Hi all! This car can be frustrating at times.
It runs great during dry weather, but when it rains, who knows. It doesn’t even have to be driven in the rain, just sitting outside and it won’t move. Let it dry for an hour after rain stops and it’s good to go, till it rains again. Grrr…
I’ve checked all connections for moisture, none found. All cleaned and applied dielectric grease.
Not sure if any error codes come up when it won’t move, but when charging it’s showing E5181.7 Is this an error code?
Not an error code. It’s an Emeter reading to reflect the accumulated power consumed from the grid in Kwh. A useless number IMHO.
This statement flags a question-
Why not? Does your display not come on at all when the car gets wet?
The digital side of me asks the guys smarter than me if the new controllers will store recent codes that can be read by a dealer with the software/code reader? (I think the early T1~T5 did this). If so- do you have a dealer nearby that can jack into it for a look?
The analog part of me thinks you should try this highly questionable suggestion. Put the car up on stands and run it in place. Throw a brick on the pedal and lightly hit small sections of the car with a light spray from the hose and give it a sec. Slowly move your controlled micro burst around the car and see if you can get it to stop. Target your search in that area.
Odd thought- Do the new gen cars monitor for a pack to chassis condition like the Ford Think cars do?
They do. The GE Septex DC controllers store the last 10 or 12 error codes and the hour meter count at which they occurred.
I’m not super familiar with the newer models except what I’ve seen of Ernie’s and Steve’s GEMs and from memory there’s no real seal on the front hood so water could be dripping into the front electronics bay where the controller is and getting something like the controller or connections wet. And then there’s the rear battery bay which I think is pretty well covered from draining water so unless there’s an access panel leaking, nothing back there should be causing the problem. If you have a BMS you should be able to see if things are going oddly there, ie BMS getting wet and disconnecting from the system.
I would do what’s been mentioned, with it dry and working, lightly spray the vehicle front with water and check for errors and if it does error out, open the hood and look for where water dripped into/onto things. Repeat for the rear if the front test is inconclusive.
Gotta love the high tech fix they had for this on the classics… put a piece of plastic sheeting over the controller. Lol
3 Likes
Yeah, I seriously thinking about moving mine to a better spot or make a nice rain box for it.
On FrankenGEM it didn’t even extend far enough to run the water off the controller. I stuck another piece of rubber under the built-in one and clamped it so it made a gutter and the water runs off. Survived the last SoCA rain storm we had and it was nice having doors on the GEM for that. Otherwise I’d be running a RAM 2500 w/Cummins diesel to get around locally. It’s the last dino burning vehicle we own.
1 Like
Must have been UCD engineering students maintaining it
1 Like