Chevy SCREWED me on this used $1500 EV!

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I'm just a guy in Kansas playing around in his garage. Come along in my adventures riding, racing, modifying and repairing my small fleet of unusual misfits.

[@ncc74656m]

I dig this "documentary" style take, Jake. I feel like it's a winning formula for your channel.

[@mdoyle1981]

The nightmare that is how easily a module can be ruined without a secret sequence of connection is insanity. I have a BMW i3 and if you simply disconnect the 12v battery without disabling the HV loop first, you risk frying a several thousand dollar module that's also software locked down. No warning stickers, no failsafe in the design, simply changing the 12v like you would in a normal vehicle puts you at risk for a huge loss.

[@bluetyphoon2100]

I saw a post on just rolled into the shop of a newer RAM that requires the headliner to be plugged in in order for the car to turn over. Absolutely dumb how some of these modules can easily be fried or just cause pain in diagnosis.

[@zaremol2779]

>have a BMW i3 and if you simply disconnect the 12v battery without disabling the HV loop first, you risk frying a several thousand dollar module That's a German engineering fault more than an EV one

[@bluetyphoon2100]

@@zaremol2779 technology integration in cars does not depend on what drives it. the average consumer wants all these useless features that eventually cost them thousands.

[@genericsomething]

I live in a place where cars don't rust, and I see all kinds of ancient relics on the road that are several times older than that Spark EV. Yet, we can still get parts for them. The way cars are made today makes them disposable, and that's a shame. We live in a time of resource depletion, and keeping a car on the road for as long as possible is the best use of our resources. Remember the phrase, "reduce, reuse, recycle?" That was meant to be in order. We're just skipping straight to "recycle" these days.

[@TwoDollarGararge]

Nope that's bad for business need to lease a new car every 3 to 5 years

[@100PercentJake]

Have you tried to buy parts for an older Lexus lately?

[@TwoDollarGararge]

@100PercentJake Isn't that normal though? Most auto parts stores only carry parts until a vehicle is 20 years old or it was made in the millions

[@genericsomething]

@@100PercentJake ~~ No. But, I was sad while watching the Car Care Nut, when he announced that he bought what's possibly the last new OEM LS430 drive shaft in the world. Parts for my '06 Taurus are starting to dry up, and they're starting to hit the wrecking yards in great quantities in my area of the world. I've actually bought some parts before they need to be replaced, because they were getting more scarce. edit to add: I can still get most of the parts I need for the Taurus locally, or delivered to my door. The OEM new parts are getting more scarce, but the aftermarket is still well-stocked.

[@TwoDollarGararge]

@@genericsomething it's 20 years old it's aging out they are no longer street traffic minor accidents or the transmissions dying is getting rid of early 2000's cars the average car in the US is 12 or 13 years old so early 2010's stuff

[@RyanKlapperich]

Man, what a bummer. Was hoping you'd be able to pull an Aging Wheels and individually charge the packs and bring it back to life, but obviously that's a no go without a working BMS. Swing and a miss.

[@100PercentJake]

Aging Wheels was also hoping I could pull an Aging Wheels.

[@WatchJRGo]

All the batteries are fully charged 🥲 the car just hates us

[@moeheil8839]

​​@@100PercentJakemaybe you could swap in some battery cells from a model 3? Idk, just spitballing

[@Chris-hw4mq]

Old EVs are junk now just part them out. Easy to work on but expensive to fix.

[@Robiruu]

​@moeheil8839 better off pulling another Aging Wheels and just swap like he's doing w his ford Explorer bc teslas batteries switched to 5 piece or something instead of like a 16 piece battery so it's be rough fitting some in the spark I'd bet 😬😂

[@RMartin631]

Never let a brake caliper hang by the hose. It can and usually does lead to a failure of the brake hose.

[@nottingham82]

Jr works on cars? Wild. Lol can't wait for him to finish his house.

[@WatchJRGo]

Back to cars soon… I gotta get moved in!

[@trendel13]

You need to do car history videos. Perfect voice and presentation style for it.

