S60 Battery issue Car Build

[EV-Fixme]

Hi, going to start a little story for a build/repair. Thanks to @Akikiki for connecting me with Qphan.

A little back story... @qphan79 was having problems charging his 2013 S 60 with nearly 210K miles (BTW this might be the highest mile S60??)

Battery would only charge to 57 miles, making the car not able to be usable for his commute (hint 200k miles on a 13..) Tesla's diagnosis was the battery needed replacement. Car is on 2019.40 so not sure if that is a part of the issue as noted by a few people already with similar issues.

I don't have a lot of experience with batteries. However we like interesting challenges also. We work with @AutobahnEV and offered Qphan to bring in the car and we can replace the battery if needed.

However I think Qphan has his eyes on a 3 or Y and after chatting a while and going over his options I also tossed out that I would be willing to pay him more than Tesla to give him a nicer offer than trading it in since I was very interested in this issue.

One really interesting note is the SC replaced his drive unit due to noise (still had warranty and I've seen the receipt for the work) and after that Tesla hooked up the car to a charger and got it to 100%.

After he drove it home and put it on the charger, he got the same error in the morning, and the car had not charged.

After chatting some more I made him a offer sight unseen that if the car was as he represented I would buy it. I was very shocked to see the car, it was much cleaner than I expected for 200k miles. We agreed to meet the next day (today to finalize the deal.)

Now the bad...
Car needs new screen (leaking) Replaced
Rear axle (leaking) Waiting for arrival
TPMS sensor (dead) New wheels on the way!
Well, it's not really that bad. Car drives nice and quiet, and straight.

Today we replaced the screen and working on upgrading the eMMC (was told it was original)

Stay tuned as we compete the eMMC and dive into the battery/charging issue (Maximum battery charge level reduced.) Completed!

Now we have our official project car... Well maybe second since mine is always a project also..




Maximum battery charge level reduced
And I have reason to believe it is not battery failure as I'm digging into this...

 

[Chaserr]

Thank you for investigating the battery limiting "reduced" issue that .40 seems to be causing in so many cars.

 

[EV-Fixme]

After a couple of days looking into this. I'm glad this is really helping people with warranty. I think a lot of batteries that have a trajectory to fail are getting replaced well before warranty expires, which is great for those people. However now we have these 60 packs and salvages that have no warranty, 2019.40.2.3 appears to prematurely end that car's life as many wont want to spend the high cost of buying a new pack.

This is my current findings...

• 2019.40.2.3 appears to artificially limit max capacity. I don't know why yet, could be on the way to severe battery damage and possibility of shutting down when driving?
• I'm consistently able to charge it above 57 miles range. 3 times now
• Not seeing any performance issues
• Battery has not caught fire
• Drove over 60 miles between charges

Again, I'm not saying this is a fix or safe for someone to do. I'm carefully watching it.

 

[EV-Fixme]

Another point of info, car has 48kWh capacity left on battery. Does anyone know offhand if 60 pack was 60 kWh?

 

[Greenms60]

Another point of info, car has 48kWh capacity left on battery. Does anyone know offhand if 60 pack was 60 kWh?

I believe it's 61kw.. I'll post pictures of mine. It's also a classic 60, but with less mileage than yours... I don't know if it'll help any

 

[EV-Fixme]

Thanks, comparing I only see 3 kWh difference in the packs. Over double the use of charging. Do you happen to be in a cold climate?

 

[Greenms60]

Thanks, comparing I only see 3 kWh difference in the packs. Over double the use of charging. Do you happen to be in a cold climate?

The original owner was from Pennsylvania. Yes, I live in a state that sees all 4 seasons (northeast USA) .... I've driven the car around 11.5k of 67.5k Miles.. I don't supercharge a lot. I'd have to guess around 100 kw of the total supercharging is from me..

 

[EV-Fixme]

The original owner was from Pennsylvania. Yes, I live in a state that sees all 4 seasons (northeast USA) .... I've driven the car around 11.5k of 67.5k Miles.. I don't supercharge a lot. I'd have to guess around 100 kw of the total supercharging is from me..

Ok your pack looks pretty good with little degradation.

 

[EV-Fixme]

The battery continue to looks usable. We are currently noticing one of the cell packs is about .03V lower than the rest of the pack. Continuing to watch things. Not having issues driving 100 miles a day and charging it back up currently.

 

[Greenms60]

Ok your pack looks pretty good with little degradation.

Awesome!

