Considering buying used 2015 Spark EV with 22K miles

[FateSpark]

Hello all,

I've been reading through the forums and trying to get up to speed on these vehicles. I apologize if I am asking a question already answered. I am considering buying a Chevy Spark EV with 22k miles. I'm on the week long Carvana trial. The vehicle arrived from NJ with only 20% battery. I've since charged it up and drove it all the way down several times. However, I am only getting 55-60 miles. I understand driving styles can affect this. However, even with temp control off I'm still not able to get more than 60 miles. And, perhaps more troubling. It's only taking 7 or so hours at 12 amps 120v to get back to a full charge. My understanding was that this should take 20 hours.

My concern is that somehow the battery range has been diminished. Perhaps through the cold in NJ? Or bad treatment? I don't know. Would the range and quick charge times be a red flag for you?

Really love the car though. It's a robin's egg blue with the two tone blue/black interior. Everybody here would like to keep it but I don't know what to think about this battery situation.

Also, I bought a Kindle Fire to be able to run Torque Pro via a bluetooth obd reader. But, apparently I have to perform some tricks on the Fire to access the Android store. Fortunately I don't have to root it.

Oh, and it has what appears to be new Bridgestone Ecopia EP150 tires on it. Which makes me wonder if it has been driven hard to have to replace the tires at 22K?

Anyway, any advise or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you!

 

[Engineear]

I've had my 2015 since 11-18 and am up to 22K miles and it still charges past 84. In the winter, in AZ, in a garage it fell to the mid 70's. You should be getting better than 60.
The Chevy dealers here will check voltage and all things electric for free, takes about 1.5 hours, may want to check with them. If they can't diagnose it I'd take it back and find another.

 

[FateSpark]

Thank you. That would be super if the Chevy dealer would check it for free. I wonder if they will here? I guess I'll find out. I'm thinking about disconnecting the 12v battery to see if a reset would help.

 

[FateSpark]

I activated OnStar and see in the vehicle lifetime efficiency that it is 3.4mi/kWh. Digging around the forums but I think that's way low.

 

[scrambler]

3.4mi/kWh means it was driven hard or in hard conditions, it does not really reflect the battery condition.
But it would explain why the guess O meter is estimating a low range.
In my experience, it can take over 3 days of a new driving style/condition for the range estimate to adjust to them.
So a couple of questions

• How many days / charge cycle have you had a chance to do so far?

• If you reset the trip meter to zero, what miles/kwh do you get at the end of a trip under your driving conditions?

 

[FateSpark]

Thank you.

I charged it Thursday night, which I expected to be 20 hours at 120v but it was charged in 8 hours. Drove it all the way down Friday. Rinse and repeat Friday night, Saturday and Sunday. So, today would be the 4th day. This morning it showed full charge in 8 hours again which is really puzzling. I'm about to go drive it. And it shows a guess o meter of 55 miles same as the other days. I have an appt with Chevy tomorrow and CarVana's SilverRock agreed to pay for a full diagnostic that would indicate battery total kWh capacity and health? I hope it will. It's making me nervous enough that I'm shopping vehicles to swap with pending that service check.

Oh, and I've been resetting trip meter every day and getting between 55 and 58 miles range before it's angry and shutting down the radio and wanting a charge immediately.

And, it's almost all around town 30-45mph driving.

 

[Kermit]

I wouldn't hesitate to send it back if you can find another one that's close to what you want. We purposely purchased our cars through Carvana from southern California off of lease to avoid any potential issues with rust/corrosion. I've always had black cars but sprung for the silver because it was a better deal, and the silver body with silver grille actually looks pretty good together. Try not to get too hung up on the exterior color.
If you haven't already be sure to get a referral link (you can usually dig through Reddit and contact someone privately to get one) to get $500 off of your car. If you take the time after you buy the car and after the 7 day trial you can get $100 for each referral you give out (I did this through Reddit also) up to 10. So with a little effort you can get an additional $1500 off of your car this way.

Good luck with your purchase.

 

[FateSpark]

Thank you.

I'm leaning towards it going back but will wait to hear what the dealership has to say anyway.

I wonder if the Reddit code could be used after I've already accepted delivery? I'd heard about that but then forgot.

 

[scrambler]

What Miles/kWh do you get on the trip meter when reset before a day of driving.

Because if you get less that 4.4 Miles/kWh, then the culprit is more likely your driving style / condition than the battery degradation.

A rough estimate of the usable capacity of the battery when new is 19kWh. The EPA Estimated range is 82 miles which correspond to 4.3 Miles/kWh driving style/conditions

If your driving style/condition is 3.4 miles/kWh, then even with a new battery you would only get a range of 64 miles. Take 15% off of that for mileage battery degradation and you are at 54miles...