[@Infinion]

There's a possibility the BECM in the Gen 1 Chevy Volt is compatible if you're struggling to source parts. All the guts from the high voltage modules in the Volt went into the Spark EV save for the generator. The second possibility is that the BECM is completely fine and you're dealing with a problematic HPCM2 under the driver's seat. They have failed and been replaced in many instances. Surprised you didn't start there, or maybe I missed something with the reset you mentioned.

[@Infinion]

Update Someone on the Chevy Spark EV forums just yesterday fixed a bricked battery with a "low voltage" error. The HPCM2 was reprogrammed and the car was able to charge and balance! In your case, it's likely that the BECM was just fine, just doing its job reporting cell imbalance and low voltage.

[@TheRealAlpha2]

A 100% Jake video in the same week as an Elliot Alvis video? Wow, this is a week for content! It's too bad "little" car has become such a dirty word to US car makers.

[@Infinion]

Someone on the Chevy Spark EV forums just yesterday fixed a bricked battery with a "low voltage" error. The HPCM2 was reprogrammed and the car was able to charge and balance! In your case, it's likely that the BECM was fine, just doing its job reporting cell imbalance and low voltage. If you still have the car, you must consider reprogramming the HPCM2 or replacing it. It's under the driver's seat.

[@dave11686]

I went from Chevy to Honda for daily cars and can’t be happier

[@donmynack]

The interior of the Sonic hatch is also surprisingly large.

[@jamesphillips2285]

"Chevy Spark" is such a great EV name that it took me a few weeks to realize that the ones I was seeing "in the wild" were actually just the ICE versions.

[@dgurevich1]

Another point is the battery module balancing in many EVs is made by resistors in the BMS during discharge. The aim is to keep the modules voltages as close as possible to each other. In case of big imbalance between the modules the BMS would throw an error. If it isn't well designed, it can also burn out from those resistors being overutilized.

[@DanGrab]

As an owner of a 2016 Spark EV, this is informative. I knew a bit of it from an automotive teardown, but this helpful for the future.

[@EvanLoxley]

1:27 haven't seen a Celica GT-S like that in a while either...

[@ChaFairchild]

watch more scotty kilmer

[@genericsomething]

The last one with pop-up headlights!

[@Phiyedough]

I have a Spark but it is the earlier M200 model. I didn't realise Daewoo made an EV version, not that I would want one! For a cheap car my 2008 Spark has been incredibly reliable, which is why I have had it for 12 years.

[@yodasbff3395]

Jake, that was a very good video, thanks for sharing. 👍

[@professional_hackjob]

Subscription for anything to facilitate repairs needs to be illegal!

[@michaeltutty1540]

Great video, Jake. The only experience I have had with the Spark EV was second hand. A generator operator I worked with had one. Someone else on the production had that odd looking BMW EV. We were on the crew of a film set a good ways out of town. Both cars needed to be hooked up to the generator to charge for the 14 or so hour day or else they would not have made it home. There were some locations neither could be used as the distance to travel was greater than the range of the car. The two owners found out the hard way that run flat tires are a very bad idea. On the way in the two cars hit road debris causing a tire to lose pressure. Being unrepairable run flat tires, both had to buy new tires before they could go home, as home was considerably more than 50 miles. Very inconvenient.

[@Unknown_Ooh]

Isn't the whole point of run flats is they can't lose pressure so you can drive to go get them fixed ? 😂

[@Borkery]

@@Unknown_Ooh no, they have a foam donut that is bolted around the rim inside the tire that you ride on when the tire looses pressure, the downside is you destroy the tire. the up side is you can drive alittle further after you blow the tire out. Runflats exist so that car companies do not have to put a spare tire in the car, saving weight/money/space. although one could argue the weight is put right back in when they add the runflat donuts to each tire. on a regular tire if you stop immediately after you get a blow out, there is a high chance that you can save the tire and have it repaired for very cheap. the longer you run on a depressurized tire the more you damage it and make it unsafe to be repaired/driven on again.

[@DonziGT230]

It's a bummer that you could't get it going. I recently bought a Smart electric that stopped charging. The Mercedes dealer diagnosed it as needing about $8k of repairs, a new charger and the charger wiring harness, so he sold it cheap. I'd never worked on an electric, but wanted to give it a try. I fixed it for $8, I could have done it for free, but I decided to splurge on a nicer repair. I love that car.

