Charging Fault error.

[JejuSoul]

Birkeland: can you explain how you took that photo. Do you have more of them?
The only way to get a photo of the EPCU is to take the car apart. Like so.
This is a car having its OBC replaced. The OBC has been taken out.

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For anyone who does have an OBC error, could you report the version number. There are two stickers on the OBC. The one at the front says Daewoo and has a date. The sticker at the back says Mando and has the version number. See photo below - taken by Nibularr
You do not need to take anything apart.

 

[Birkeland]

So this is what happened when I was going to take pictures of the OBC labels. My wife was going to a soccer game with the oldest one and I went out to start the Soul to get it warm, and popped the hood to take some quick pictures of the labels. I took the first picture of the label in the front, and when I was going to take picture of the label in the back, I lost my phone and it fell to the bottom plate underneath the electric motor. I was on call this weekend for my work, so I really needed the phone, so I jumped up on the OBC thingy and tried to reach the phone. I apparently have too short hands because I could not reach it. So my wife had to take our other car, while I was home watching the twin babies, running out every two minutes to listen if the phone was ringing (not that it really mattered, because I could not answer the phone anyways).

So when they finally arrived back home, I tried everything to get the phone. I accelerated forward and hit the brakes hard for the phone to move further to the front of the engine compartment so I could reach it. But no, did not work. To make a long story short (did I mention it was 0 degrees and a mix of snow and rain), I had to take of the right front wheel and reach my arm inside to get it. Luckily, no phone calls from work.

Anyhow, here is the picture of the top (with the plastic cover removed) and the label in the front. I will not try to take a picture of the label in the back with my phone again. Will try to take one soon with a compact camera with an arm strap in case I loose it.

I have also gotten the new PIDs for Torque Pro to be used with the new OBC. Have not tried it yet since my wife uses the car right now. But there is absolutely no doubt that the car uses longer time to charge with the new OBC than before they changed it.

 

[JejuSoul]

Birkeland: sorry to hear of your troubles. When I stop laughing, I will try to reply properly.

I guess that you now have version 12.2R of the OBC. That is why I guessed the lower charge rate, and the new PID codes.
This version still fails. Although we don't have many examples yet. One such failure is nibularr's

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Quebec is the place where the largest numbers of these reports come from. Originally they were listed - http://menu-principal-forums-aveq.1097349.n5.nabble.com/Possible-probleme-de-batterie-ou-d-electronique-ou-de-borne-td32621i100.html
Now the reports come on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/groups/884056554957411/permalink/1434405889922472/

Most interesting new quote is

I spoke with the manager of the service yesterday just to date and the main reason they have soul ev in the garage, it's the OBC, but from now on they really an update patch on the on-board c harger they're setting up .

Yet again, there is a claim from Kia Canada that this is going to be fixed soon.

 

[Elmil]

Another report one week ago on the Norwegian forum. OBC in 3 months old car stopped working and was replaced.

 

[JejuSoul]

Another report one week ago on the Norwegian forum. OBC in 3 months old car stopped working and was replaced.

Thanks for the info Elmil. I think it is fairly clear that this problem is still occurring to cars built in 2016.

But we have had many statements from users in Canada (mostly Quebec) who state Kia Canada told them the problem has been fixed.
I have now heard that Kia in Korea is replacing still working OBCs at the yearly service if the driver asks for it.
I am trying to find out what the latest version of the OBC is. Perhaps there is a more recent version that is actually fixed.
Birkeland, sorry for laughing at your misfortune earlier. I would still like to know what version they put into your car.

 

[SoulEV2016]

Recall campaign for OBC during the first annual review (in France).
http://www.automobile-propre.com/forums/kia-soul-ev/campagne-de-rappel-kia-soul-ev-t6297.html

 

[JejuSoul]

I now have a photo of the 'fixed' replacement OBC, version P14.1R. I do not have charging times or torque pro data for this version yet.
The Mando sticker date here is 27 September 2016. I think it is likely that MY2017 Soul EVs all have this version.
I am going to wait before getting my OBC replaced. The old OBC works fine, and I like having the faster charging.

 

[JejuSoul]

Despite there now being a 'fix' for this issue, I don't think this topic is likely to go quiet anytime soon. Here's a quote I wrote a few days ago. It now seems I may have spoken too soon.

The Charging Fault Error is the one main fault that has effected about 10% of our cars. It has now been fixed. The replacement of the On Board Charger is expensive, but no driver has ever paid for this. It has always been covered by the warranty. There is also no need to worry that these faulty OBCs will last until after the warranty expires, and then need to be replaced at the owner's expense, because Kia is now replacing non-faulty old OBCs with the new fixed version at the annual service check (this has been mentioned in reports from Korea, Canada, and France).

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The most worrying new info is from RJ Hadley on the Facebook forum - https://www.facebook.com/groups/SoulEV/permalink/1190277831052828/

After 37 days, one new gear drive, two new OBCs, RJ and Evie are back on the road! ...
...First OBC, for some reason, conked out after a week. When they got the second OBC, I began noticing a high pitched whirring on acceleration. Turns out the gear box was shot. Took them a long time to get the parts, then the holiday delayed installation...
...She's running fine now. I'm close to the end of my 60k bumper to bumper so I don't want to take any chances.

