BYD Seal tips, tricks and help

[Pib]

4 hours ago, Bandersnatch said:

Seal tire repair.

 

Living in Thailand this is the sort of the job I will never do myself ever again.

 

 

 

I have swore off "plug repair" as the video depicts except for a emergency/temporary repair (the video even mentions he doing a temporary repiar until he can get a proper repair done).  I now only have a "hot patch/steam patch" done which is a patch made to the inside of the tire with a patch & glue using a "hot" press...basically a rubber patch is vulcanized over the puncture....takes about 15-20 minutes to complete after the tire is removed from the rim.    

 

Plug repairs are usually fine if glue is used with the sticky plug but I have seen with my own eyes tire technicans who do not use the glue and only use the sticky material plug.   The glue is not so important to hold the plug in the tire but to make a better air tight seal between the plug material and tire.  Without an air tight seal you can end up with a "very slow" air leak that can vary as the tire rolls, how its parked, etc...AND can often be very hard to find.

 

The final straw to make me swear off use of tire plugs except when I have to for a short period is when I had a very slow leak on one of my Toyota Fortuner tires.  The tire had two plugs in it...both plugs done at a PTT FIT shop....FIT only does tire repair using plugs; not hot patches which takes more work and significantly longer like around a half hour to do a hot patch repair.

 

Anyway, I kept losing air from the tire "slowly"...sometimes it would lose just a few PSI over several weeks (the other three tires would not lose any air or maybe just a few tenths of pound which is natural loss).....and other times it would lose around 5 PSI in just a few days. 

 

I took the car back to PTT FIT "twice" for them to find the slow leak.  Before taking the tire I had done a lot of spraying soapy water on the tire, rim, valve, and plugs in trying to find the leak...no leak found..  So I take the tire to PTT FIT.  On the first visit to PTT they sprayed soapy water all over the tire and rim and also focused on the plugs and valve....no leak could be found as I watched every second of their inspection.    They did replace one of the two plugs just to play it safe because the tech and I "thought" we saw a single air bubble coming from it, but only saw it once.    I did ask them about doing a hot patch repair and they said they do not do them (probably due to the time and effort required in comparison to a quick & easy plug repair)...and even said a hot patch repair would be better.

 

Within a few weeks the tire has loss a lot of air again.  I do the soapy water thing again before going back to PTT...once again, no leak to be found.   I take the car back to PTT.  This time they remove the wheel and place it in tub of water where the entire wheel (tire and rim) can be completely submergeed under water.  For 20 minutes the tire is held under water....not even one tiny air bubble appears.  Wheel is put back on the car.  FIT probably thinks someone is messing with me by letting air out of the tire when I'm not around.

 

Well, the slow leak continues...and it's intermittent...sometimes the leak is slow and other times it "very" slow while the other three tires do not leak.

 

This time I take the car to a little tire shop that does "hot patch" repairs....also called "stream patch" where the tire is removed from the rim and a patch is applied to the inside of the tire to seal the puncture (assuming you can find the hole/puncture when it's tiny).    I'm still suspecting the problem is a very slow and intermittent leak from one of the plugs.  The mechanic could not find any leak using soapy watch and then removed the wheel to do a submerged in a water tank test.     When submerged initially no leak could be found....then he starts hitting the rubber tire with a hammer and after a few minutes of looking a few bubbles could be seen coming from one of the plug repairs....and you could hit the plug with a hammer and the bubbles would stop...hit the plug again and a few air bubbles would start to appear.    Basically as the tire would roll down the road or depending on how the tire may be stressed when parked an air leak could occur....or maybe not occur....basically an intermittent leak.  And I expect road temperature probably had an effect also.

 

The shop replaced both plugs with hot patches and no more air leak....been almost a year now...no leak.     

 

Yeap, while some people may have 100% success with using plug repairs as shown in the video, plug repairs are prone to "slowly" leak depending on the hole/puncture it's attempting to make air tight again.    Best to get a hot/steam patch repair done as soon as you can.   Typcially costs approx Bt150-250 here in the Bangkok area and only typically done at small tire repair shops versus big shops  like PTT FIT, B-Quck, etc., that typically do not do hot patch repairs due to the time & effort required in comparison to a pretty quick & easy plug repair when the tire is removed from the car.  Doing a plug repair "on a car" that has good ground clearance like a full size SUV or pickup truck can also be done without too much effort but on a vehicle with lower ground clearance it gets much more challenging.

