Hi! Please help—I’m a newbie Gem car owner. I purchased this 08 Gem and it was charging and running great. Then I let it sit in my garage for a few months and the batteries are dead.
So, I charged each of the batteries individually and the dash lights came on but it displays the battery level at about 2 yellow bars (no green).
Next, I turn the master switch on and plug the regular charger in to charge up the car. It shows it’s charging on the dash, but it never charges—the bars never increase.
If I turn the ignition key on the car sometimes clicks and the display flickers. Other times it all just turns off.
What should I look for? What could be wrong?
Thanks so much
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MainSwON, plug in charge cord, observe dash, then go down and get a look at the display on your charger.
It is located under the shelf your motor controller is sitting on.
The display is visible if you look from the driver side, over the top of the tire and past the shock. It is tucked way back in there.
You should see a yellow light indicating that it sees AC input, and another green light showing what stage of charge cycle it is running. If there is an error, it may be showing a blinking red light. Count the number of blinks between the pauses. That is a code.
Report back with what you find.
Hello! Thank you!
I actually went ahead and replaced the Gem Car with all new batteries.
Now when I go to turn it on the display shows nothing. But when the e-brake is disengaged it does the regular strong sounded beep.
When I put a key to the on the position, the car just clicks and screen very lightly is displayed. What could this be?
Btw I cannot seem to find this display on my charger that’s by the front drivers side tire?
Here is a link to a video for the clicks after I put the ignition to the on position.
Later in the video I disengage the e-brake and it makes a different noise than it did prior to the ignition being on
**please note this gem car was working fine before I let it sit for a couple months without charging. All I’ve done since then is replace all batteries with exact same brand/size batteries.
Stop what you are doing, turn the car off at the Main flippy breaker at the bottom of the fuse panel.
It is acting like the DC Converter is tripping due to an overload or direct short somewhere in the 12v accessory system.
.
Then go back and review your install procedure and hookup again.
Make sure you did not pinch/set a battery down on any of the wires going around the battery tray area and around the batteries.
So…upon install one of the battery wires popped off and touched a connected opposite terminal post that was already in series — so it made a spark on that battery terminal. Would that be the issue? It happens so quickly, I’m not a mechanic, and I can’t seem to find anyone in my area to help me get this Gem working. So I think I royally messed up.
May or may not be an issue.
Can you show me exactly what wire that was, and what it touched? I might be able to visualize the path and what else may have been affected.
Was main disconnect switch ON/OFF when this happened?
What about my other suggestions?
Hi, sorry for the delay, I have two babies under 2, but I got some time in my garage right now.
It looks like no wires were pinched or anything. Everything is tight. I made a diagram before I took everything apart to get replacement batteries and followed it by connecting positive post first through serious to the negative post last.
In the picture you’ll see a blue arrow that’s the black wire that when I was connected the nuts, while tightening bottom battery negative post the other end of the wire accidentally popped off the positive post of the battery pictured at the top (where it’s connected right now) and hit the negative terminal on the battery to the right of it. You can see the little spake damage it caused.
When this occurred these batteries all to the right were connected in series and only connected to the positive cable of the gem car. The negative cable hadn’t been connected as I did that as final connection.
There’s also some little wires that weren’t connected prior, but not sure if they need to be connected or have anything to do with this issue?
Anything helps, thank you
Picture of battery wire and damage post
Picture of little wires not connected
are there batteries under the middle seat? most E6 had them in back and under middle seat.
So, is there a special way the middle seats are removed?
I did ask the previous owner and he said it only has the 6 batteries in the back supposedly.
Fiberglass piece between middle seats, has 4 screws. You maybe able to see from underneath
Respect the amps
Looking at your pics, it looks like your "accident " seems to have only jumped/used one battery. Use it as a lesson that you need to be diligent and precise in playing with these things. This is not something to take lightly. This was only ONE battery that made “pow”. You don’t want to try this with all six inline.
Proper feeding and care
Next- I feel the need to discuss what your plans are with this car. Were these batteries in this car when you bought it? You said you replaced them with the same?
Just a heads-up - They are a bit under-rated for a gem car, and REALLY under-rated for a six seat Gem Car. Using these batteries means you are not living the gem car experience to it’s fullest.
You might want to eventually go through the wiring and cables too. One of them I see is rusty and needs to be clean. Inspect all of them and make sure they are clean and tight.
Also- these cables look like cheap automotive grade replacement cables. They do not carry the heavy loads your gem car needs. They are not the cause of your issue at the moment, but they will be causing problems later.
What is your status today?
Looking at your video- I want to circle back to what I think is your DC Converter being overloaded and going through a power cycle off and on.
If it is still doing this when you KeyON, make sure all accessories are off (headlights/wipers, turn signals, not stepping on brake) etc.
Do you have a Handheld meter and able to test a few things?
Thank you, yes, I am very much more diligent when doing anything now with this vehicle.
The batteries and cables were all in place when I purchased last year. Back to my original issue, I left it in my garage without a trickle charger or plugged in for a few months. I thought it would be fine because I live in Hawaii—but it was not. When I tried to start it did not start. I found out the previous owner bought all 6 batteries from autozone, so they were under warranty and I swapped them all out with the exact same battery and wrote down the wiring diagram to reconnect. I did not do anything else other than replace batteries.
Regarding accessories, I believe nothing is powered on. I checked all fuses in dash and they are all good.
I have a yellow multimeter I can use to check things to figure out what is wrong. I just need guidance on what to check.
Thank you
Start with putting your meter probes on where you think your pack ends are. Probe the B- and B+ and find what your Pack V is.
If all batts are new, you should have around 76v.
Next, Remove upper and lower sections of your Dash panels. KeyOFF, Main Batt Disconnect ON. Test points on front of PSDM for PackV.
Verify that polarity is correct.
Report your findings.
Gray is a much better color.
Mine is blue…it matches my eyes…
And if you ever die in a firery car wreck, we can say how beautiful blue your eyes were…
…one blew this way… one blew dat way…
