Kia found OBC unit & battery cells to be faulty!

2 years & 6 months, 32K miles.

Since Nov 2016, my effective range has been 55 mi on a full charge (while Kia reports 4.5 mi/kWh). I had it tested at 2 dealerships and they've finally concluded that the onboard charging unit AND battery cells are faulty -- not charging to 100% or holding the charge as reported by the car.

The repairs will take ~ 1 month here in Southern CA. I only have 5 months left on my lease and don't want to deal with it anymore. I've called Customer Care, Kia Motor Finance, and talked to the dealership's finance dept to see if I'm able to end the lease early given that 1/5 of it will be at the dealership. All have said nope, Kia would rather fix it under warranty. If I want to end the lease early, pay all the penalty fees PLUS the rest of the payments.

Any advice? I've asked them to open a case to Lemon Law dept. I'm trying my routes as I'm just so sick of the car... I'm not interested in waiting a month for it to get fixed.

you can not brake a lease contract.

all branch make the sames policies (leasing) and apply waranty for this kind of problems (motor, controller, battery, DC-DC converter, charger).

bad luck happen.

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tylety - Sorry to hear of your bad news. My advice is to insist on a quality loaner. Get a car you enjoy to drive for the next month.

Previous discussion of this topic is here - Range down to ~60 miles on 100% charge

This is the second car we have heard about to have a battery replacement because of faulty cells.

The other car in Seattle - battery died due to 1 bad cell - wouldn't charge - they replaced the whole pack - cost 24,600USD.

they replaced the whole pack - cost 24,600USD.

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I find that sort of hard to believe. Nissan will replace a 24kWh Leaf battery for under $6500 including labor.

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For a look at the pricing of the parts - https://www.kiapartsnow.com/parts-list/2015-kia-soul-ev/battery.html?PNC=37110A

Just the battery cells alone costs - $16,565.25 USD



We have both a bigger and better quality battery than the L eaf, so it should be more expensive, but our battery does seem way too pricey. No one will ever want to pay this price once the car is out of warranty. Let's hope the price comes down in the next 5 years.

Mine might be another one: 2015 with cell 96 at 56.2% deterioration, SoH at 81.9% (using Torque app and PIDs from https://github.com/JejuSoul/OBD-PIDs-for-HKMC-EVs). Full charge (now 21 kWh) gives a range of 44 miles, and I've been mostly driving between LA and Irvine at 65 mi/h.

I gave this info to the dealer, but I'm waiting for their EV-trained people to get back. Does anyone have a recommendation for an LA/OC Kia dealer that is EV-competent? Mine (Kia of Cerritos) might be, but I have no reference for comparison.

Fun Times!

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Can you give us more details about this faulty cell. Did you look at the cell voltages for all 96 cells. Or just Max and Min deterioration. It would be great to see more Torque data from this car. If you could log the charging data for that bad cell, and from one of the good ones it would be really interesting to compare. Have you noticed the code for Battery Cell Voltage Deviation.

Also did this deterioration happen suddenly, or has it it been slowly getting worse? How many miles on this car?

Please keep us informed about what the technicians say about this car. Am interested to hear what they say.

Nate - Sounds a lot like mine... how many mi and how long have you had it? I'm at 30 months but it started at ~25 months. I took mine to Kia of Irvine, which said they couldn't find any fault (although I suspect they didn't even test it). Kia of Orange then checked and said there was a fault in both the OBC and battery. They don't sound very knowledgable but I have a feeling they're wanting the $20K warranty repair as a new dealership.

Let me know how Kia ends up treating you. I would expect at least for them to waive the lease payment for the months it'll be in the shop.


Jeju: I don't have nearly as much knowledge or expertise as you, so I rely completely on the dealership -- who sounds like they know less than you about these batteries. It's 31K Mi, 30 months old.

Supposedly, they test the cells and there are multiple faulty. The OBC unit is not charging them correctly, so that doesn't help. Will keep you posted.

In general, cells 1-94 are all within 0.02V of each other, 95 starts to get a bit iffy, but 96 is far out. At 100% charge, 96 is at 4.18V, 95 @ 4.08V, and the rest at 4.04-4.06V. At low charge, 96 and 95 have similar deviations (96 bad, 95 questionable), but with lower voltages than the rest of the cells. The BMS is claiming that the minimum deterioration cell is 0%, and there are several that will get listed with that value (it would be nice to get each cell's deterioration, but that might not be available on the bus). I ticked the boxes in Torque Pro to log #1, #96, and overall state of charge, but will need to dig around to find the logs.

The car was leased in March 2015 and has about 39,000 miles on it. My wife and I switch off every couple months to keep the Soul and Leaf both under the 18,000 mile/yr lease limits. When she drives, it is a 42-mile commute with overnight 1.4 kW charging. When I drive (96-mile commute), I charge both at work (6.6 kW), and home (1.4 kW). We always try to charge to 100%, but much of the time it is still going when we leave for work.

I noticed the range was getting a bit tight a couple months ago, but that was just before switching off with the Leaf. My wife drives in much heavier traffic (avg 45 mi/h, I do 75+ on my route), so didn't notice the range drop until last week. Now I need to drive ~55 mi/h to get to work (using about 80% battery, 16 kWh). The charging stays at 6.6 kW until about 75%, then gradually tapers down to 600 W. It used to go from 6.6 kW all the way to 100%.

