Weak vertical coupled bunch instability with oscillation amplitude at m level has been observed in SPEAR3. The instability becomes stronger when there is a vacuum pressure rise by partially turning off vacuum pumps and it becomes weaker when the vertical beam emittance is increased by turning off the skew quadrupole magnets. These confirmed that the instability was driven by ions in the vacuum. The threshold of the beam ion instability when running with a single bunch train is just under 200 mA. This paper presents the comprehensive observations of the beam ion instability in SPEAR3. The effects of vacuum pressure, beam current, beam filling pattern, chromaticity, beam emittance and bunch-by-bunch feedback are investigated in great detail. Show Partial Abstract