Spark EV 2LT 35000 km - I bought this vehicle used with 30800 km on it on April 6/2019. One day while driving home for about 5 minutes I was just starting to go after stopping and waiting at a red light when something quickly flashed on the dash, I don’t know what it said and the car shut off, I had no steering and the car was dead. Luckily there was no one behind me and I was able to coast over to the side of the road. I put the car back into gear, pushed the start button and it started up and I was able to get back home safely without any more problems. My home was only 4 minutes away. This happened again abut a month later on the same road and again I was lucky that I wasn’t hit from behind. Even though the car was dead, I managed to get it to coast to the side of the road, put it back into park, pushed the Start button and it started up and I got home safely. The Car was not running out of charge and I know of no reason for this to happen. I am afraid to drive on the Highway because if this happens on the Highway I will be rear ended and possibly killed. We called Chevrolet Canada and told them what happened and they don’t seem to be concerned. They said that we have to take the car to the Local Dealer, pay for them to diagnose the problem and if they find anything wrong it may be covered under warranty, but if they don’t we have to pay. This week the car wouldn’t start and it was quite cold that morning. The car was fully charged. My husband who is a retired Mazda Mechanic, hooked the battery that starts the car to a battery charger and the car started up. We called Chevrolet Canada about this problem and they said that the battery that starts the car has a 3 year Warranty. We purchased the car on April 6/19 and the Battery Warranty expired on April 16/19. We didn’t know that, there is nothing in the book that came with the car stating that. We were just told the car had an 8 year warranty or 100,000 miles. Now we have to purchase a new battery ourselves which costs $350.00 from the dealer. No other car parts stores carry that battery. This a very expensive battery, most car batteries cost about $100.00 and have a 5 year warranty. So far the Warranties on this car seem like they aren’t worth the paper they are written on. There is also 2 recalls on this vehicle but this car has only had 1 done. When we talked to Chevrolet Canada they said we couldn’t bring the car to the Dealer for the 2nd recall because it wasn’t necessary. If the car had the problem it wouldn’t be calculating how much charge was left and the screen would go blank. Has anyone else had these problems and had a better result from Chevrolet? I love driving my car, but it is beginning to turn into a dangerous lemon.
Charging a fee for diagnosis is standard practice, best bet is have them diagnose the problem.
Unfortunately batteries can and do fail.
The comment that a recall is not necessary is really odd. Do you have a problem with your dealership and that is why you are calling Chevrolet Canada instead of talking to the service department at your dealership? You should be able to go to a different dealership if that is the case.
I don’t know about Canada, but in the US you can have the computer codes read for free at many auto parts stores, there might be a stored code to find out what happened. But that would be for information only, if drive train related, any work done outside a dealership might void your warranty.
It is not a lemon , all vehicle batteries have a separate warranty from the vehicle . Same goes for the tires . You need to read your manual . Also that original warranty will not cover wear and tear items . You bought a used vehicle and I also wonder why you are calling Chevrolet Canada . They are not going to do anything , they have dealers for things like this .
The dealerships here in Canada don’t know much about the Spark EVs. You couldn’t buy them here until this year. All we had here was Nissan Leafs or Smart Cars that were Lease returns from the US as well. We test drove a Leaf didn’t like the weird body style, couldn’t see out of the side windows and it gets less mileage and costs about $10,000 CDN more for an older model. The Smart Cars only carry 2 passengers, have no storage and you feel like you are going to tip over while going around a corner. Get less mileage as well. They are bringing them up from the States as well. I went on the Internet to find a small EV that got good mileage, looked like my 2013 Mazda 2 and didn’t cost a fortune and found some Spark EV’s in Vancouver BC which is a ferry ride from where I live in Victoria. Some Car Buyers and Dealers have just started importing lease returns from San Jose and then reselling them in Canada. We called Chevrolet Canada to find out what dealership we could take our car to, because we have 2 Dealers here and didn’t know if they could both work on it. When I called 1 of the local Dealers, they had never heard of the Spark EV only the Bolt which we do have here. We are the 3rd owners of this car and we bought it privately from someone in another city since there wasn’t any Spark EV’s in our city. We called GM after checking out the VIN and seeing that 1 recall hadn’t been done and was overdue and also to find out where we should take our car. Then the car started do this conking out problem. It has happened to me twice but not to my husband. Maybe the car is another Christine like the car in the Movie. Thanks. Pat
I forgot to ask how much a new battery is for the 2016 Spark EV 2LT in the USA, maybe it would be worth a trip there to get one if it is cheaper even after the 30% exchange rate. We can only buy it from the Dealer here, Costco lists it but doesn’t carry it and won’t order it. If anyone can answer that question for me that would be great. Thanks again.