[@avioncamper]

Great to see a new Jake video. Bummer about the car. You have a great voice for radio or videos.

[@DrFiero]

This is one of those cases where technically everything "works", but it doesn't. Like, the parts are all functional - they just don't want to talk nicely to each other! Wonder how hard it'd be to sniff the bus of a working car, find the right "I'm a BMS, and I'm working" packet. Then inject it onto the bus with an arduino each time you powered up your car. Or since it's been 3 weeks... what 'was' your car. And is now a bunch of parts. ;)

[@CheapCheerful]

Great video. So both the Spark and the Bolt had common "bad battery" issues? It's almost like traditional car companies want the public to see EVs as risky despite being extremely simple and reliable.

[@admranger]

I'd vote for Jake.

[@kingofl337]

You should have sent the original BMS out to get it cloned. Then you wouldn’t have to to deal with GM. Also, I didn’t hear/see you checking the modules for issues.

[@garrisong]

Weaponized incompetence 😂😂I’m going to be throwing that around on X

[@GAMINGOBRIEN69]

Twitter*

[@AndrewAMartin]

@@GAMINGOBRIEN69 Xitter, the X makes the 'sh' sound...

[@GAMINGOBRIEN69]

@@AndrewAMartin bruh

[@edwoll]

You need to get yourself one of those April Roses to cancel out those bad days. You see first hand how it works for Hoovie.

[@ex90ranger30]

I would really be interested in seeing if you can fix the bcm. It's likely just some diode stacks or 0 ohm registers that popped if they are that fragile.

[@Bill_Hartnett]

Well that sucks! You couldn't pick Rich's brain on it or anything? I mean, that is his wheelhouse.

[@lirr408]

Great to see your video today. What do you think of the Chevy Bolt? I see Hertz selling year old Bolts under $20K.

[@100PercentJake]

I personally think they're ugly as sin, but they're decent city cars. The slow charging speeds mean that road trips are kind of a nonstarter. Unfortunate, because the range is decent. My recommendation for used EVs right now is probably the Mach E. I've seen several in the low $20k range and several of my friends are very happy with their CPO ones.

[@tony_25or6to4]

Hertz is selling 2 year old Model 3s for $20-30k. If you can get one under $25, there's a $4k EV tax credit.

[@Unknown_Ooh]

Don't buy them or ANY used car from a rental company. A very moronic thing to due coming from a mechanic I've worked on many of them and they always come back again and again till either almost everything has been replaced or the owners get fed up and sell it.

[@lirr408]

@@Unknown_Ooh it is " do" not "due".

[@Dreamspade1]

I was very surprised to see my old stomping ground - the town of Reading UK 1:11 in a Jake video (I expect that on Autoalex Cars channel ). I was not surprised to see the bad traffic on the map! Swindon to London on the M4 corridor - not gonna be fun!! A40, M40, A420 (yes, that's a real road) would be my route. Kinda sucks near Oxford but avoids Reading entirely. Which, having lived there, I can say would be a good thing. That extra 8 miles being the issue here obviously!

[@Dreamspade1]

Yes, I did put that route in reverse - my bad! Always thinking about driving towards Oxfordshire / Berkshire / Buckinghamshire area - not back into "that London"! :)

[@boredom.victim]

quick question did you ever do an update/review on your ATOTO? I'm thinking about buying one 🤔

[@stephengreen3566]

You should try driving a 1996 Geo Metro/Solectria Force. (I love mine, thanks JR).

[@murraymadness4674]

I think it is highly unlikely that your sequence of assembly is the problem. When you replace a part and it does not fix the problem, it was almost always not the problem. What does it cost for an entire spark ev pack replacement? Throw this part at the problem and see if it fixes it. If nothing else, now you have doubled the battery capacity. With the pack out, I would have checked the voltages on all those modules and see what the reality was on them, and if low try to recharge them manually to get them into spec.

[@jamesedmonds1350]

What drew my attention was the fact that someone thought they get a GOOD car ,from a DEALER, for $1,500 . 🤣

[@TwoDollarGararge]

Welcome to the future of cars and tech in general if you can't fix it you don't own it

[@petersachs764]

So, how do I change the Dexcool? I'm at 96k on my 2015 Spark EV.