My appointment is early Tuesday morning. I'm pretty sure I'll make it if I drive slowly

:shock: Yep, bad cell found !

At 100% charge, 96 is at 4.18V, 95 @ 4.08V, and the rest at 4.04-4.06V.

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The charging stays at 6.6 kW until about 75%, then gradually tapers down to 600 W.

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good point to see this problem with a commun kWh-meter (without Torque).

The dealer got approval to replace battery and BMS under warranty, but don't yet have an estimate of when the parts will arrive. I suspect I have a few weeks to get used to driving the gasoline rental car. I asked for any diagnostic report they have and will report if it has any useful info.

New to the forum, owner of 2015 Soul EV (took delivery December 2014). I just discovered this forum after trying to find information on battery degradation, will look into the tools that were suggested here.

I'm at 42,000 miles, I've had my OBC replaced twice (first at around 20k miles; 2nd at just before 40k miles). Purchased from Kia of Irvine, I have been on the same commute for the past two years ( ~ 44 miles round trip, with twice per week an additional 35 miles).

I've averaged the life of the vehicle approx. 4.1 miles per kWh, and have maintained about 93 miles of range with careful driving (plus eco modes, etc). Over the past year even with the 4.0 mile range, it's steadily dropped to a max of 84 miles of range (100% charging at night on schedule).

Over the past 4 months, it's quickly degraded from 84 miles ~ range on 100% charge to 72 miles, and now the past 3 weeks it's down to 65 miles range. I've also noticed my range when driving fluctuates a bit more than ever (e.g. the other day it suddenly went from 32 miles to 21 miles range). Lately, I've been plugging in (standard 120v) at work, because it would trickle charge 3-4 miles per hour to get me home. The past 3 days, I think the charger is failing again because now I'm getting about 1.5 miles of range per hour through 120v.

Thought I'd share, going to contact Kia this week to bring it in, but might heed suggestion that Kia of Orange may be more attentive. I figure at a 30% drop in battery, that's now 18.9kWh x GOM 4.0 = 75.6 miles of range I should be getting. Be curious to see what Kia says (yes it's below 70% - no it's not below 70% per their numbers)

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Hi bwiklem,
Am upset to hear yet another story of a failing battery.
Some of these failures are due to just a single faulty cell, but yours and a few others do seem to be early degradation.

I have been keeping degradation data from about 20 users who are monitoring their batteries using torque pro. So far none of us have serious problems. In fact we are all still about 100% SOH. This data comes from climates that vary from hot to cool, and average distance driven similar to yours. The person with the best stats mtnDrew1 lives in Southern California, so it's not a location issue.

I would really like to hear what Kia has to say about your battery. I hope they treat you and the others needing battery replacements well.

The N issan L eaf is another EV that is known to fail in the warmer climate zones of the US.
Here is a positive report from a driver who has just had his battery replaced under warranty.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEaxYWW6Zm8

Thanks - going to set an appointment for next week (not this coming week - too busy) and I will keep everyone posted.

In another turn of events, the car has dropped from 66 miles to 62 miles after charging last night. And then another development -

1. Drove to store this morning (barely a mile), 2 miles (just less) roundtrip: 60 miles left;
2. Car sat for about 5 hours, then drove 4 1/2 miles (let's just say 5), 56 miles left;
3. Car sat another 2 1/2 hours. Should be 56 miles left. Nope - I get in, turn on and it's on 45 miles, a drop of 10 miles! Temperature out was a mild 70 degrees with a cool breeze. Drove 1 mile roundtrip to store, down to 44 miles. Never seen this phenomena before.

Something is terribly wrong - will post when dealer looks at it.

My car last charged (day before Kia visit) to only 57 miles when I dropped it off on Monday morning.

Unfortunately the one tech at Kia of Irvine was backed up, and only today was my car diagnosed: battery management system along with the entire battery pack is being replaced. They've quoted a week to replace once parts arrive, but I suspect it'll be there longer. 42k miles.

Just picked up my fixed Soul. New battery and BMS, and most of the 2 weeks was waiting for parts. The labor hours are listed as 3.2.

Immediately after charging to 100%, cells are all at 4.14V, Max kWh=28.22, and State of Health at 110%. I suspect it will hold together until the lease ends in March.

I asked for any diagnostics on the old battery, but the estimated range of 22 miles on 54% charge was enough to trigger the warranty replacement, and they didn't look further.

-Nate

Also, the charging rate is back to full 6+ kW until 100%, when it immediately drops to 0 kW. Woo!

-N

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Interesting. It seems that any fault with the battery, is fixed by replacing the entire battery pack.
I imagine replacing the whole thing is much easier and safer than opening it up, and finding the faulty cell or faulty wiring.

Nate - could you take a look at your new battery with Torque Pro to see if they have given you a new 30kWh pack. That pack has 100 cells not 96.
So if cells 97,98,99 and 100 exist then this must be a new pack.
You would be the first person we know with such a battery.
I don't know where those new codes would be .
Another possibility. Perhaps there will be a part number for the battery pack on your receipt.

They have been making the new packs for a few months now, so if your pack is brand new, it will be one of these.
Or they may have kept a few old ones to use as replacements.

NateCrawford said:

Also, the charging rate is back to full 6+ kW until 100%, when it immediately drops to 0 kW. Woo!

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Yes, that's the normal reaction.