EV Battery needs replacement

[ag4ever]

When I had my 4xe, I was never banned from any parking garages. EVER. I would like some real life evidence of someone being prevented from parking a 4xe somewhere.

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[Zandcwhite]

When I had my 4xe, I was never banned from any parking garages. EVER. I would like some real life evidence of someone being prevented from parking a 4xe somewhere.

The guy makes statements of fact that are easily proven false regularly, so don't be surprised. They are 100% failure prone even though tens of thousands of owners have never had a problem? You don't even need to understand statistics to know that just 1 without issues means they aren't 100% falling.

 

[Whaler27]

Amidst the grumpiness and concern, I feel obliged to highlight the silver lining: In a few years there will be a bunch of low-cost, well accessorized, jeep carcasses waiting for a complete V-8 gut-n-stuff!

And, for those of us who had a 4xe and took a beating on resale a couple years ago, it’s a reminder that things could have been much worse.

 

[Dadrifle]

Alphawolf keeps saying it would be $20k plus for an engine swap on one of these and that it's not worth it. As he is a professional Jeep mechanic I have to assume he knows what he's talking about but with the way the 4xe is designed I find it hard to believe it would be that bad but I'm a piss poor shade tree mechanic so what do I know.

 

[us3r1d]

Alphawolf keeps saying it would be $20k plus for an engine swap on one of these and that it's not worth it. As he is a professional Jeep mechanic I have to assume he knows what he's talking about but with the way the 4xe is designed I find it hard to believe it would be that bad but I'm a piss poor shade tree mechanic so what do I know.

I am also totally amateur as a mechanic, but I do know computers pretty well, and I think $20k is probably lowballing it.

The 4xe integrates it's computers into _everything_ and these are special-purpose computers that only know how to run a 4xe. Even the modules whose hardware is shared with other models have 4xe-specific code on them; basically, anything that touches the computers can only function in a 4xe.

You'd have to strip out damn near everything and replace it with either non-computerized components or computers that are compatible with whatever engine you're moving to.

Welcome to the modern digitized vehicle; feh.

 

[BXFXJeep]

Amidst the grumpiness and concern, I feel obliged to highlight the silver lining: In a few years there will be a bunch of low-cost, well accessorized, jeep carcasses waiting for a complete V-8 gut-n-stuff!

And, for those of us who had a 4xe and took a beating on resale a couple years ago, it’s a reminder that things could have been much worse.

For the most part Jeep will end up buying back most of these fire prone EVs, they will only replace the battery as long as the vehicle retail value is higher than the repair cost.

I'm not sure what the cost is to replace the battery, the rental alone was $3,500, add 60 days of storage into the mix.

Then the replacement usually doesn't go that well, many 4xe need repeated visits after to fix problems stemming from the battery replacement.

 

[Ol’ Timey Manual SWB Guy]

There’s a non-zero possibility that the battery pack could be upgraded (not merely replaced) in the out years. Battery chemistry keeps improving.

 

[BXFXJeep]

When I had my 4xe, I was never banned from any parking garages. EVER. I would like some real life evidence of someone being prevented from parking a 4xe somewhere.

Outright banned from my work office tower, aside from everyone in the office knowing that your 4xe should not be near the building complex, much less in the bowels of it 3 stories deep, I wasn't parking in the underground, I was paying for parking on the street a few blocks away for the months when it was under recalls.

Then at home your neighbours keep mentioning, why you are parking in the underground garage since the Jeep own recalls state not to park in the underground, once again here I was parking on the road a few blocks from home.

The retail complex near me took all their underground EV chargers offline, coincidence perhaps

In a nutshell use common sense, because putting friends and neighbours at risk is the only way to go.

Of course there are people that ignore Jeep own data that 100% of these vehicles are prone to fires, the most recent update is render the vehicle inoperable when it detects a potential fire situation, the previous updates failed at detecting battery problems that lead to fires.

