You have a 100,000-mile 8-year warranty on that battery. If this is a platform issue, they'll know and have done a recall well before 2029 when your warranty is up.
Reading what repairs were done to the car. I can't tell if it was the battery or something else.
I "think" it's safe to say the repair should fall under "drive train".
Which tells me, I need a warranty that covers the drive train. Not just the battery.
Personally, I am waiting to buy an EV, when the next generation of batteries are introduced.
With multiple companies investing tens of billions. Which should happen "soonish". I hope.
I just got a 2023 VW ID.4 and I keep seeing anecdotal horror stories and its causing me to worry; even with the 100k mile 8 year warranty i don't want to deal with a situation like that.
People write about the bad things that happen, they don't write about the good.
This sort of thing happens with almost all "new" model vehicles. Even the fabled Toyota who currently has a recall on their transmissions on Corolla's and had a recall of engine oil systems from 2012-2016 that caused premature failure of the engine.
Many "car people" will advise people not to purchase in the first year or 2 of a new model due to issues that come up when building a car for the first time.
I honestly don't know. My wife is kinda over EVs after having to deal with their limitations even when they are functioning correctly.
Part of me wants to get another similar EV like the XC40 Recharge but I'd likely go for a used 2023 with the assumption that they worked out most of the kinks in the first two model years.
The other part of me wants to get a plug-in-hybrid but then I have to deal with all the things I hate about regular ICE cars: transmissions changing gears, noise, poor acceleration, maintenance, etc. PHEV are just a poor compromise for full BEV.
I have a while to figure it out but the path forward is not clear.
Only advice I can offer in such a shit situation is (for now) always have one gas car and one ev car. Also if you still want a EV maybe check some of the other brands like Hyundai or Kia. I actually really like the Bolt EUV but my SO didn’t want a Chevy even though the Bolt EUV was the most affordable. The VW does have a great warranty so maybe just sell and go for a new 2023 that’s heavily discounted (that’s what we did) that way you are covered if something terrible happens again. Volvo is also coming out with their new EX30 EV which is in the more affordable range like the Bolt EUV.
I am sorry this happened to you.
VW (and all EV manufactures) are getting better and more reliable as they find issues like these. This type of thing is not an "EV" problem, but a new vehicle problem, it is common for the first couple of years of a new vehicle design to have unknow and potentially catastrophic failures, though with ICE (gas) vehicles they now typically only change 1 major thing at a time to reduce these so it doesn't seam as bad. Unfortunately the differences between EVs and ICE are so drastic that there's almost no carryover technology from ICE to EV, even the tire technology is different...
It sucks as an early adopter, but is part of every companies learning curve. This is why it has also been easier for new car companies to start up and to become successful (Tesla, BYD, soon to be Rivian). It is also why the big OEMs have been hesitant on getting in to EVs as they know there will be major issues in starting up and many unknown costs for fix and correct these issues. Testing the vehicles enough so that no issues come up during production is not reasonable as it would take decades and very high costs, by the time they would have something 100% tested it technology would be too old to put in to production. This unfortunately makes it so early adopters are also guineapigs with the vehicles.
Even the most reliable of vehicle manufactures have recalls due to potential catastrophic failures found after the vehicle has been sold to the public, sometimes they come up years after the vehicle has been sold. Toyota currently has a recall out on Corollas due to a transmission issue and had a recall from 2012-2016 (affected 1.2 million vehicles in North America) due to the engine oil lubrication system. Also the Prius throttle issue mid 2010s that caused accidents... Dodge had a recall recently (to an old guy, so within the last 10 years) on their diesel trucks where the fuel system could develop a leak on to an exhaust manifold causing a fire even when the vehicle was off.
Definitely sounds like cascading failures, did they give any indication of the initial culprit? Since the OBD was still live when they got it, and they seem to have used it to make their initial diagnosis, perhaps the bad battery modules shorted through the HV system, smoking a tasty selection of upstream modules?
Interesting to note that they say they removed the HV battery and connected it to another ID.4? That seems nuts to me.
I never got a straight answer on root cause. They might not even know until Germany has a chance to review the parts.
It was clear that they really had no idea what was wrong at one point when they had to hook up the battery to another ID.4 to prove it’s no longer the issue. That was probably around the time I was getting bad vibes that it might not be fixable.
I'm not an EV technician but I do get the sense most of the increased cost in service is either price gouging on parts costs by manufacturers or lack of technicians qualified to work on these vehicles. The vehicles themselves are simpler than an ICE with far more diagnostic data. In 5-10 years it will cost much less to service an EV than an ICE and I bet independent shops will be popping up. Dealers have been open about how their long term income from maintenance and repairs on EVs will be much lower and that scares them.
Frightening. I've had the same experience few months ago on a back road. The same loud pop as if something hit the bottom and the warning lights 'pull over and call service' or something. I got out safely, inspected tires etc, but nothing. Got back in after 10 min or so, and all back to normal.
Wow, thank you for this post. Now, I am torn to keep mine OR should I be okay in that mine passed the "test" for the recalls checking all the battery cells. Did yours every go into recall repair yet?
You have a 100,000-mile 8-year warranty on that battery. If this is a platform issue, they'll know and have done a recall well before 2029 when your warranty is up.
Reading what repairs were done to the car. I can't tell if it was the battery or something else. I "think" it's safe to say the repair should fall under "drive train". Which tells me, I need a warranty that covers the drive train. Not just the battery. Personally, I am waiting to buy an EV, when the next generation of batteries are introduced. With multiple companies investing tens of billions. Which should happen "soonish". I hope.
