Road trip to Jacksonville, Florida and 12V battery issues

[taurusking]

Hi Everyone

Wanted to share this with everyone.

This is my first road trip and I wanted to travel to St. Louis and posted a thread but after careful analysis decided to take the safest route and planned a road trip to Jacksonville, Florida from East Texas.

I planned using EV trip planner, Google Maps, Plug Share and Tesla Supercharging website.

Day 1:

I range charged my car from home and made it to Lake Charles supercharger in Louisiana. The supercharger was right next to Sonic and had my lunch and kids enjoyed and by the time my MS was ready to go on.

My next stop was Baton Rouge supercharger and it was also in a nice location.

My next stop was Mobile Alabama supercharger and everything went fine.


Day 2:

Left Mobile, Alabama and stopped at DeFuniak Springs supercharger in Florida and the supercharger was located in a very weird place.

Left DeFuniak Springs and reached Lake City, Florida and then drove to St. Augustine supercharger.


Stayed close to St. Augustine supercharger for 2 days.

On my second day (Saturday 8.15.15) when I was supercharging.for 10 minutes..all of a sudden I heard a beeping noise and the 17 inch screen popped up messages

First message: "Error charging..check charging cable"
Second message: "Car cannot be restarted"
Third message: "12 Volt battery critically low"

I unplugged the charging cable and rebooted the screen and used another charging site.

Still I get the same messages..by this time another Tesla pulls in to the supercharger. I called Tesla road side assistance and they could not figure out the problem. I drove my car to nearest Enterprise which was 1 mile or so. Tesla arranged for the car to be towed to Orlando service center.

My car is sitting at the Orlando service center and yet to be diagnosed what went wrong.

Does this look like a 12V battery failure?

This is almost 4th time I am taking my car to the service center since I took possession of it in October last year.

What drives me crazy is that this is the first road trip I take and I landed up with this problem.

Yes I am very thankful for the rental car and speaking truth not the best car rental I have had but given the fact it was weekend and no reservation I am glad I have some car to drive.

Kids are disappointed and had to cancel some vacation arrangements and not really happy that I have to drive an ICE car.

 

[wraithnot]

I'm sorry this happened to you. I had a similar issue last year at the mt Shasta supercharger: 12V battery issue- stranded at Mt Shasta supercharger

In that case the problem was in the main battery pack rather than the 12 V battery. About a month later, I had another issue that gave a 12 V battery error, but in that case the problem was caused by an intermittent contact in the 12 V battery charging system rather than the 12 v battery itself. But I recently completed an epic 5,000 mile road trip with no major issues.

 

[taurusking]

@wraithnot

I read your thread...I had same warnings and red light inside the charge port. The car did not allow me to supercharge. How long did it take to fix it and was the battery new or refurbished battery?

Thanks

 

[wraithnot]

It took the Rocklin service center three days to fix my car and another half day to drive the car to where I work. They drove my car on a flatbed, dropped it off, and then took the enterprise rental away on the same flatbed. They probably would have had the car fixed a bit sooner, but they noticed that the rear brake rotors were warped when they took the car for a test ride and fixed that as well before returning the car. I got a remanufactured battery, but I've heard from people that had similar problems more recently that Tesla now tends to fix the failed component and returns your original battery pack to you. But things might be different at your local service center.

 

[taurusking]

O.K Tesla called me and said it is not 12 V battery.

Failed battery coolant heater and it was replaced within couple of hours and the car was returned to me. Battery was not replaced.

Thanks for your help

 

[jozegovich]

Same exact problem here, Battery Coolant heater was replaced.
There were no logs of any of the faults, so I hope they got it.
My battery was not replaced, which is concerning, as the issue may have damaged the battery.
One thing which help identify the 12 volt battery weakness, slow response from FOB and charge port lock.

 

[taurusking]

@jozegovich : Did this happen at a supercharger?

Any towing issues?

No problem with battery or coolant heater until now. I am at 58K miles

 

[jozegovich]

O.K Tesla called me and said it is not 12 V battery.

Failed battery coolant heater and it was replaced within couple of hours and the car was returned to me. Battery was not replaced.

Thanks for your help

Did you experience any related issues?

 

[jozegovich]

Yes, I was at a Supercharger in Buffalo, NY
I noticed the tow person (not Tesla) prime the battery.
No towing issues that I am aware of. What specifically are you asking about regarding towing.

When received at Tesla Service, there were no faults on the logs.

 

[taurusking]

Oh it happened to me during weekend and this happened on my long trip to Florida.

We had to cancel some of our plans because of this. Just wondering if you had to go through same thing.