Dreaded "Maximum Charge Level Reduced" Warning

[Sloan_p85]

Got that warning message this evening. At first I thought the HV battery was too hot, so the charge would be reduced. But after looking at multiple forum posts, it looks like an imminent HV battery failure.....

I've got a Service Center appt set for late Wednesday night, but was wondering if the car can be driven and charged while I wait. I don't want to find out the hard way, but this is my only car. I started the thread so that I can share my experience with the community. If it is the HV battery that needs to be replaced, I should be under warranty.

 

[cookie99]

it'll be fine to drive until it dies down. which could be today or could be tomorrow.

 

[Sloan_p85]

Interestingly enough, I got home and plugged in the car. At first it said charge complete at 100 miles. I checked it later to see how much the battery drained and it was charging. It was now up to 157 miles..... I checked this morning and it’s up to 187 miles. I set the charge rate to 10 amps as I am limited in power for right now. I’ll take this with a grain of salt. I still have the service appt on Wednesday, so hopefully I can make it till then.

 

[cookie99]

Tesla on Wednesday: Everything working as intended. Car dies on thursday.

 

[EVortex]

Good idea to get enough charge to get to the SC. Hopefully they will be able to provide you with an accurate diagnosis and solution.

 

[Sloan_p85]

Interesting enough, it finished charging around 10 this morning. I had some errands that I had to do, so I jumped in fully expecting to see the warning message.....nope. All was normal as far as it was concerned. Ok.... I drove about 100+ miles now and going in and out of car multiple times and still all is normal....I’m going to keep watching it and have them do a diagnostic to see if maybe there is still some gremlin in there.

 

[ShawnA]

Hi Sloan_p85,

Were you at a Supercharger when you got the message???

You can get a "Maximum Charge Level Reduced to 80%" if you are at a "busy" Supercharger.
The idea is to get people through quicker...

Just checking...

Shawn

 

[Sloan_p85]

I was not at a supercharger. I was leaving home when I got it.

Out of all the forum posts I have read, I never saw “I got this error, but now it’s gone.” I wonder if I am special or if it might have been a false reading. I would guess that there are sophisticated systems checking this before it pops up the warning or error.

 

[ShawnA]

Hi Sloan_p85,

Thank you for your response.

I have never seen, nor heard of that message before you.
Like you said, there are sophisticated systems at work and sometimes they pop
out a bad error message...

Hopefully your car will behave and the message was a fluke.

Shawn

 

[Sloan_p85]

A quick update on this.

I kinda procrastinated a little on this and let it go for about a few weeks. The car was running fine until last Friday. I came home and was about to leave again when I got the warning. I scheduled service for this Thursday, but over the weekend, it was not getting any better. By Monday morning I had only 60 miles of range and 36 miles to get to the service center. I dropped it off and they are diagnosing it. I am getting alerts that the car is starting to charge, then about 20-30 minutes later that is completed charging.

So, I am hoping for a new battery. I don’t see what else it could be. I wouldn’t imagine the bms getting all out of whack.

 

[Sloan_p85]

Ok....Got a text from the service center that the car is ready for pickup. I asked what was wrong and they said that there was an issue with the programming of the battery. They were able to remove and reprogram the software to resolve. I'll have to get more info on that, but so far the app shows more range on the charge levels than it did before.