ericy
Well-Known Member
All I can say is good luck.
I haven't quite pulled the trigger myself. No news on the battery either.
BMS update fail...
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All I can say is good luck.
I haven't quite pulled the trigger myself. No news on the battery either.
That is about 2 to 3 weeks of driving for me.3000 miles??? That alone might have me concerned about the anticipated repair time, never mind the swap time addition.
I live California's lemon laws that say they have to do a buy back or replace the vehicle if the in warranty repairs take more than 30 days and that is cumulative, meaning if repair a for say a battery take 10 days, repair b for say a more takes 14 days and repair c for the air conditioning would take more than 2 additional days, they would count as longer than 30 days, as long as all repairs were under warranty.No news on my car - I may call Hyundai later today to bug them (for all the good it does).
But I was piddling around on a Hyundai parts site - the entire battery pack is broken down into internal parts - quite a few of them. Various hoses, connectors, gaskets, and everything else.
https://www.hyundaipartsdeal.com/genuine/hyundai-battery-management-unit~375a0-k4000.html?vin=&make=Hyundai&model=Kona Electric&year=2019&submodel=&extra1=&extra2=&filter=()&location=motor/high_voltage_battery_system,3737512,375A0
Which to an extent seems weird - my sense is that they aren't expecting dealers to open and service the things, and instead send them in for refurbishment, so why do they even break it down like this? Possibly so that the specialized shops that refurbish the modules have access to parts for repair??
I would also note that just from the parts diagram it is impossible to know which parts are not intended to be reused, and which ones can be reused. For example, 37528-K4000 is the gasket that seals the battery assembly - is this reusable or not? They don't say, but lots of manufacturers seem to recommend not reusing gaskets.
The individual blocks of battery cells are listed on the parts sites - you can search for 375J1-K4000 and 375J2-K4000. Those go for around 6300$. But one of the keys with LiON batteries is having all of the cells balanced with respect to each other, so it doesn't really seem like it would be a good idea to just swap out one of the blocks. Perhaps a shop that specialized in refurbishment would have the ability to select a module that is well balanced WRT the others? But from the standpoint of ordering parts, you don't have the ability to really select a part with a set of characteristics that would be a good match for others.
Something else I noticed. The entire pack assembly is listed with part number 37501-K4000, with a list price of 31K$. But there is a second part with a number 37501-K4000-RM, which has a much lower list price that one can apparently get for something like 8k$. They list this part as "new", but the "-RM" suffix suggest to me a remanufactured or refurbished part.
There is a part number 37501-K4001, which is a battery assembly for a model year 2020 Kona. It isn't at all clear what changed from 2019 to 2020. The parts websites say this part won't fit a 2019.
In California, they must buy it back for at least what you paid for it, including whatever you got for your trade in or they can replace the vehicle with a similar new vehicle if you choose.
ericy
Well-Known Member
How about all of the taxes and fees that we had to pay to register the vehicle? Are they supposed to reimburse that as well?
In California, yes, they have to make you "whole" again, meaning any costs incurred in the purchase of the vehicle.
Gjpzee
Active Member
That would be a positive. Hopefully they reimburse according to the lemon laws. They did tell me there would be a deduction for the miles driven, but no specifics on that.
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If you are in California, insist upon it or tell them their dealership will be reported to appropriate licensing board and you will be going after them. Don't back down, personally I would be forcing them to replace the vehicle, because I love this car already.
ericy
Well-Known Member
My car is registered in Virginia - I presume those are the laws that apply for me. The dealer is in Maryland (Virginia dealers don't sell the Kona).
Miles driven seems like a fair deduction. Mine only has something like 7000 miles on it. If it hadn't been for Covid, there would be a whole lot more.
I don't know the laws there, I just know California since it is where I live and they don't allow for deduction for miles driven, although it would seem fair.
Gjpzee
Active Member
It seems they do? I searched around and found this.
Attachments
Interesting, that is new, but remember any other expenses related to this that you incurred need to be covered.
ericy
Well-Known Member
Hyundai consumer affairs called. The are basically offering to make the payments on the thing until I get the car back. Other than this, she doesn't have much info - they get the part from Mobis, which of course is a subsidiary of Hyundai, but there are too many layers and she just isn't able to get to the bottom of it. I am tempted to write to Mobis directly to see if I can get a more direct answer. There seems to be a webform here:
https://www.mobis.co.kr/customer/question/write.do
I haven't talked to corporate as of yet. If I get sufficiently ticked off, I will probably do this. That would be the 1st step in the lemon-law direction.
I don't know who creates the assembly itself. Ultimately the cells themselves come from LG (I guess). Is that the bottleneck? Hard to tell, but all of the other components are things that in theory ought to be easy to fabricate.
My own guess is that they order a certain number of cells at the beginning of the year - when the supplies comes, they make the assemblies and nearly all of them go for new vehicles, and they apparently don't hold much back for spares. The cells probably come in intermittently.
https://www.mobis.co.kr/customer/question/write.do
I haven't talked to corporate as of yet. If I get sufficiently ticked off, I will probably do this. That would be the 1st step in the lemon-law direction.
I don't know who creates the assembly itself. Ultimately the cells themselves come from LG (I guess). Is that the bottleneck? Hard to tell, but all of the other components are things that in theory ought to be easy to fabricate.
My own guess is that they order a certain number of cells at the beginning of the year - when the supplies comes, they make the assemblies and nearly all of them go for new vehicles, and they apparently don't hold much back for spares. The cells probably come in intermittently.
I would have pushed them to simply replace the vehicle at that point, although I suppose having them make the payments for a while could be good as well.
ericy
Well-Known Member
I think I need to talk to an entirely different person if I want to do that.
ericy
Well-Known Member
I got a form response from Mobis - in Korean. No idea what if anything will come of it, but I asked for specifics as to when the part would ship and when they expect it at the dealer. Their first task is to find someone who speaks English. It is just the start of the work day there - we will see if I have a response of any sort by tomorrow.
ericy
Well-Known Member
Sigh. The language and timezone issue is going to make this impossible, and it is now the weekend in Korea.
There is a brochure one can download here:
https://en.mobis.co.kr/products/P0012/index.do
It has an email address for someone at mobis-usa.com in Michigan. Let me try that. He probably doesn't know much, but if I make enough noise and pester enough people, I might eventually get somewhere.
The brochure is sort of a sales brochure of sorts, but it has some information. Basically confirms that Mobis buys the cells (LG Chem?), and then builds the rest of it themselves.
electriceddy
Moderator
ericy
Well-Known Member
I heard back from Mobis - they haven't even been able to find an order for a battery. It technically would have been ordered by Hyundai and not by the dealer - that's giving them all the benefit of the doubt. But now I am starting to get ticked, and am getting closer to just throwing in the towel and asking for a buyback.
I am a little busy with other things right this minute, and I probably need to cool down a bit before I do anything.
I am a little busy with other things right this minute, and I probably need to cool down a bit before I do anything.