[@nknasi]

I know this is super random but I remember a vid you posted long ago where you talked about your home NAS, can't remember what vid it was to watch it back though. what software are you running on that? i remember it being some sort of free linux distro, thanks.

[@tschuuuls486]

You may need to reset the module to a clean state before trying to code it. The autel may be able to talk directly to the module via a few flying leads over can. Someone who knows more than me could probably just clone the eeprom from the old module.

[@mikelemoine4267]

Why don't you try sending the BCM to a module rebuilder? Any good electronics tech should be able to fix the module so long as it's not a proprietary chip that's bad.

[@billwendell6886]

sounds like BMW where the battery type and CCA and reserve all have to be programmed or the new battery has to match the OE battery specs.

[@teddystoner8288]

Luckily I leased five of my six EV's. Gives you an excape route. My owned smart just keeps going but lately just dies while driving. So 6 outta 6 EV failures. 3 leafs, 1 volt, 1 fiat, and now I'm worried about my smart.

[@CheapCheerful]

Damn. Maybe you should just get a Tesla?

[@jennyloughry896]

We need more, Jake!!

[@aarond23]

Bummer was hoping you could get it going Jake!

[@tomfurie2996]

Nooooo! You gotta try fixing it! Find the secret and tell the world (of Sparks). It was made in South Korea. Battery in Michigan. Motor & drive unit in Baltimore. There’s a Spark EV guru out there somewhere. Rich Rebuilds?

[@100PercentJake]

The BECM is a black box that only LGChem knows the secrets of. Due to supply shortages no more of them exist currently

[@tomfurie2996]

@@100PercentJake Does the Car Wizard know of anyone who can fix the box? He seems to be sending modules of all sorts off for repair.

[@natehill8069]

Your history left out the 2010-2019 Volt. EV with a small battery (since they were VERY expensive still back then) and an engine to provide electricity when the battery died. A hybrid but not a Hybrid.

[@TRYtoHELPyou]

I had a very similar problem man it was happened I don't know if it was caused by trying to fast charge several times and it failing and then disconnecting and reconnecting another 12 volts that was fresh however I did not use a pre-charge resistor and I ended up frying the ECM. So I went to Rockville Auto after doing lots so I went to Rock auto and got a new ECM for 240$. And it's very similar to all the issues you're having here I ended up towing the car to Chevy after spending months trying to figure it out with tech line connect and they said they cannot connect to the ECM that was good enough for me to buy one I replaced it with the tech line connect software and boom was able to start up the car and it worked fine after that. I don't think it's smart to keep throwing money at it trying to figure it out but that was a thing that I had as a problem and hpcm module saying things are bad and the radio having like the wrong temperature going from freezing to 100 and something degrees that it was anyway yeah good luck man I'm only halfway through your video right now

[@TRYtoHELPyou]

Hybrid system low voltage likely means that some of the cells in the battery are actually too low for to operate.

[@geordonbrewer1029]

Can you pop open the bms and check the components. Maybe send it out to an electric repair shop that can do component level repair

[@lando-xv7bs]

Best working energy drinks EVER!

[@teardowndan5364]

Needing cars or scan tools to phone home for repairs is BS. Cars should be required to come with a key-card that contains all of the security certificates necessary to de-program/key scavenged modules using the donor car's card data and re-program/key them to the new car using the new car's card. That would take care of all of the anti-theft, anti-hack concerns used to justify having to phone home. No key cards to prove ownership and supply codes, no aftermarket re-programming.

[@natehill8069]

Thanks for the warning about how fussy the sequence is. Will bear that in mind.

[@TRYtoHELPyou]

Sorry I'm comment bombing your thing but in order for me to reflash my ECM instead of actually using the flash feature I had to do it's something like there's a button that says full like identify or something and then in the identifying all the modules it then started reflashing everything it was really weird

[@chicagoboostin]

i loved the energy drink montage.

[@edwardfletcher7790]

I like how the battery pack isn't full of glue like the Cybertruck and Chinese EV's !!! Sucks about the BMS ☹️

[@Neojhun]

It's not glue, it's fire retardant foam.