 

[MrDRMorgan]

Hello all,

I've been reading through the forums and trying to get up to speed on these vehicles. I apologize if I am asking a question already answered. I am considering buying a Chevy Spark EV with 22k miles. I'm on the week long Carvana trial. The vehicle arrived from NJ with only 20% battery. I've since charged it up and drove it all the way down several times. However, I am only getting 55-60 miles. I understand driving styles can affect this. However, even with temp control off I'm still not able to get more than 60 miles. And, perhaps more troubling. It's only taking 7 or so hours at 12 amps 120v to get back to a full charge. My understanding was that this should take 20 hours.

My concern is that somehow the battery range has been diminished. Perhaps through the cold in NJ? Or bad treatment? I don't know. Would the range and quick charge times be a red flag for you?

Really love the car though. It's a robin's egg blue with the two tone blue/black interior. Everybody here would like to keep it but I don't know what to think about this battery situation.

Also, I bought a Kindle Fire to be able to run Torque Pro via a bluetooth obd reader. But, apparently I have to perform some tricks on the Fire to access the Android store. Fortunately I don't have to root it.

Oh, and it has what appears to be new Bridgestone Ecopia EP150 tires on it. Which makes me wonder if it has been driven hard to have to replace the tires at 22K?

Anyway, any advise or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you!

My first Spark EV was a silver 2015 2LT. At 24k miles my "calculated" battery capacity was 15.8 kWh. You can use the data on the Energy Information screen in the car to estimate you current HV battery as follows:

1. Charge the car to 100% (it quits charging and the green light on the dash goes off.)
2. Go to the energy information screen and reset all of the data to zero. Make sure the KWh used is zero too (it is automatically reset to zero when the car is fully charged)
3. Take the car out for a 40 to 50 mile drive and try to maintain a steady and constant speed. Avoid hills, head winds and tail winds. Make sure you are driving in D (not L).
4. When you return home, total up the usage percentages for Drive, Climate and Battery.
5. Note the kWh used number. Divide the kWh used number by the total of the percentages in step 4. Then multiply by 100.

This will give you a rough estimate of your battery capacity. The number will become more accurate the further you drive. Just don't run out of juice!!

I collected over 160 data points this way and it gave me a very good idea of the battery capacity and degradation rate for my 2015 Spark EV. I started using Torque Pro just after my lease ended. I now have a 2014 Spark EV 2LT and a 2016 Spark EV 2LT and I use Torque Pro to pull the data from the car's computer.
Note: I also tried to install Torque Pro on as Kindle Fire. It didn't work - something about the Android used in the Fire. I was successful in installing Troque Pro on an old Nexus 7 tablet I have. Now I have it installed on my Motorola phone.

 

[Kermit]

You will have to contact someone at Carvana either through Chat or their phone number. You should still be able to use the code as long as you are within the 7 day test drive window. Make sure you read about it. I believe when we did it we needed to know their name, phone number where they live and what year a model car they got. Most people provide this because they know it's worth $100 to them.

Out of curiosity where do you live?

 

[DarthMuffin]

I got a 2015 with 21k miles a month ago. My guessometer miles were very similar to yours. I think the cold weather is really doing a number on it. With less heater use and a little warmer weather this last week, the estimates have gone up a few miles. Torque Pro tells me I have 14.7kWh total capacity. Not great but not horrible. Remember you still have 3 years left on the battery warranty.

 

[FateSpark]

Great advice, thank you. I will do that.

Interesting that you had the same Fire problem. It's a shame that Torque Pro doesn't work on iOS. I'll be getting a cheap tablet.

Thanks.

 

[Kermit]

I responded in your other post but EngineLink will work on your iPhone you just have to have a compatible OBDII Dongle.

 

[SparkE]

If you have a big-box electronics store in your ara, you can probably buy a very inexpensive Android cell phone (new) for $40-$80 .

My local bigbox is called Fry's Electronics, and they have BLU phones (several models) between $45-$60. Now these are last-generation technology (or maybe even 2 generations back) but the $60 version does specify Android 8.0, 5" screen, Quad-core processor (newer, better phones are now 6 or 8 cores), and a 5MP camera. The cheaper ones are 4" screens.

I am suggesting this as a device to read your OBD, not as your new cell phone. It costs about the same as a decent OBD reader.

I have no connection to BLU - they were just the cheapest unlocked phones that Fry's had.

Edit: I just checked on Amazon, and the cheapest BLU they had (unlocked) was $99. But it's a much better phone than the ones I saw at Fry's. But Amazon also has new, unlocked Android phones starting around $50 from other vendors.