 

[motdaeng]

 

comparing LFP and NMC / NCA battery:

 

 

[motdaeng]

"Seal won't start!! Battery dead (small battery), what should I do?"

 

sorry, the video is in thai, but i'm sure you'll get the picture ...

 

 

 

[JBChiangRai]

34 minutes ago, motdaeng said:

"Seal won't start!! Battery dead (small battery), what should I do?"

 

sorry, the video is in thai, but i'm sure you'll get the picture ...

 

 

 

 

Interesting!

 

The Seal has an LFP battery for it's 12v circuit, it should last many years.  

[mistral53]

7 hours ago, JBChiangRai said:

 

Interesting!

 

The Seal has an LFP battery for it's 12v circuit, it should last many years.  

I am sure the battery is not dead - the car is in deep sleep and needs to be woken up, that's all.

 

https://youtu.be/dn5K2YIpa-c?si=lwSjD-uK6hgi2jso

[mistral53]

Proper shoes: This size should have been an option form the factory, or if not 20", I would take 'em in 19" too. The skinny tires on the seal are borderline dangerous.

 

The guys is using 8.5 x 20, with +40 offset.

 

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/X9X8LSt7UZ2KGsPE/

[JBChiangRai]

Changing the wheels made a big difference to the handling on mine.

 

The wheels are wider, I think they’re 8 1/2 as well, but I still use the stock tires but I no longer get stability control kicking in.

[mistral53]

5 minutes ago, JBChiangRai said:

Changing the wheels made a big difference to the handling on mine.

 

The wheels are wider, I think they’re 8 1/2 as well, but I still use the stock tires but I no longer get stability control kicking in.

Nice wheels - they look strong enough for the heavy car.

Do you know the wheel width of the original rims?

[JBChiangRai]

10 minutes ago, mistral53 said:

Nice wheels - they look strong enough for the heavy car.

Do you know the wheel width of the original rims?

I don’t know for sure, the they told me at B-Quik where I got them that they were an inch wider. I have the old wheels boxed up in case anyone damages one.

[motdaeng]

58 minutes ago, JBChiangRai said:

Changing the wheels made a big difference to the handling on mine.

 

The wheels are wider, I think they’re 8 1/2 as well, but I still use the stock tires but I no longer get stability control kicking in.

 

if I remember correctly, the seal 07 (2024) performance will have a top speed of 240 km/h.

I hope the car will come with  "suitable" wheels / tires ...

 

 

[JBChiangRai]

33 minutes ago, motdaeng said:

 

if I remember correctly, the seal 07 (2024) performance will have a top speed of 240 km/h.

I hope the car will come with  "suitable" wheels / tires ...

 

 

IMHO, both the MG4 and Seal Performance are under tyred.

 

We fixed the MG4 with bigger wheels and bigger tyres and the bigger wheels fixed the Seal. Even do, I will fit larger tyres later.

[mistral53]

Anybody already installed the digital key?

 

I am not using Android 14 on my old Huawei........probably a good excuse to get a new phone........lol

[Gweiloman]

26 minutes ago, mistral53 said:

Anybody already installed the digital key?

 

I am not using Android 14 on my old Huawei........probably a good excuse to get a new phone........lol

Do you get the NFC card with the Seal?

[JBChiangRai]

43 minutes ago, Gweiloman said:

Do you get the NFC card with the Seal?

Yes

[Bandersnatch]

1 hour ago, mistral53 said:

Anybody already installed the digital key?

 

I am not using Android 14 on my old Huawei........probably a good excuse to get a new phone........lol

 

 

[mistral53]

12 hours ago, Bandersnatch said:

 

 

I fail to understand why BYD is limiting the phones that will work with this feature - especially why they opened a bunch of Samsung phones (not all of them) and no Chinese phones. Well, I could understand why they would block Xiaomi phones......lol

[JBChiangRai]

I am out charging at the BYD dealer and used the digital key on my iPhone to get here.

 

There were 2 cars already charging, I was next in the queue. Two others started queuing whilst I was waiting. When a slot became available I had to tell the driver of an Atto, politely but firmly, they were not next and please reverse back out.

 

I was with the sales guy, I told him it was going to be a bun fight in future and they need to come up with a system, you can’t book a slot here.