 

[aabates]

Hi, going to start a little story for a build/repair. Thanks to @Akikiki for connecting me with Qphan.

A little back story... @qphan79 was having problems charging his 2013 S 60 with nearly 210K miles (BTW this might be the highest mile S60??)

Battery would only charge to 57 miles, making the car not able to be usable for his commute (hint 200k miles on a 13..) Tesla's diagnosis was the battery needed replacement. Car is on 2019.40 so not sure if that is a part of the issue as noted by a few people already with similar issues.

I don't have a lot of experience with batteries. However we like interesting challenges also. We work with @AutobahnEV and offered Qphan to bring in the car and we can replace the battery if needed.

However I think Qphan has his eyes on a 3 or Y and after chatting a while and going over his options I also tossed out that I would be willing to pay him more than Tesla to give him a nicer offer than trading it in since I was very interested in this issue.

One really interesting note is the SC replaced his drive unit due to noise (still had warranty and I've seen the receipt for the work) and after that Tesla hooked up the car to a charger and got it to 100%.

After he drove it home and put it on the charger, he got the same error in the morning, and the car had not charged.

After chatting some more I made him a offer sight unseen that if the car was as he represented I would buy it. I was very shocked to see the car, it was much cleaner than I expected for 200k miles. We agreed to meet the next day (today to finalize the deal.)

Now the bad...
Car needs new screen (leaking)
Rear axle (leaking)
TPMS sensor (dead)
Well, it's not really that bad. Car drives nice and quiet, and straight.

Today we replaced the screen and working on upgrading the eMMC (was told it was original)

Stay tuned as we compete the eMMC and dive into the battery/charging issue (Maximum battery charge level reduced.)

Now we have our official project car... Well maybe second since mine is always a project also..


View attachment 499532 View attachment 499535 View attachment 499536 View attachment 499537

Maximum battery charge level reduced
And I have reason to believe it is not battery failure as I'm digging into this...

I agree with you. I also have a Model S 60, 167k miles. The lates software came has reduced mine to 12% charge. The alert about Maximum Battery Level Reduced, cane on at 22% range left. This is the second time I have had this with the same battery. I am almost certain that this is software driven. I hope that they will uncap my baby soon.

 

[hpartsch]

Hi, going to start a little story for a build/repair. Thanks to @Akikiki for connecting me with Qphan.

A little back story... @qphan79 was having problems charging his 2013 S 60 with nearly 210K miles (BTW this might be the highest mile S60??)

Battery would only charge to 57 miles, making the car not able to be usable for his commute (hint 200k miles on a 13..) Tesla's diagnosis was the battery needed replacement. Car is on 2019.40 so not sure if that is a part of the issue as noted by a few people already with similar issues.

I don't have a lot of experience with batteries. However we like interesting challenges also. We work with @AutobahnEV and offered Qphan to bring in the car and we can replace the battery if needed.

However I think Qphan has his eyes on a 3 or Y and after chatting a while and going over his options I also tossed out that I would be willing to pay him more than Tesla to give him a nicer offer than trading it in since I was very interested in this issue.

One really interesting note is the SC replaced his drive unit due to noise (still had warranty and I've seen the receipt for the work) and after that Tesla hooked up the car to a charger and got it to 100%.

After he drove it home and put it on the charger, he got the same error in the morning, and the car had not charged.

After chatting some more I made him a offer sight unseen that if the car was as he represented I would buy it. I was very shocked to see the car, it was much cleaner than I expected for 200k miles. We agreed to meet the next day (today to finalize the deal.)

Now the bad...
Car needs new screen (leaking) Replaced
Rear axle (leaking) Waiting for arrival
TPMS sensor (dead) New wheels on the way!
Well, it's not really that bad. Car drives nice and quiet, and straight.

Today we replaced the screen and working on upgrading the eMMC (was told it was original)

Stay tuned as we compete the eMMC and dive into the battery/charging issue (Maximum battery charge level reduced.) Completed!

Now we have our official project car... Well maybe second since mine is always a project also..


View attachment 499532 View attachment 499535 View attachment 499536 View attachment 499537

Maximum battery charge level reduced
And I have reason to believe it is not battery failure as I'm digging into this...

I've read through these posts a few times... Maybe I'm missing something. But are you saying the car says it will only charge to xx miles but in reality, it is still charging to the almost full capacity and fully usable (with no intervention to get it to do such)?