[@edwardfletcher7790]

@@Neojhun It's horrid sticky gunk used as cheap insulation. It makes the recycling process 1000x times harder...

[@dgurevich1]

The 12 volt battery was dead for a long time. Many early EVs would sense the 12V battery voltage and then engage the contactors on high voltage battery to charge the 12 volt until the HV battery would go completely flat. This may cause the BMS errors, and potentially burn the contactors. This is a common issue with auction EVs. You can check the voltage of the modules and potentially individually charge them to the same voltage before plugging it in to the BMS.

[@100PercentJake]

The BMS was unable to read any of the strings' voltages due to the way they fail (that's what all those 'communication errors' were). It could read overall pack voltage, though.

[@dgurevich1]

@@100PercentJake There might be at some point someone who can fix it. Plugging things in wrong order should never cause the computer to fail. If you gave up on the car, why not send one of the BMS computers to EEVblog? he can at least review it and show how it is supposed to work and why it might fail from incorrect order of connecting it...

[@AMomcilo1]

This was a cool video, love these cars.

[@slowercuber7767]

Sad to witness more evidence of GM's screw-the-consumer dark side. Sorry you couldn't make it go. Good luck recouping cost.

[@vjnobody]

Is it ironic that Toyota EV Prius battery is much more replaceable? Seems to me that Chevy doesn't like small cars. I had to replace a headlight socket on an Aveo. Why did this part melt?

[@benschmidt8168]

Holy crap I haven't seen JR work on a car in MONTHS

[@davidharrison4881]

The radio display malfunctions when they get lots of sun on them.

[@natehill8069]

400 lb-ft? Wow! The Volt (2g) was very peppy at a light and it only had 290!

[@sprockkets]

During that era, this was a high torque but low rpm motor. Most of that torque or output was limited, but one person removed it somehow and peeled out continuously around a curve. The newer motor in the Bolt doesn't have as much torque but it's superior in just about every way. Even the 2nd gen Niro EV they lowered the torque because it's a very jerky feeling, but it is the same 0-60.

[@natehill8069]

@@sprockkets Yeah, The Bolt isnt quite the rocket from stoplights that the Volt was, but its much more practical overtaking on a 2-lane highway.

[@jeffreymartin2010]

Maybe you can swap out some chips in the module?

[@conorcuomo4283]

I got electric s 10 by house it's owned by questionable garage on KZbin it's in a co op car museum

[@theEagleBeagle]

dang. was really rootin for this one. Legit made a cool video at least. PS Grimes, if you see this. nice truck!!

[@hillppari]

meanwhile if you do this with a leaf you dont need to do anything

[@kazinkap]

thanks for the history and dokumentary of electric cars.

[@toyotaprius79]

Corporate containment of expenses

[@kerrylewis2581]

Bummer you were not able to fix the "NO SPARK" Spark

[@thepubliceye]

Anything electronic can be repaired, fix the issue, don't just change it.

[@audiosmackdown]

needs an ls swap

[@alexandrecouture2462]

Replace the BMS with a generic BMS :)

[@latitudeash]

Wow that’s good energy drink 😂

[@bob808]

Does anyone remember GM saying this had more torque than a Ferrari 458? Apparently it's *two* more lb/ft! LOL Cool little car, shame you couldn't get it running.

[@maxxmich]

A123 battery was based in Ann Arbor MI

[@sprockkets]

And that battery was LFP. They still had terrible degradation though.

[@ranig2848]

Even though this was an F, love to see more EV videos 🥳

[@GreenAppelPie]

What did op expect for $1500. i wouldn't mind one though

[@Google_Is_Evil]

Assuming you asked electrified garage?

[@tinleo333]

GM doing GM things.

[@kencrouch668]

Jake- you were saying how fast you had that car broken down- you do realize that you had two all-stars of the Kansas you tube world working on the car. Why didn't you bring in The Car Wizard and The Car Ninja?

[@GrimesGarage]

Neither of them really work on EV stuff, to be honest Jake knows much more about them than I do.