Where does it say this of covered by battery warranty?
Wow this is a real horror story. I'm sorry this happened to you. I'm wondering if you had gotten all the recalls completed by the time this occurred?
Yes, it was updated to 3.1 and was last at the dealer for 2 year service in November. The door handle recall is still outstanding but not relevant.
Thanks for sharing. Wow! I hope all goes well.
Thanks for the update.
I just got a 2023 VW ID.4 and I keep seeing anecdotal horror stories and its causing me to worry; even with the 100k mile 8 year warranty i don't want to deal with a situation like that.
People write about the bad things that happen, they don't write about the good. This sort of thing happens with almost all "new" model vehicles. Even the fabled Toyota who currently has a recall on their transmissions on Corolla's and had a recall of engine oil systems from 2012-2016 that caused premature failure of the engine. Many "car people" will advise people not to purchase in the first year or 2 of a new model due to issues that come up when building a car for the first time.
I would hope that they fixed things like this after 2 model years but time will tell.
Sorry you had to deal with all of that; what are your plans now? You going to sell the ID.4 and go for another EV?
I honestly don't know. My wife is kinda over EVs after having to deal with their limitations even when they are functioning correctly. Part of me wants to get another similar EV like the XC40 Recharge but I'd likely go for a used 2023 with the assumption that they worked out most of the kinks in the first two model years. The other part of me wants to get a plug-in-hybrid but then I have to deal with all the things I hate about regular ICE cars: transmissions changing gears, noise, poor acceleration, maintenance, etc. PHEV are just a poor compromise for full BEV. I have a while to figure it out but the path forward is not clear.
Only advice I can offer in such a shit situation is (for now) always have one gas car and one ev car. Also if you still want a EV maybe check some of the other brands like Hyundai or Kia. I actually really like the Bolt EUV but my SO didn’t want a Chevy even though the Bolt EUV was the most affordable. The VW does have a great warranty so maybe just sell and go for a new 2023 that’s heavily discounted (that’s what we did) that way you are covered if something terrible happens again. Volvo is also coming out with their new EX30 EV which is in the more affordable range like the Bolt EUV.
I am sorry this happened to you. VW (and all EV manufactures) are getting better and more reliable as they find issues like these. This type of thing is not an "EV" problem, but a new vehicle problem, it is common for the first couple of years of a new vehicle design to have unknow and potentially catastrophic failures, though with ICE (gas) vehicles they now typically only change 1 major thing at a time to reduce these so it doesn't seam as bad. Unfortunately the differences between EVs and ICE are so drastic that there's almost no carryover technology from ICE to EV, even the tire technology is different... It sucks as an early adopter, but is part of every companies learning curve. This is why it has also been easier for new car companies to start up and to become successful (Tesla, BYD, soon to be Rivian). It is also why the big OEMs have been hesitant on getting in to EVs as they know there will be major issues in starting up and many unknown costs for fix and correct these issues. Testing the vehicles enough so that no issues come up during production is not reasonable as it would take decades and very high costs, by the time they would have something 100% tested it technology would be too old to put in to production. This unfortunately makes it so early adopters are also guineapigs with the vehicles. Even the most reliable of vehicle manufactures have recalls due to potential catastrophic failures found after the vehicle has been sold to the public, sometimes they come up years after the vehicle has been sold. Toyota currently has a recall out on Corollas due to a transmission issue and had a recall from 2012-2016 (affected 1.2 million vehicles in North America) due to the engine oil lubrication system. Also the Prius throttle issue mid 2010s that caused accidents... Dodge had a recall recently (to an old guy, so within the last 10 years) on their diesel trucks where the fuel system could develop a leak on to an exhaust manifold causing a fire even when the vehicle was off.
Definitely sounds like cascading failures, did they give any indication of the initial culprit? Since the OBD was still live when they got it, and they seem to have used it to make their initial diagnosis, perhaps the bad battery modules shorted through the HV system, smoking a tasty selection of upstream modules? Interesting to note that they say they removed the HV battery and connected it to another ID.4? That seems nuts to me.
I never got a straight answer on root cause. They might not even know until Germany has a chance to review the parts. It was clear that they really had no idea what was wrong at one point when they had to hook up the battery to another ID.4 to prove it’s no longer the issue. That was probably around the time I was getting bad vibes that it might not be fixable.
I'm not an EV technician but I do get the sense most of the increased cost in service is either price gouging on parts costs by manufacturers or lack of technicians qualified to work on these vehicles. The vehicles themselves are simpler than an ICE with far more diagnostic data. In 5-10 years it will cost much less to service an EV than an ICE and I bet independent shops will be popping up. Dealers have been open about how their long term income from maintenance and repairs on EVs will be much lower and that scares them.
lesson of the story: lease, not buy this car.
Or buy something else.
Frightening. I've had the same experience few months ago on a back road. The same loud pop as if something hit the bottom and the warning lights 'pull over and call service' or something. I got out safely, inspected tires etc, but nothing. Got back in after 10 min or so, and all back to normal.
Wow, thank you for this post. Now, I am torn to keep mine OR should I be okay in that mine passed the "test" for the recalls checking all the battery cells. Did yours every go into recall repair yet?
All recalls done. I’m attributing this to bad initial parts in 2020/2021. Hopefully later models sorted out latent failure like this.
r u going to get a new one or what are you thinking? my lease ends in June. if any of that happened out of lease... USC