Reva's replacement battery

[Jyothi Parampalli]

Hi all,

Anyone recently got their car's battery replaced?
If so, what is the waiting period for the new battery as told by Reva Seva?

My car's battery is due for replacement and I believe I would have to
wait for at least 20 days.
Again, after 14 days of waiting, when I checked with them they (Mr.
Rajiv) are still not confirming whether the battery would be ready in
next 7 days.

I purchased Revai in Dec '07 and started driving from Jan '08.
From Aug '09, the mileage dipped from 65 -70 kms to around 40 kms.
Now I have been asked to shell out ~53K for the replacement battery.

Meantime, my car broke down in the middle of the road on friday at about 6 PM.
Even though the charge showed 3/4th full, the battery light came up
and it went completely dead.
I believe there is only one phone no. for Reva Seva (080 4340 4999).
I kept getting engage tone from 6 PM to 7PM, when I finally gave up
and got my husband to tow my Reva from his car.

To add to this, I dont know how many trips I made to the service
center just to get a crate of distilled water.

The jist of this mail is, I am totally disappointed with the services
of 'Reva Seva'.
I dont know whether their attitude has changed offlate with the
increase in petrol/diesel prices and more people opting for Reva!

Can any one recommend ways of getting better service from Reva Seva?

Regards,
Jyothi.

PS: Sorry for the length of this email :)

[Skanda Tejaswi]

I think we should perhaps find some way of making a collective representation to Mahindra Reva, and push feedback to the new management. We have reason to hope that the new management will not be deaf to feedback - at least not in the initial days of having made an investment to buy over a 55% stake in the company.

Let's not lose this opportunity to make sure the message is passed.

[Sridhar Alse]

Hi all,
I have an observation on these batteries that I feel, I should share. It is a rather long mail - but, have patience; worth reading :-)


I bought my Reva in July 2008. I have heard stories telling that the Revas shipped during that month - almost all of them, had battery problems and every one had to replace their batteries within 18 months. Mine not yet :-) and I'm keeping my fingers crossed. I am hopeful that I don't have to do it quite soon. Because of my usage pattern, I usually get between  60-65KM. Once I got till 75KM. Usually, I get till 60-62 KM.

But, I have seen the mileage fall and come back - yes, come back. I had seen two reasons for the mileage to go down
The sillier reason is this one :-)  - couple of times, the mileage was only around 55KM per charge; didn't know what's happening; However, after the service, it would be all right. Then, I realized that the air pressure on the tyres were very very low. After filling air, once I could drive up to 74 KM on a charge which was giving around 55KM just before that! Then I realized that since this is electric car, I rarely take it to petrol pumps and hence wasn't filling air at all!

The other reason is a bit technical. Everyone knows that any Lead Acid battery's life is very much dependent on 3 things - charging, discharging and watering. It is strongly recommended that once you start to charge, always charge it to its full - i.e. the green light stops blinking and becomes steady. Then top off the distilled water to as much as it takes. Then give 30 minutes to cool off and then start driving. Once you start driving, you should drive it to drain all its charge. You should never charge in between to partial charges and then drive it partially. (They also recommend that you give 30 minutes break between a drive and then start charging again, and after a charge before you drive). Breaking this rule once or twice in emergencies is acceptable though!
I was following the above recommendations in toto. I mainly use my car to go to office. My regular route would consume up to 58.5KM; I used to drive with lights on one way, Fan on both ways. That was leaving little bit charge on my car after 3 days to office - with its indicator needle being on the beginning of yellow zone (lower side).

For about 2 services (over a period of 6 months), I complained that earlier my car was charging fully overnight; but it does not nowadays. Rajiv said, that it may be due to power going off in the middle of the night - due to power cuts etc. However, very rarely there were power cuts in my place during nights. After noticing this for about 3 months, then I started checking this charging in the middle of the night (before I go to bed); then, I used to notice that even though my reva is plugged in and all the circuit breakers were ON, the car was not charging; the car's green indicator is off. At that moment, if I just switch off the connection and switch on, it would start charging again and would go off randomly later.

Then, I noticed that if I charge my car when its needle is at the beginning of yellow zone, it would not charge fully in one night. If I discharge it a little bit more - to the top of red zone or to the space between the yellow zone and red zone, it would charge fully, promptly in one night! Meantime, my office has shifted and after two days trip to office, I will be left with some charge; near my home, I run around a long road two trips to drain my battery till red zone before I plug it in; now it charges perfectly. ( Also, my wife - when she gets up 5:30 in the morning, she switches off the charger and switches it on again - just in case :-))
I shared this finding with Rajiv in my last service; he was surprised to hear that and told that it is the first time he is hearing such a thing.

