Our 2-month old 2016 died (firmware update needed)

Hi all,

I wanted to see if this has happened to anyone else.

This weekend, we went to drive off in our 2-month old Soul EV Premium and nothing would happen. No lights, no beeps, no music, NOTHING.

I played with things a bit and figured out the 12V battery was completely dead. Since I know quite a bit about EVs (I've owned a Tesla for 2+ years now) I assumed it must be the DC/DC converter that just wasn't charging the 12V.

CAA/AAA came to tow it to the dealership. This morning, they confirmed that they'd fixed it. We got a few stories over the phone that sounded strange and a couple more at the dealership (The KIA dealerships don't really understand EVs yet), but then someone that seemed to know what the issue was explained that (as suspected) the DC/DC converter needed a firmware update because it could fail to charge the 12V under certain specific circumstances.

They did the firmware upgrade, charged the 12V battery and we left with the car.

I'm hoping the fix will work, but it's strange that no one else has reported this. They say the firmware upgrade is optional and only gets done if/when the car comes in for service. Wasn't very optional for us!

Anyway, just thought I'd report it.

Rob

That sounds awful...especially when I just passed the 2-month mark on my Kia!

I think the "optional" upgrade refers to the uvo system and maps...which they inexplicably mail on an sd card. I would hate to have to bring in the car regularly for firmware updates.

Thank you for reporting this. Something else to add to my anxiety.

I wish they were talking about UVO and maps...

I'm in Canada. We don't have UVO here. I really wish we did. I'm so used to telling my car to warm up from my app with the Tesla. It's ridiculous that Kia can't get their act together and get UVO in Canada. I've been hunting for a solution, but there doesn't seem to be one for now.

Anyway, the car has charged a few times now and is running fine. We'll see if the 12V dies again within a few days I'm sure.

Interested in your "died, firmware" experience. I have a '15 EV+, for 8-mo. now, with 3K miles. Bought from Cerritos, CA dealer (wonder if they know EVs?). Have not had any problems.

Do you have a name or ID for the firmware ?

zax123 said:

I wish they were talking about UVO and maps...

I'm in Canada. We don't have UVO here. I really wish we did. I'm so used to telling my car to warm up from my app with the Tesla. It's ridiculous that Kia can't get their act together and get UVO in Canada. I've been hunting for a solution, but there doesn't seem to be one for now.

Anyway, the car has charged a few times now and is running fine. We'll see if the 12V dies again within a few days I'm sure.

Click to expand...

Hey Rob, what dealership did you take it to? I'm wondering if we can just take it there for the update. I don't need anything serviced (knock on wood) and mine's a week newer than yours, but I suspect probably from the same production batch.

As we're in Montreal-area (Quebec, Canada), the only dealership that sells and services the SoulEV is Elite Kia on Paré.

I'm not sure if the other dealerships could have done the service advisory.

I believe it was service advisory number SA203 (it might have been SA208).

It looks like this ordeal is not over.

This morning, we found the Soul hadn't charged again. That was one of the symptoms before.

I suspect it's happening only if you leave the car unlocked, but I'm not 100% sure on that.

We'll be talking to Kia again tomorrow morning.

ARGH!

Rob

Are you sure the 12V battery is ok? Will it hold a charge if it isn't connected to anything? Maybe it is losing charge when the car is off because it is bad or something is not turning off and draining the battery.

Hi Dave,

That's definitely possible...

I'm just wondering why the state of the 12V battery would affect the ability for the car to charge the big battery. I can understand if the 12V is completely dead, but if it's only slowly draining, I can't figure that out.

I'll put a volt-meter on the battery today, but I'm not really sure what the level should be if the battery IS healthy vs. not...

Rob

I just brought mine in for a tire repair and they mention there's a 'service update' for the computer. Not sure if it's they are same thing.

Can you ask them the service update number?

Here it is:

Code:

DESCRIPTION OF SERVICE AND PARTS                             AMOUNT
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
04K1ZS: SERVICE ACTION
SA203 (PSEV) LOW VOLTAGE DC - UPDA
Work performed by XXXXX                                         Warranty
PERFORMED SA203
UPDATED LDC MODULE

Click to expand...

Electric vehicle Control Unit controls driving motor and generating motor, and also controls Low DC-DC converter to recharge the second battery of vehicle.

Click to expand...

Quoted from: https://www.hyundai-kefico.com/en/business/evms_electric.do

Yup that's the one they did for me.

There seems to be 1 car in Germany that had the same problem.
Dead Battery - needed software update to fix.
see original http://www.goingelectric.de/forum/kia-soul-ev/batterieproblem-t13491.html
or translated https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&ie=UTF8&prev=_t&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http://www.goingelectric.de/forum/kia-soul-ev/batterieproblem-t13491.html

Hmmm... interesting! That sounds like the same thing. Although we didn't get the message because the car was parked in the garage and dead.

I'm just hoping it doesn't happen again because then it isn't truly fixed.

I just booked my second scheduled service, the 15k (at 16.5k miles :shock: ) and without asking for it the dealer added this procedure according to my confirmation email:

Mfr Campaign/Safety Recall Notice:SA201 - SA201 PSEV LOW VOLTAGE DC-DC CONVERTER

So it looks like this campaign is on rollout for all Soul EVs. I'm also going to have the SOC instrument flicker addressed which I hope won't involve a loaner car while they wait for the new cluster. Hope springs eternal. In any event, this is one of the most well-built cars I've ever bought with the fewest headaches (touch wood).

mtndrew1 said:

I'm also going to have the SOC instrument flicker addressed which I hope won't involve a loaner car while they wait for the new cluster. Hope springs eternal.

Click to expand...

Our 2016 EV+ had the battery level meter flicker and had to have the gauge cluster sent to CA to use it to program the new one. Hopefully with you living in LA it won't take very long for yours. I don't remember if it was sent to LA or SFO.

We and sister-in-law's family both leased 2016 Soul EVs on the same day from the same dealer in Richmond, CA. Their's is a white Plus, ours is a blue/white Base. They just experienced this issue last week on their car. Went to turn it on at home in the evening with ~45 mi remaining, and the display showed "Check power source" or something similar. The manual says to get a tow to the dealer in that case -- they didn't have time to deal with it just then, so they left it and took a different car. In the morning, it was totally dead as others here have reported. Towed to dealer who performed SA203, they picked it up and everything has been fine.

I'm waiting for the steering recall notice to come in the mail so I can take it in and have them do that and SA203 at the same time. Knock wood we don't have the same issue before then.

-j

I've been having problems with the chargers for some time. I have had error messages after a DCQC completed and then caused 2 other DCQC to not work. Waited at night for 2 hours by a level 2 to make it home. Next day it was ok.

The dealership did do an update that they told me was for an error message when using DCQC and the error message has not returned.

I have found that now from time to time the car stops charging with the standard level 1 that comes with the car, not left me with out charge but have had a batter with only 40% charge after well over 10 hours on the charge and I started of with around 25-30%.

I have also found that when I try to activate the climate from the mobile app that every nor and then I will get an email back that it can not be started since there is no power coming from the charger. The Soul will be mid way charged but all lights on the dash is off. When I unplug and plug it in again it will start charging again and I can remotely start the climate control.

I am taking my car to the dealer for the weekend they are going to use my cable to plug it in and see what it does in the morning.

I do not know if this is related but I can setup the programing for the climate to start my it self but it will not. I have heard that the climate cabin control also heats the batter and helps with cold weather range.

I heard of another case involving a 2016 Titanium about 1-2 months old. Ther fault was traced to a switch in the fuse panel area that was 1/2 deployed. Switch to full on solved the problem.