2013 Chevy Volt P1E00 P0AFA Fault Diagnosis with VXDIAG VCX NANO GM

Have a 2013 Chevy Volt in Reduced Propulsion Power state with P1E00 and P0AFA codes. These codes can not be cleared through an OBD2 reader (or even GDS2) but require dealer level reprogramming of the HPCM2 module.

Setting up the VXDIAG VCX Nano GM GDS2 on a Windows 10 Pro laptop wasn’t bad but not straight forward either. The VXDIAG program on the USB stick that’s included was corrupted. Downloaded the latest version from the vxdiagshop.com website and successfully installed GDS2. GDS2 allowed me to see the problem that one of the 96 battery cells was lower than the others (hence the P0AFA code).

To fix the P0AFA problem requires running SDS2 (a subscription from ACDelcoTDS.com is available for $40 for 24 months for one VIN). To run SPS2 requires installing ACDelco’s TechLine Connect (TLC). TLC is a monster (comes with the subscription). Make sure you have Windows 10 Pro and at least 8GB. TLC is the way dealers run GDS2, TECH2Win and SPS2. After two weeks of crashes inside TLC trying to run SPS2 I was finally able to reprogram the HPCM2 and bring my Volt back to life.

Here is the HPCM2 programming reference

Chevy Volt HPCM 2 Reprogramming with VXDIAG VCX NANO SPS

Bottom line it was a challenge getting things setup but the VCX Nano worked at a fraction of the cost. You could buy an official Bosch EL-52100-AM (GmToolsAndEquipment.com) for $790 but you’ll have to buy a subscription from AcDelco to run GDS2 or TECHWin. You’ll also still need a decent laptop.

I’ve been through this Reduced Propulsion Power issue before while under warranty. It took four times being towed into the dealer for them to finally decide it was a bad battery module which they replaced. Now the Volt is out of warranty and I’m on my own with dealing with this issue. I’ll probably be using VCX Nano often and so I had incentive to overcome the installation issues and get it to work.