bjoehandley
NAXJA Forum User
- Location
- WeGo, Chi-Town, Ill
http://autos.yahoo.com/articles/autos_content_landing_pages/1715/A-Rat-Ate-My-Chevy-Volt
Cars.com purchased a Chevrolet Volt to see what it's like to own a plug-in car, especially in a harsh winter, and to report on the unexpected. A crazed rodent attack was definitely unexpected. We left the Volt in our downtown parking structure, plugged in, during last week's big Chicago blizzard, and it remained there without incident. Once the snow had cleared and the temperatures plunged, things started to go wrong.
Around 9 p.m., I got an email alert from the ChargePoint network, which monitors public charging stations like the one we use for our Volt. It said our car had experienced a ground fault and the charging session had been terminated.
Monitoring the online ChargePoint portal from home, I hoped the charging station would reset, something it attempts to do a total of four times every 15 minutes. That's when I received an e-mail from Todd Dore, the treasurer of the Fox Valley Electric Auto Association who parks and charges his converted Volkswagen Beetle right next to our Volt. He said that at 6:30 when he left work, we'd had a "furry visitor," a brown rat who scurried under our Volt, probably seeking warmth. The temperatures had been below 10 degrees.
Rodents are known to climb into the engine compartments of conventional cars when it's frigid outside, so it made sense. The Volt maintains a minimum battery temperature when it's plugged in, even once fully charged, because a warm battery is a more powerful one. It also extends the battery's longevity, according to Chevrolet.
When I arrived Friday morning, I returned the power connector to the charging station, which reset it, then reattached it to the Volt, which began charging again. No problem. But when I departed Friday night, I got warning lights: ABS, "Service Brake Assist" and "Service Stabilitrak." I drove it home anyway, hoping to get it serviced. The next day, I noticed the bottom rear window pane wasn't defogging, though the main window was.
This morning, the Chevy dealer confirmed that the rat had indeed gnawed through a wiring harness in the engine compartment, causing, at minimum, the warning lights and rear defogger failure.
This won't be covered under warranty. It was, in the truest sense, an act of nature.
An attempt to repair the harness should save us "thousands," according to the dealer, but the labor involved in extricating the harness from behind the headlight is extensive. The cost: an estimated $600.
There's good news and bad: The good news is our Volt, on its own merits, has been trouble-free for more than a month and 3,000 miles. The bad news is this could happen again. Presumably, an electric car with a thermally managed battery will be a tempting nest long after an internal-combustion engine has cooled off. Rob Peterson, a Chevrolet spokesperson, said the problem isn't a new one in cold climates. “The risk of damage is no different than that experienced by customers who plug-in to heat their engine block, or who's recently operated engine offers critters a warm reprieve from the chilly temperatures,” he said.
For perspective, we turned to Kieran J. Lindsey, a wildlife expert with the Virginia Tech College of Natural Resources, who counts among her specialties the "human-wildlife interface."
"The real problem isn’t Chevy, the Volt, its battery, or even heat-seeking rodents. It’s parking structure hygiene," Lindsey said. "Keep the rats out of the garage with proper sanitation protocols and you won’t have to worry about keeping them out of your engine compartment.
"I realize, this may be beyond your control, and there probably aren’t enough charging stations available yet for EV drivers to be picky about their portals," she added.
Lindsey hit the nail on the head. We're reluctant to park the car at the scene of the crime this week, as the temperatures are expected to dip below zero, yet we need to keep it plugged in. This incident illustrates how new technologies might come with new problems -- at least in the urban jungle.
Cars.com purchased a Chevrolet Volt to see what it's like to own a plug-in car, especially in a harsh winter, and to report on the unexpected. A crazed rodent attack was definitely unexpected. We left the Volt in our downtown parking structure, plugged in, during last week's big Chicago blizzard, and it remained there without incident. Once the snow had cleared and the temperatures plunged, things started to go wrong.
Around 9 p.m., I got an email alert from the ChargePoint network, which monitors public charging stations like the one we use for our Volt. It said our car had experienced a ground fault and the charging session had been terminated.
Monitoring the online ChargePoint portal from home, I hoped the charging station would reset, something it attempts to do a total of four times every 15 minutes. That's when I received an e-mail from Todd Dore, the treasurer of the Fox Valley Electric Auto Association who parks and charges his converted Volkswagen Beetle right next to our Volt. He said that at 6:30 when he left work, we'd had a "furry visitor," a brown rat who scurried under our Volt, probably seeking warmth. The temperatures had been below 10 degrees.
Rodents are known to climb into the engine compartments of conventional cars when it's frigid outside, so it made sense. The Volt maintains a minimum battery temperature when it's plugged in, even once fully charged, because a warm battery is a more powerful one. It also extends the battery's longevity, according to Chevrolet.
When I arrived Friday morning, I returned the power connector to the charging station, which reset it, then reattached it to the Volt, which began charging again. No problem. But when I departed Friday night, I got warning lights: ABS, "Service Brake Assist" and "Service Stabilitrak." I drove it home anyway, hoping to get it serviced. The next day, I noticed the bottom rear window pane wasn't defogging, though the main window was.
This morning, the Chevy dealer confirmed that the rat had indeed gnawed through a wiring harness in the engine compartment, causing, at minimum, the warning lights and rear defogger failure.
This won't be covered under warranty. It was, in the truest sense, an act of nature.
An attempt to repair the harness should save us "thousands," according to the dealer, but the labor involved in extricating the harness from behind the headlight is extensive. The cost: an estimated $600.
There's good news and bad: The good news is our Volt, on its own merits, has been trouble-free for more than a month and 3,000 miles. The bad news is this could happen again. Presumably, an electric car with a thermally managed battery will be a tempting nest long after an internal-combustion engine has cooled off. Rob Peterson, a Chevrolet spokesperson, said the problem isn't a new one in cold climates. “The risk of damage is no different than that experienced by customers who plug-in to heat their engine block, or who's recently operated engine offers critters a warm reprieve from the chilly temperatures,” he said.
For perspective, we turned to Kieran J. Lindsey, a wildlife expert with the Virginia Tech College of Natural Resources, who counts among her specialties the "human-wildlife interface."
"The real problem isn’t Chevy, the Volt, its battery, or even heat-seeking rodents. It’s parking structure hygiene," Lindsey said. "Keep the rats out of the garage with proper sanitation protocols and you won’t have to worry about keeping them out of your engine compartment.
"I realize, this may be beyond your control, and there probably aren’t enough charging stations available yet for EV drivers to be picky about their portals," she added.
Lindsey hit the nail on the head. We're reluctant to park the car at the scene of the crime this week, as the temperatures are expected to dip below zero, yet we need to keep it plugged in. This incident illustrates how new technologies might come with new problems -- at least in the urban jungle.