2 weeks back, I accidentally poured water on the rear seat of the car; water got into the electronic control systems that are under the rear seat. (It is an irony that they didn't give a simple protection for their electronic circuits from spillage from the cabin. That way, I find their workmanship very poor on many counts). All the control systems went crazy; the charge indicator went to zero and got settled there. The car would not accelerate at all! Driving from Marathalli where the charge was there for about 45 KM,, the red, battery indicator came on by the time I entered HSR layout; within another 3 KM, red-indicator became steady - even though I knew that the battery had charge. Its sensors said that battery has gone down. Just about when I reached Reva service center, the car became immovable. I dumped the car there, gave a call to Rajiv and left for home. Next day, he opened the seat cover, let it dry in the sunlight, and charged the car and gave it back saying, nothing went wrong, The charge indicator needle used to get stuck at the point where you disconnected from the power - i.e. even if you run the car, the indicator wouldn't come down. Then, I charged it fully over 2 days (because now, it used to go off many times since I was not charging from the empty). Then the indicator started operating normal.

It is back to normal now. I am pretty impressed with the car - how it came back from that water spill! For the sake of comparison, just imagine you spilling water into the electronic circuit in your TV when it is ON! That's what I had done and the car came back to normal after that.

I am not a 'heavy user' of reva - earlier I used to charge once in 3 days and now I do it once in 2 days. Mileage is around 15000 KM now over 2 years.

I believe, you can get a battery life of 45000 KM that they promise; but you will have to follow their instructions on charge and discharge without any failure, without any deviation! I am an electrical engineer myself. I believe in what they say!
I do recognize that it can be very hard for a person to follow those instructions precisely. The cost is too heavy for non-compliance; that's the irony.

BTW - even for your mobile phone batteries - that are made from Lithium Ion, it is recommended that you discharge it fully once a month; discharge it to that extent that your mobile phone goes off on its own. Then you charge it fully and in each cycle you charge it fully and discharge fully.

That's my story.

I will give an update on my car next year or if anything changes in between.

Regards,
--Sridhar Alse

---

From: padmini <pad...@grot.org>
To: Skanda Tejaswi <skanda....@gmail.com>
Cc: ranjit mehta <ranjit...@yahoo.co.uk>; jyothi.p...@gmail.com; blr.l...@gmail.com; pjpra...@gmail.com; kish...@sisinquia.com; ramki...@hotmail.com; sus...@maitri.net.in; monal...@hotmail.com; sans...@hotmail.com; chitra...@hotmail.com; sv...@rediffmail.com; heariett...@yahoo.co.in; sunraysr...@gmail.com; jyot...@hotmail.com; nama...@dataone.in; sumati_...@hotmail.com; shail...@gmail.com; venugop...@yahoo.co.in; sridh...@yahoo.com; kuma...@dataone.in; sury...@airtelmail.co.in; papiyad...@yahoo.co.in; jawaharc...@gmail.com; ud...@hathway.com; cmoh...@hotmail.com; snpra...@gmail.com; thar...@gmail.com; kragh...@yahoo.com; aum...@yahoo.com; nag...@yahoo.co.in; shara...@gmail.com; shank...@hotmail.com; vis...@satyam.net.in; capt...@gmail.com; sai.s...@gmail.com; lha...@gmail.com
Sent: Tue, 3 August, 2010 9:14:47 PM
Subject: Re: Reva's replacement battery

i have had my Reva since oct '03, and only sometime last year did its performance slacken. i do not know if it would have ever given me 90 km, but 75-80 it did give for six years [i probably do only an average of 500 km per month, with a two month break each year when i am away from bangalore - i do not know if amount of use matters in all this].

i found the mileage coming down, and changed the batter in april this year when it came down to 45-50. so let me see.

on the whole, i am happy with my battery performance.

padmini

[kishan kumar]

Sridhar,

Great write up. I certinly picked up a couple of new do's from it. When you say give a gap of 30min, is the recommendation for 30m space between charge completion and drive OR unplug and drive? I essentially leav the car plugged till I leave to work. I'm sure that charging is complete way earlier than that!

 

Given my distance from office i can only afford to wait till charge status is just under blinking red! So far so good. I've been getting 60-70 on green with fan and no boost. On the reva, I suddenly transform into this peaceful driver looking less at the road and more at the needle :) It's a race to get the best out of the battery everytime. On my petrol car, I usually floor the gas pedal all the way :)

Well, that's my irony :)

 

I agree with the clumsy service experience. My car alarm would go off on its own for no reason while driving. It would stay on for as long as it wants before going off by itself. The service folks wanted to change the ESM (not sure if i got the abbreviation right!) but after one fine service it stopped. Looks more like a firmware workaround because once in a while it still beeps but gets muted - almost like there is a piece of code that wakes up to kill the symptom!

 

Thanks much for the comprehensive email again!

 

-Kishan