Failed ICCU (EPCU ASSY) - 12v Battery won't Charge - Kia Niro 2020 EV w/107k miles
Greetings, my 2020 Kia Niro EV with 107k miles just experienced an ICCU failure (or 'EPCU ASSY' as the part is officially labeled as) causing the 12v battery to stop being charged. Think of it as an alternator failure! I'm quite frustrated and just wanted to get the community's thoughts on this.
The symptoms were that the car just completely died in the middle of an intersection while driving. It had started to display 'Check EV System' (or thereabout verbiage) error messages for a couple days, and then it just up and died. It turns out the 12V battery was not being charged, and after research it would seem the DC-to-DC charging box that's inside the "ICCU" had failed. Who knows how long the 12v battery wasn't being charged and how far I was able to drive it with a non-charging 12v battery before the whole car just died.
Anyways, after towing it back to the house, I was able to revive the car by first "jumping" the battery with a Chevy Bolt EV for about 30m, allowing the Niro's 12v battery to quickly charge up, and then subsequently leaving it connected overnight to a trickle charger to get it fully charged. I then drove it to the store and replaced the 12v battery with a brand new 12v AGM battery per some of the suggestions I read, indicating that an old 12v battery could be the problem rather than a broken ICCU. Sadly this did not fix the problem and the EV charging errors did not go away.
I then took it to a Kia dealership and paid them to diagnose the issue. They confirmed what I suspected: the ICCU needed to be replaced (specifically, part number 36601-0E190: https://parts.kia.com/p/Kia\_\_/EPCU-ASSY/121553273/366010E190.html). They quoted me about $4.5k total to replace it, $3.9k of which is the OEM part itself. A quick search online suggests I could get it for a lot cheaper at other sources, but still around $2k.
So yeah, that's where I'm currently at. I'm kind of mulling over trying to fix this myself, understanding the crazy risks with high voltage components, etc.
Really, I'm just super frustrated that the part failed at 107k, just a little over the 100k warranty period. I'm curious if anyone else has experienced such an issue with a M/Y Niro 2020 or thereabouts? I'm not sure what recourse, if any, there might be to reach out and try and get some compensation for this? Seems like it might be a recall issue if more people report similar problems. But as of now, there are no recalls for this M/Y.
There is an open-bulletin for 2023+ models of the Niro for this exact issue, this page describes it well:
https://www.go-parts.com/garage/power-converter-kia-niro-ev-2023-2025
Ok, thanks for reading!