Mind you the software only notifies the driver, so park these things for weeks or months, and they can go up in flames if the owner isn't aware the battery has failed.

 

[BXFXJeep]

There’s a non-zero possibility that the battery pack could be upgraded (not merely replaced) in the out years. Battery chemistry keeps improving.

The battery is really only part of the problem, the ECH is also a regular expensive failure, improper repairs to the HV system can also lead to fires, not only the battery is a fire hazard.

As these things age, once the HV warranty is up, it will become very expensive to fix these 4xe, like other EVs these things are disposable vehicles.

 

[Zandcwhite]

Alphawolf keeps saying it would be $20k plus for an engine swap on one of these and that it's not worth it. As he is a professional Jeep mechanic I have to assume he knows what he's talking about but with the way the 4xe is designed I find it hard to believe it would be that bad but I'm a piss poor shade tree mechanic so what do I know.

The v8 swaps all start at $30k, but being that's a new engine, trans, ecu, etcetera it shouldn't cost much if any more in a 4xe. Sure a v6 or 2.0t might be closer to $20k but I agree that is not a worthwhile swap as it now gives you a low powered 4xe that you could have just bought a used ICE jeep for the cost of the swap.

 

[WillysMeow]

The v8 swaps all start at $30k, but being that's a new engine, trans, ecu, etcetera it shouldn't cost much if any more in a 4xe. Sure a v6 or 2.0t might be closer to $20k but I agree that is not a worthwhile swap as it now gives you a low powered 4xe that you could have just bought a used ICE jeep for the cost of the swap.

Agreed. I've engine/ECU/wiring harness swapped newer vehicles but not from hybrid or EV. If nothing else these 4xe will provide all the other parts for replacements.

 

[alphawolff]

Alphawolf keeps saying it would be $20k plus for an engine swap on one of these and that it's not worth it. As he is a professional Jeep mechanic I have to assume he knows what he's talking about but with the way the 4xe is designed I find it hard to believe it would be that bad but I'm a piss poor shade tree mechanic so what do I know.

well let's just calculate this quickly.

the engine, a/c compressor, and transmission require complete replacement alongside associated harnesses. the vehicle's computer can be proxy aligned into whatever configuration you want, so most interior components can be re-used. add in labor to remove the lingering HV components such as the battery, wiring, cooling, charger, PIM, etc.

could AMW do this? yeah, totally. but why the hell would you? just buy literally any other ICE wrangler and start there if you want to slam a hemi in it. it'll be much, much easier.

my point was this would never be an off-the shelf type turn key thing. even AMW wouldn't bother with it unless commissioned to do it, as removing the HV junk is just extra labor for no reward.

 

[us3r1d]

the vehicle's computer can be proxy aligned into whatever configuration you want, so most interior components can be re-used

Do the Stellantis tools you get as an authorized shop actually let you do that kind of reprogramming?!

The pedal controllers, for example, sure; they seem to just send CAN messages about pedal state that other controllers interpret however they want. But anything that processes those signals, like the dashboard displays; can you as an authorized shop reprogram those to work with a totally different drive train?!

 

[alphawolff]

Do the Stellantis tools you get as an authorized shop actually let you do that kind of reprogramming?!

The pedal controllers, for example, sure; they seem to just send CAN messages about pedal state that other controllers interpret however they want. But anything that processes those signals, like the dashboard displays; can you as an authorized shop reprogram those to work with a totally different drive train?!

No, aftermarket only. Our factory tool doesn't do that. The TA's have a super fancy factory tool that can do anything, but ours can't

 

[us3r1d]

No, aftermarket only. Our factory tool doesn't do that. The TA's have a super fancy factory tool that can do anything, but ours can't

K.

And I don't think any aftermarket hackery does anything that actually replaces the programming on any module; all I've seen is OBD interface dongles that feed their own signals to the CAN bus.

Then I'm gonna stand by what I said earlier that you'd basically have to strip out every piece of computer gear to convert a 4xe to gas-only.

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