 

[aabates]

I've read through these posts a few times... Maybe I'm missing something. But are you saying the car says it will only charge to xx miles but in reality, it is still charging to the almost full capacity and fully usable (with no intervention to get it to do such)?

No. It is actually only charging to a very limited amount of miles/percent. But it is because the software is limiting the range as a safety measure. It’s not battery, it’s the software trying to protect the battery.

 

[EV-Fixme]

I've read through these posts a few times... Maybe I'm missing something. But are you saying the car says it will only charge to xx miles but in reality, it is still charging to the almost full capacity and fully usable (with no intervention to get it to do such)?

Correct, as shown in one of the photos the battery reports as full when it was charged to 57 miles and would not charge any more. The ServiceCenter was able to charge the car fully after the motor was replaced. Qphan plugged the car in after driving home and it shows in the above picture "Maximum charger reached" with 150 miles, battery slider was at 100% and as you can see there is still room in the battery icon.

Once I got it home I was able to charge the car to 57 miles before it reported full. While I was working on the car for some testing I did a redeployment and the car charged above 57 miles, I got over 120 miles of range when I removed it from the charger. I dont have a fix available yet for other people and have not determined if this is safe yet. I'm willing to sacrifice this car in the name of science with the testing I'm doing.

After seeing that I did some additional testing repeating results and able to get the car to charge above the 57 mile limit that was being imposed on the car.

I'm still trying to find the reason that 2019.40.2.3 tries to limit this battery to 57 miles. I have found one of the packs has a .03V-.04V imbalance however I know of several cars that have a much higher imbalance that allows the car to charge normally that is on older software.

I would like if anyone with this issue to get a ODB2 dongle and software such as scanmytesla or tm-spy to check their battery imbalance, and proper cable for their car. Maybe we can figure this out with more cars having the issue?

 

[aabates]

Correct, as shown in one of the photos the battery reports as full when it was charged to 57 miles and would not charge any more. The ServiceCenter was able to charge the car fully after the motor was replaced. Qphan plugged the car in after driving home and it shows in the above picture "Maximum charger reached" with 150 miles, battery slider was at 100% and as you can see there is still room in the battery icon.

Once I got it home I was able to charge the car to 57 miles before it reported full. While I was working on the car for some testing I did a redeployment and the car charged above 57 miles, I got over 120 miles of range when I removed it from the charger. I dont have a fix available yet for other people and have not determined if this is safe yet. I'm willing to sacrifice this car in the name of science with the testing I'm doing.

After seeing that I did some additional testing repeating results and able to get the car to charge above the 57 mile limit that was being imposed on the car.

I'm still trying to find the reason that 2019.40.2.3 tries to limit this battery to 57 miles. I have found one of the packs has a .03V-.04V imbalance however I know of several cars that have a much higher imbalance that allows the car to charge normally that is on older software.

View attachment 503116

I would like if anyone with this issue to get a ODB2 dongle and software such as scanmytesla or tm-spy to check their battery imbalance, and proper cable for their car. Maybe we can figure this out with more cars having the issue?

I’m willing to get one. Where do I find the dongle? At any auto part store?

 

[EV-Fixme]

I’m willing to get one. Where do I find the dongle? At any auto part store?

Sudden Loss Of Range With 2019.16.x Software THis post has the info..

 

[aabates]

Thanks. I just wish I could charge my car up just one more time. I will never drive it below 50% again.

 

[EV-Fixme]

Thanks. I just wish I could charge my car up just one more time. I will never drive it below 50% again.

Well that's not the issue.. It wont charge till it's below the "defined" limit

 

[aabates]

I received an estimate from the SC. They willing to upgrade me from a 60kw to a 90kw for 21k. I like the idea of having a 90kw vehicle for 21k. Any thoughts?

 

[EV-Fixme]

I received an estimate from the SC. They willing to upgrade me from a 60kw to a 90kw for 21k. I like the idea of having a 90kw vehicle for 21k. Any thoughts?

It's a nice upgrade, A lot better sounding than another 60 for 17k The only concern is if there is a bad accident in the future. Make sure to keep documentation of the 21k upgrade as a totaled vehicle payout should increase since a new battery was purchased. Insurance is not up to date with this and may be a tricky situation.

Also current vehicle is probably worth a little over 10k, add 21k and your at about 31k or more. Recently I've seen some AP1 cars for under 35k. I love saving old cars, but cost is really high in this case. It's challenging being stuck in this situation with a car that has so little range.