[@kencrouch668]

@@GrimesGarage well - that is saying a lot because you know a lot! I don't fancy EVs - I think they are a ticking time bomb full of sophisticated parts the will eventually go boom then you are left with a $65,000 car that won't run! Besides - JR showed us that it was not the easiest thing to drive between states without having to go to multiple charging places. Never mind if you get into extreme heat or cold!

[@GrimesGarage]

@@kencrouch668 I’m always expanding my knowledge and EV’s aren’t quite to the mainstream level that most ICE cars are. I’ve had enough experience to this point not to kill myself with high voltage at least. 😂

[@jamesphillips2285]

13:30 Somebody drew a "KZbin buddy" on top of the pack!

[@-S-S-]

This is like 100percentjake + ❤

[@andrewjackson8401]

Ha ha ha john ross roped you into helping with that stupid heavy piano lol lol

[@Sircrashalot1993]

I want it!

[@SeishukuS12]

I've been wanting to get a Spark EV and do rally things to it. Edit: A working Spark EV, BTW... >_>

[@KalashSpooner]

I have one. A 2015 with the fast charging option (DEFINITELY get that if you're looking at them. It doesn't tend to make it into listings - but it's not an upgrade you can do later). It's my second. I had a 2014 (without fast charging) that got totaled - the 2015 was an insurance replacement. They are fun! I keep trying to whore it out to the gas junkies at work (since I got a model 3 in Feb). And since the battery is so tiny, a full fast charge is only about 20 minutes. It is limited to 50kw - which - tiny battery. It's fine. The 50kw limit on the bolts is just... Wrong.

[@mkt3000]

"energy proboscis". From now on, I shall refer to a car's exhaust as its "emissions proboscis".

[@brianselt291]

I don’t really care for EV’s but, I did enjoy your video and content.

[@billmalec]

EV and screwed just go together...

[@mazdarx7887]

Bought at an auction in the inoperative section GM didn't screw you, you screwed yourself, you didn't follow procedure Typical EV guys, always trying to push the blame for their mistakes onto someone else Lie the guy who tried to blame the gas station for him putting gas in his diesel truck because the gas nozzle was next to the diesel nozzle

[@GAMINGOBRIEN69]

Wait you actually upload videos still?

[@sthr2110]

Isn't "cramming a lot of space" into something more or less an oxymoron?

[@nickayivor8432]

Car Wizard was right about 100percent Jake 👍,Car Wizard WHIP SMART, 100percent Jake 👍 and enjoy your evening with all your family around you, WHIP SMART, 100percent Jake From Nick Ayivor from London England UK 🇬🇧 ⏰️ 20:29PM Good Evening, take care

[@ThatGuysChannel4Whatever]

Oooh, Jake released two videos fairly close to themselves! Hoovey must be on vacation or something.

[@jeffreygreer8782]

Could the new BECM be bad? Could it be something as simple as a fuse? Please tell me you checked all the fuses? You should’ve check and made sure the connectors had power. Janky little 12v battery? Oh so many things could be the issues. If the 12v battery was completely dead some features and and system shut down, or simply make know by codes. You know when you swap battery some cars need a BMS reset… could it be that? You have the codes and you should be able to see when the codes were recorded, that might help eliminate. Also if you FRIED the module would there be a Circuit open code?? Maybe see if it’s even recognizing the BECM by leaving it out. I know some establishment disconnect the power reduce the risk of fire. What if you just discharge the battery completely? I swear it’s probably something so simple that you’ve overlooked. 😕

[@KalashSpooner]

I'm going to tentatively rule out fuses. Bad fuse = module that doesn't communicate. They're getting error messages from the modules.

[@thecman26]

They just stopped... Thank god!

[@dbajonr]

You should contact Louis Rossmann to see if he can repair that part.

[@noseboop4354]

Louis doesn't even do any repairs anymore. He used to have an Apple repair shop, but nowadays he runs a data recovery and backup service.

[@Engineering_Improvisation]

Swap the electric motor for a 20 horse v-twin from harbour freight and you're good to go.

[@bschugable]

I guess the only option is to LS swap it.....

[@GAMINGOBRIEN69]

Put a hemi in it

[@DooryardEd]

Hit up rich rebuilds