT-K21....
DRIVE MOTOR HIGH-VOLTAGE HARNESS VC-SZS

Hope your eGolf gets fixed soon.

cheers,
Werner

 

[f1geek]

Thanks for detailed repair job. It also looks like the motor inverter (I assume that is JX1 module) was replaced. Not clear what the problem really was. Good to know Boardwalk VW can do the work b

 

[csbj1980]

My 2017 egolf has now been in the shop for over 4 months; after being in the shop 3 times in the 3 months prior. In other words from May 2022 to Jan 24 2023, my e golf has been working for about a total of 3 weeks... and in the shop now 4 times. The dealer had to order parts that took 6 weeks to come, has had to bring up other technicians from a bigger city and now says they are waiting on yet another part. Everytime I phone for an update, I am told that they are waiting on a part. Or the part came and they installed it, but now think that there is something else needed. Honestly, I think they have no idea what is wrong. I am about to go to a lawyer for advice. It is not reasonable to have a car in the shop for repair for 7 months. VW should not be selling a car if they don't have technicians and parts to fix it.

 

[f1geek]

Lemon law? Or do you want to keep driving car after it (we hope) is repaired?

 

[DannyEgolf]

lemon law is for new cars and a specific time period i think