DC charging woes - losing faith in brand

[tylerdurden]

The last few weeks have been a nightmare.
Car went in for brake hose recall 4-5 w ago. During this they did a software update and replaced coolant punp (noisy during charging)

Get car back and it fine except when I do my first commercial ionity charge 140miles away from home with family in toe. Get red light, will not accept charge. I was down to last few % so no choice other then to call PAS. Car and occumepts ended up being recovered home by AA with car on truck. Got home at 4am

Car taken straight to dealer. Who charging system replaced - £3k apparently. All under warranty.

Since then I have been out a few time and it never connects first time to a commercial charger

was at grid serve - wasn't working ended up moving to a free slot and it worked. Then same at ionity. 2 chargers failed but a third worked.

What the hell is going on?

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[csm7djs]

I'm not sure if its the car or the chargers but I've had problems at the ionity chargers before. It often takes several attempts to get it to work.

I couldn't get 2 chargers to work at the Milton Keynes ionity and the BMW i5 owner also couldn't get them working either.

 

[W1NGE]

The last few weeks have been a nightmare.
Car went in for brake hose recall 4-5 w ago. During this they did a software update and replaced coolant punp (noisy during charging)

Get car back and it fine except when I do my first commercial ionity charge 140miles away from home with family in toe. Get red light, will not accept charge. I was down to last few % so no choice other then to call PAS. Car and occumepts ended up being recovered home by AA with car on truck. Got home at 4am

Car taken straight to dealer. Who charging system replaced - £3k apparently. All under warranty.

Since then I have been out a few time and it never connects first time to a commercial charger

was at grid serve - wasn't working ended up moving to a free slot and it worked. Then same at ionity. 2 chargers failed but a third worked.

What the hell is going on?

Ionity - disable Plug & Charge in the PCM if you don't auto connect (can lead to a red circle on the charge port if comms between car and provider fails) and re-try.

You can be unlucky and charge ports do fail but generally not both AC and DC at the same time. Did you try AC charging at any of the locations (guessing not) - bear that in mind. If really unlucky and you can't charge either by DC or AC then that implies a charge port failure and is pretty terminal unfortunately.

Insertion of the CCS plug needs to be firm to ensure a good connection - can lead to errors if not.

EVSE can and do reboot themselves as part of remote maintenance and there's not a lot you can do about that.

 

[SteveDC]

The last few weeks have been a nightmare.
Car went in for brake hose recall 4-5 w ago. During this they did a software update and replaced coolant punp (noisy during charging)

Get car back and it fine except when I do my first commercial ionity charge 140miles away from home with family in toe. Get red light, will not accept charge. I was down to last few % so no choice other then to call PAS. Car and occumepts ended up being recovered home by AA with car on truck. Got home at 4am

Car taken straight to dealer. Who charging system replaced - £3k apparently. All under warranty.

Since then I have been out a few time and it never connects first time to a commercial charger

was at grid serve - wasn't working ended up moving to a free slot and it worked. Then same at ionity. 2 chargers failed but a third worked.

What the hell is going on?

I am not sure this will help, but it has made a difference for me using Electrify America: 1. Make sure cable is slack and not tight or twisted (sometimes difficult to accomplish), 2. Make sure you hear a “click” when you insert the nozzle. As to the latter, I was not always getting that, because the cable was too tight. Hope this helps.

 

[tylerdurden]

Ionity - disable Plug & Charge in the PCM if you don't auto connect (can lead to a red circle on the charge port if comms between car and provider fails) and re-try.

You can be unlucky and charge ports do fail but generally not both AC and DC at the same time. Did you try AC charging at any of the locations (guessing not) - bear that in mind. If really unlucky and you can't charge either by DC or AC then that implies a charge port failure and is pretty terminal unfortunately.

Insertion of the CCS plug needs to be firm to ensure a good connection - can lead to errors if not.

EVSE can and do reboot themselves as part of remote maintenance and there's not a lot you can do about that.

How do you switch off plug and charge in the PCM?

IT was both an AC DC failure on that side, Needed replacement. ~The other side was fine but there were no AC options at the Ionity charging centre and I didnt have the range to reach one.

 

[tylerdurden]

I am not sure this will help, but it has made a difference for me using Electrify America: 1. Make sure cable is slack and not tight or twisted (sometimes difficult to accomplish), 2. Make sure you hear a “click” when you insert the nozzle. As to the latter, I was not always getting that, because the cable was too tight. Hope this helps.

I have never noticed a click when connecting these bulky DC chargers. Just slots in

 

[tigerbalm]

I have never noticed a click when connecting these bulky DC chargers. Just slots in

That's the difference between US and European CCS DC charging plugs. No click (or button) in Europe.

I am one of the more experienced EV road-trippers on this forum. Every single time I charge at a DC fast charger, I hold up the plug while the handshaking happens. Once charging starts you can stop holding the plug.

 

[W1NGE]

How do you switch off plug and charge in the PCM?

IT was both an AC DC failure on that side, Needed replacement. ~The other side was fine but there were no AC options at the Ionity charging centre and I didnt have the range to reach one.

Charging the [...] (for options)

 

[tylerdurden]

thanks, found it. the plug and charge was not selected so that wasn't it

 

[4sCT21]

Ok so I had multiple problems with connecting at Ionity in my GV60. Only no 1 (or 4) worked for me straight away at Milton Keynes everytime, the others wouldn't connect, same at Beaconsfield.

What i found i had to do, was after you scan your card to activate the charger, lift the plug slightly and maintain pressure / that position whilst it tries to connect to the car. Using this technique, they all worked (pretty much).

This probably won't help, but it might just work. The plug connection was just a bit fussy.

 

[BjörnfromHamburg]

Exactly as stated before: I had a problem with older Ionity CCS connectors. Plug in and hold the connector pulling it upwards until the connection established.

 

[Scandinavian]

Exactly as stated before: I had a problem with older Ionity CCS connectors. Plug in and hold the connector pulling it upwards until the connection established.

This advice was actually stated by Ionity in their video already during 2021 0r -22. The problem seem to be the weight of the plug and cable so that the communication connection does not work properly. Once the communication process is finished the charging works fine.

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