This is another double failure. The second OBC to fail was only put in last month. Was that one of the new 'fixed' variety.?
Also this car is nearly end of warranty, and it just had 3 very expensive parts replaced.

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There is another thread on here now reporting a failed trickle charging cable (ICCB). - Car won't charge

It appears (so far) that my portable KIA-supplied EVSE (9-10amps/240V; Model PSE13-00104) has quit on me. When plugged into the standard socket I have used for 1+ year the three lights behave as normal (Fault light off). But as soon as I plug it into the car (timer OFF or ON) the Fault light on the EVSE comes on and does not go off even after unplugging it from the car. Only a power cycle resets the fault light.
Does anyone know ... Is the EVSE covered by the car's 7 year-warranty ?

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Also despite the 'fix' for the commonly occurring problem, it seems likely that the OBC will still occasionally break. Hence there is still a worry about the cost of this repair if the car is out of warranty. This has recently happened to a Nissan Leaf. see On-board battery charger died and has to be replaced after 60K miles

My 2012 Nissan Leaf all of a sudden would not charge so we took it in to have it diagnosed and we were told the on-board charger had failed and needs to be replaced for a whopping $2600. I am a Nissan fan, I love my Leaf and I talk to everyone about it, but let's face it, it is difficult to have one as you have to change the way think about using a car and you have to adapt. I am willing and able to do that but the car has to be affordable. My leaf just passed the 60K mark and we take very good car of it. I did nothing to cause a charger failure, it just died. $2600 is equivalent to something more like a transmission rebuild and in my opinion is difficult to understand why it costs so much to replace a charger. The car is unusable without it and I have to get it repaired to use it. One of the main reasons to get a Leaf is to get away from high cost of internal combustion engine repair but here I am in pretty much the same boat. How can I tell other people to consider buying a Leaf when they may have a repair bill like this after only 60K miles. I do not know yet what the warranty will be on the new charger but I know I cannot afford to do this every 60K miles for sure. I am asking all you out there if you too have had to replace the on-board charger or is this a rare occurrence? I was considering a second Leaf but now I do not think I can afford it if there are repair costs like this one.

 

[GizmoEV]

Well...add me to the list of those who have had an OBC fail. I picked up my 2016 Kia Soul EV+ on July 17, 2015.

I found out when I tried to charge at the ChargePoint stations at the university where my daughter attends. She had someone pull out in front of her so her car was totaled so we had to do an all night ferry run to take her another vehicle. At least she is ok. I left with a partial charge so I charged about 14 mi from home. I had to wait so I charged a while on the J1772 then went to the CHAdeMO when it was free. I QC two more times before getting to the university because I didn't want to wait too long at the university. It turns out that it was a good thing I did because the charging didn't give me enough range to bypass the nearest QC on the way home so I had three QC stops on the way home. I had to be sure I could get to the nearest QC south of me so I could make it to the Kia of Portland dealer the next day. That made for a long drive which normally I do with one QC each way with L2 charging at the university.

I received a call from the dealer today that the OBC is not in stock in the US so it will be a while for a replacement to arrive. Fortunately they gave me a Soul as a loaner but it isn't an EV. I can now say I have driven a gas Kia Soul longer than around a few city blocks. It does NOT drive as nice as the EV!

On a side note, before I left the dealer I talked to one of the salesmen about my options for replacing my daughter's car. In the conversation he told me that the Kia EV trainer/rep told them that the Soul EV was designed in such away that when larger capacity batteries become available they could swap the pack out to get more range and nothing else would have to be changed. I certainly hope that is true. All EVs need to be designed that way.

Edit: there are 25k miles on the odometer. Also, when I got home I plugged in my 20A EVSE and by morning only about 10% had been added to the battery before the OBC quit again.

Edit 2: The tech liked that I could read all cell voltages, battery health, and such.

 

[2016Electric]

This is becoming a little bit concerning.. Not a question of will the OBC fail, but more when...

 

[JejuSoul]

Well...add me to the list of those who have had an OBC fail.

Mine is still good, for now, but it looks like most of us are going to get this problem eventually.

GizmoEV when you get your new OBC can you tell us -
1/ what is the version (look at the sticker on the back of it)
2/ is your charging now 15% slower
3/ what version of the Torque Pro codes do you now use for the OBC?

And please don't drop the camera inside the engine, while taking a picture.

 

[SoulEV2016]

Mine is still good, for now, but it looks like most of us are going to get this problem eventually.

to bad that all member don't have an OBD2 reader to retrieve the number of hours.
we can predict the "before fail" charger life.

like in the industrials devices maintenances (fenwick, motor bearing, hydraulic arm).

 

[GizmoEV]

GizmoEV when you get your new OBC can you tell us -
1/ what is the version (look at the sticker on the back of it)
2/ is your charging now 15% slower
3/ what version of the Torque Pro codes do you now use for the OBC?

And please don't drop the camera inside the engine, while taking a picture.