[Gweiloman]

6 hours ago, JBChiangRai said:

I am out charging at the BYD dealer and used the digital key on my iPhone to get here.

 

There were 2 cars already charging, I was next in the queue. Two others started queuing whilst I was waiting. When a slot became available I had to tell the driver of an Atto, politely but firmly, they were not next and please reverse back out.

 

I was with the sales guy, I told him it was going to be a bun fight in future and they need to come up with a system, you can’t book a slot here.

My experience is that it’s quite civil. I thought I was next in line but another BYD owner came up and told me he was already waiting before me. I said no problem. He even said if I was in a hurry, I could go first but I declined as I know I needed to have lunch as well. The car charges too fast for a regular lunch stop.

[JBChiangRai]

I hope Rever enforce connected but not charging" overruns with a real cost.  I was wondering if someone would leave their car connected overnight, or toddle off to have lunch.  There's nearly always someone waiting to charge.

 

I got my 30,000 baht charging credit for friends bring friends promotion today, it's valid until the end of 2026, I won't be able to use it until next year.

[Andrew Dwyer]

If, like me, you wash your Seal yourself and nine times out of ten forget to leave the wipers in the upright position before washing, then decide not to bother raising them as it involves turning the car on, going to service/overhaul and clicking on the “front wiper check “ switch ( is it me or was that called something else before ? ) !

Do not despair as after stopping the car you can just hold down the wiper stalk for a few seconds and the wipers move to the upright position.

 

Thankfully using both options the wipers do not automatically go to their normal position when starting the car, causing possible damage to the bonnet if you forgot to place them back on the windscreen, unlike my previous car !!

[JBChiangRai]

I use a Carwash run by a Chinese guy (can I say Chinaman these days?).

 

He collects and delivers my car and offers a 48 hour guarantee, 72 if you wash on a Monday.  If the car gets dirty, he will wash it again free. 340 baht.

 

He is positively anal about the right way to wash a car to avoid swirls getting in the paint. Jet wash, Foam, Jet wash again, hand wash and then into the touchless rinse and dry machine before hand finishing.

 

Like all good car washes, his crew are not allowed to wear belts, watches, anything with buttons or zips and any kind of jewelry.

[mistral53]

I read in a comment to a YT clip on the 1.2.1 OTA, that he feels the car is faster, and that he is seeing 410 kW power output readings now. For the record, I never saw over 390 kW, which is the advertised rated power.

 

So yesterday I got a full load of free electrons, courtesy ReverScharge. When driving off, I set the car to sports mode, red frame and all, and floored it - lo and behold, I saw a brief 408 kW reading on the display. A little later on a quiet stretch, I did a 3.6 s run to 100 km/h, which I have seen is a pretty standard time.

 

Is the car faster now? or is this just an insidious play on our gullible minds? I remember when McLaren upped the power on the MP4-12C from 590 to 625 Hp, it was a very discernible additional shove until our bodies and minds adjusted to the new power level.

 

[mistral53]

2025 BYD Seal: this should have always been part of the Seal:

[Bandersnatch]

1 hour ago, mistral53 said:

2025 BYD Seal: this should have always been part of the Seal:

 

 

Orange steering wheel!

[JBChiangRai]

My local BYD City branch, now have a queuing system for charging, receptionist writes down your details and gives you a numbered card.

[ExpatOilWorker]

9 minutes ago, JBChiangRai said:

My local BYD City branch, now have a queuing system for charging, receptionist writes down your details and gives you a numbered card.

While you wait....

 

[JBChiangRai]

18 minutes ago, ExpatOilWorker said:

While you wait....

 

You can give me a pedicure while I wait.

[motdaeng]

2 hours ago, Bandersnatch said:

 

 

Orange steering wheel!

 

don't worry, the interior is also available in black. it is a really beautiful car ...

 

 

[JBChiangRai]

34 minutes ago, motdaeng said:

 

don't worry, the interior is also available in black. it is a really beautiful car ...

 

 

 

I can see lots of aftermarket trims will appear on aliexpress, eg a gloss walnut dash trim.

 

I miss the highly polished wooden dash's of the Jaguars of yesteryear.

[JBChiangRai]

I double checked my Seal, it only has the single-phase pins in its socket, the 3 phase pins are missing.

 

This means it will only charge at 3.6Kw (max) on an 11Kw charger.