Christine was great, she repaired herself…lol
We had to call Chevrolet Canada because these cars were just brought up from San Jose as Lease Returns, they were never available in Canada and our Local Dealer didn’t know anything about the Spark EV only the Spark. The Dealer told us to call Chevrolet Canada. We only have the Bolt up here and they only seem to know about it. We got our car in April from Vancouver which is across the water from us. They are closer to the States and have had the Spark EVs for about a year now, our City, Victoria just started to bring some up after I went to the Dealership and asked if they would bring me one in back in April. They wouldn’t so I had to go to Vancouver to buy one there. I don’t want to go to Vancouver to the Dealerships, there because it is a $200.00 Ferry ride each way.
Now that it is 6 months later and the Dealers in my city have been importing the Spark EV’s since I asked them about it we are being told that one Dealer here can work on it. They also work on the Bolts and Volts that we have had for a few years. I am not stupid and know that tires and other parts have to be replaced but Chev Canada did say that they would have covered the Battery if we had called about it before the 3 year warranty expired less than 2 weeks after we bought the car, but we didn’t know that and the car wasn’t having problems then. I don’t think the person we bought the car from gave us all the warranty information that came with the car or maybe he never got it either. He only had the car for a year and it was a Lease Return from San Jose and sold thru a Honda Dealership in Vancouver that imported it. He sold the car because he was buying a new Electric Hyundai Kona because he wanted a bigger vehicle that got better mileage. I only went on this forum because I did see that another person had the same problem with her Spark EV engine dying and she got all the cells replaced at her Dealership. According to the person that we spoke to at Chev Canada they have never heard about anything like that, and she was the person in charge of EV vehicles. Canada is always the last to know about any kind of recalls for anything, not just cars. If I can find more owners with the same problem I will send the information to her at Chev Canada and maybe she will do something about my car. Thanks.
I hope this car will do that before it kills me driving on the highway on the way to Jazzercise. Luckily we don’t have freeways here, just 4 lane highways with speed limits of 80 – 100 km. Thanks.
We have terrible warranty service here. For example the Samsung HE Washers that were almost killing people in their Laundry Rooms when the drum came flying thru the glass and across the room. In the USA they sued and got their money back and there was a full refund recall, here in Canada, Samsung will give you a $100 certificate to go towards the purchase of another Samsung Washer. In Canada we got basically nothing, because who in their right mind is going to buy another Samsung HE Washer. Canadians are too easy going and can’t seem to sue or bring any big lawsuits against any large Corporations, it is against the Law here.
The 12 volt battery probably isn’t covered by the new car warranty. It’s covered by the battery vendor’s warranty, which is usually 2-3 years. I don’t expect there’s much you can do about that other than buy a new battery. Make sure to have the current battery load tested first, as it could still test good, only needing a re-charge. If that turned out to be the case that would provide a clue to what’s going on w/the shut-off problem. As far as the shut-off problem, checking for diagnostic codes is where to start. If there aren’t any what I’d do if I had that problem myself, I’d configure a volt meter inside the passenger compartment so I could monitor the main system voltage as I was driving. If it dropped precipitously immediately prior to the car shutting off, that would provide a big clue to what is wrong. I may take quite some time to figure out though.
The 12 volt battery is covered by the 3 year/36,000 mile basic vehicle warranty, your vehicles basic warranty seems to have expired. The high voltage battery has the 8 year warranty.
Electric vehicles and hybrids generally use a more expensive Absorbent Glass Mat batteries, the OEM replacements cost between $200 and $400.
The part number for your vehicles battery is LN1AGM. You can perform a search for that number, Rock Auto shows that battery for $145.
OK. Thank you very much for that information. I will try to see if that is available in Seattle, Pt. Angeles or Portland or Salem, Oregon, which are the closest US cities to us, that we travel to. Thanks again for you help.
OK thanks, that is a good idea. I will tell my husband to hook that volt meter up. I am hoping that the starting battery is the problem since it went totally dead once the weather went to 0 Celcius in the morning. It did charge back up again, but it has only been a few days and the weather has warmed up again. My son has a Code Reader, I will get him to bring it over. Thanks again for your help. Hopefully Christine will stop trying to kill me, she hasn’t shut off when my husband drives her and he will never get out of my car. He has put 7000km on it in 7 months. I barely drive the car. My husband is waiting in the driveway for me to come home, if I ever do drive the car, because he wants to zoom off in her to get parts for his 70’s Van he is restoring and it is going to be a gas guzzler. I guess she just likes men, like our Tortoiseshell Cat, Big Momma Michonne.
lol … yeah, I expect a 70’s van will be a bit thirsty. I hope hubby posts before/after photos.