1) I emailed the tech and referenced your post above asking him to get pics of both chargers and any info he could share from Kia about the issue. He told me he would do that when the replacement OBC came in and he did the swap.

2) My charging with an EVSE at less than max capability of the OBC has always been slower. I thought all 2016 MY Soul EVs charged slower than the 2015s. My EVSE is a 20A version and I watched the current on the line when charging started. It peaked at 21A and then immediately dropped to 18.4A. I'll definitely be testing out the replacement unit's performance.

3) I'm using the 2016 ones that I think SoulEV2016 posted. The only changes I made was swapping max and min battery temp codes because they were always reversed and maybe a couple of others, but that might have been for the Windows 10 App (I don't think it counts bits the same as Torque Pro does).

I didn't capture the number of hours data when the OBC quit but the morning prior I have these numbers:

CCC=22526.6Ah, CDC=22590.1Ah, CEC=8320.1kWh, CED=8084.2kWh, OpTime=2213.3h

 

[JejuSoul]

I thought all 2016 MY Soul EVs charged slower than the 2015s.

Hmm, I used to think the newer version of the OBC with reduced charging started appearing in late 2015. But your car, "White 2016 Soul EV+ that I picked up on 7/17/2015", already had the new, slower OBC. Obviously that version still breaks, as we have seen many times in the thread above.

 

[2016Electric]

I thought all 2016 MY Soul EVs charged slower than the 2015s.

Hmm, I used to think the newer version of the OBC with reduced charging started appearing in late 2015. But your car, "White 2016 Soul EV+ that I picked up on 7/17/2015", already had the new, slower OBC. Obviously that version still breaks, as we have seen many times in the thread above.

I don't like that even for all the tech knowledge we have on this vehicle, no one here has any info regarding exactly WHAT is failing on the OBC unit. Not a single code, pic, or hint what it may be...

Is it control circuitry (interface with EVSE / interface with Can bus) , rectifier components, voltage/current control components, a blown fuse, a burnt wire or trace... What? You'd think Kia and their contract manufacturer would get on that, and solve the issue on replacement units. Pretty abysmal quality control on such a critical part, and no notice to owners warning them about high probability of failure. I contacted my dealer about this, asking if there is a recall. I was told "no".

Does not give one a warm fuzzy feeling about how Kia runs its EV portion of the business. Surely they must know what's wrong... So why aren't they addressing it?

 

[SoulEV2016]

Pretty abysmal quality control on such a critical part, and no notice to owners warning them about high probability of failure.

after 2000h of service, it's not a quality failure ...

but i agree to compare an eBike/eScooter (120 USD) charger with 13 000h of service and the poor 2000h of service of the 3000 USD KIA charger.

 

[JejuSoul]

Surely they must know what's wrong... ?

I think that is the wrong question. Better is "Why haven't they managed to fix it?" They have spent a year replacing broken OBCs with a new version that had different hardware and software, but that version also fails. If they know what is wrong, and I agree with you, they probably do, then why did they not fix it properly.

And I agree it's not a quality failure.

 

[2016Electric]

With all due respect, I have to disagree that it isn't a quality failure on three fronts:

1 - The fact that units are failing with low hours; these units have to be designed to last hundreds of thousands of KM before failure. At a charging rate of say 22% per hour or so, and added range of approx 33 km per hr, just to last the warranty period of 160,000km the unit has to withstand 4,848 hours of use in full power L2 mode. Units are failing much sooner than that.

2 - The failures are happening at somewhat random intervals. Some people experience failures with very low KM (hours), while others go 40,000 km plus (higher hours). Inconsistent MTBF can signal a quality consistency issue.

3 - Kia is replacing a known weak component with another known weak component. What is that, if not poor quality of service, build, and poor quality customer experience?

I don't mean to sound harsh as I really like this car, but these are not good signs and make me question if I made a good purchase for the longer run, and if I'd recommend the car to others. Reliability is critical, especially for the sacrifices we make to operate a short range EV (high cost vs ICE and use limitations due to low battery capacity) .

 

[JejuSoul]

Here's the worst story yet. from - https://www.facebook.com/groups/SoulEV/permalink/1190251837722094/

We lost our on board charger 3 times. First one at 75000km, 3 weeks later a second one, one day later a third one. Third time it smoked our Bosch charger unit. I guess I should note that even the updated charger (with new part number) also failed. So it may be more complicated then just a solder in the original unit. They kept my car for 3 weeks trying to diagnose the cause.
Kias been great though, they gave us a rental, and they're replacing my home charger that was ruined!

There's no such thing as an updated charger with new part number. Not sure if he meant to say version number, and if he did which of the new versions he is talking about. Am also highly sceptical that this problem has anything to do with bad solder.
But this is the first case of triple failure! And the first case to actually damage some electrical equipment it is connected to. My suspicion is that Kia's technicians botched the wiring while replacing the third OBC.

 

[SoulEV2016]

how can you smock a Bosch EVSE charger station ?

that's is the question :

- no breaker on 230v-110v ? (thermal and short circuit protection)
- no fuses on 12v command line ? (EVSE command signal)
- line contactor melting ? (where is the breaker in this case ?!?)