Yellow Electrical System Error - Service Required

[whitex]

Pretty successful outcome today.

The tech graciously spent time going to the charger with me. As most of us know there are three factors needed for optimum charging:
- low SoC
- Warmed battery
- Good charger

We arrived at the charger with only 9% SoC, but the battery temp was only 80F. Then the charger only dispensed 206kW. My heart sank thinking we wouldn’t hit the load conditions needed for the fault.

But then after a few minutes boom! Yellow electrical system error! And as an extra bonus is threw the red “park somewhere safe” error a few minutes later and stopped charging entirely.

We had to shut down the car for a few minutes before it would let us drive again.

Hopefully this caused enough logging to detect the fault and fix it at last.

I presume your tech had a PIWIS with him to scan for faults before they disappear. For those without a PIWIS, I could suggest one of the other OBD scanners, I find the OBDeleven VWAG edition seems to show me faults well, sometimes with better explanation than the PIWIS (but the error ID code is the same in PIWIS as it is in OBDeleven). For example, here is one of the errors my car recently threw when it stopped blowing any hot air into the cabin:
PIWIS display:

OBDeleven display (on my iPhone):

Free app like CarScanner can also show you faults (sorry, I don't have a screenshot of the above error by CarScanner).

Bottom line, if diagnosing intermittent Taycan issues, it can be helpful to learn how to scan the car for errors when the issue occurs, and log them to show service, to give them an idea what is going wrong. As mentioned above, the error codes on the 3rd party software should match what shows up in Porsche's own PIWIS tool, so it can be used for diagnostics (and warranty coverage determinations).

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[DerekS]

I presume your tech had a PIWIS with him to scan for faults before they disappear.

Unfortunately no, but he caught everything on video and quickly diagnosed a part when he got back to the shop.

 

[tigerbalm]

Unfortunately no, but he caught everything on video and quickly diagnosed a part when he got back to the shop.

Brings back memories of my stupid car refusing to fail when PIWIS was plugged in.

 

[whitex]

Unfortunately no, but he caught everything on video and quickly diagnosed a part when he got back to the shop.

The faults will persist over some time, so he was probably able to read them out if it was right after. The issue with Porsche is that when a problem occurs, you typically have to book an appointment weeks out, no process to just show up at dealer and have them at least scan and save logs.

 

[Brombaer1971]

Unfortunately no, but he caught everything on video and quickly diagnosed a part when he got back to the shop.

I really wonder why he didn‘t. That‘s the whole point of a diagnostic system. Nevertheless crossing fingers for you that the problem is fully resolved though.

 

[CrazyINP]

@DerekS did you get your car back? wonder if they found the issue and fixed it?

 

[DerekS]

Car is still in sick bay with no movement.

I was told the were waiting on thermal paste which arrived today.

The diagnosis so far is “HV Battery Isolator needs replacement.”

 

[CrazyINP]

man praying they solve it!

 

[DerekS]

man praying they solve it!

Thanks buddy, it's honestly driving me crazy. I go past the service center every day on the way to work, and keep seeing my car just sitting out there. Very frustrating.

Supposedly it might be worked on Monday.

I had to put gas in the loaner Macan. Like an animal.

 

[prj]

I presume your tech had a PIWIS with him to scan for faults before they disappear. For those without a PIWIS, I could suggest one of the other OBD scanners

And I would recommend using MapEV Diag, because it has support for all the Taycan modules, even the Porsche specific ones, as well as having the fault descriptions from the piwis database...

It's also $0 and you don't need any expensive dongles.

 

[Hirschaj]

I had to put gas in the loaner Macan. Like an animal.

it feels so wrong having to pump stinky fuel into a vehicle at a filthy gas station. Spoiled by charging in my garage.

 

[DerekS]

it feels so wrong having to pump stinky fuel into a vehicle at a filthy gas station. Spoiled by charging in my garage.

I really didn’t realize how much I’ve been spoiled.

 

[DerekS]

I haven't had use of my car for over a month, and they still haven't even started it.

I drive past it and wave in the parking lot every day on the way to work.

Starting to lose my patience, but supposedly the parts are all on hand now.

 

[Hirschaj]

I haven't had use of my car for over a month, and they still haven't even started it.

I drive past it and wave in the parking lot every day on the way to work.

Starting to lose my patience, but supposedly the parts are all on hand now.

Similar thing happened with mine. Once they had the parts it took a few days to complete.

 

[DerekS]

I believe it is also called the "e-box". MSRP $4061 on sale online for only $3803.
Interesting because there was a TSB couple of years ago that told dealers not to replace only the e-box, need to replace the entire battery including the e-box.

This is the TSB: https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/tsbs/2023/MC-10233932-0001.pdf
The guidance possibly just applies to the VINs in the original WNQ8 campaign.

I’m more than a little uneasy about the entire process so far. I remember that TSB and wonder what has changed to allow dealers to just replace the e-box.

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