mikelevitt
Member
- First Name
- Mike
- Joined
- Aug 27, 2021
- Threads
- 1
- Messages
- 16
- Reaction score
- 6
- Location
- Royal Oak, MI
- Vehicles
- 2021 Taycan
- Thread starter
- #1
Hello all,
I was in the middle of a road trip to Indianapolis from the Detroit area, and stopped at an EA charger in Indy - the only one in the city, on Friday night.
As I was charging (started at 10%) the charger screen suddenly turned red, as did the light on the charge port. "Charging error." I had about 60% charge at this point. It was about 10 PM, the Walmart closed at 11.
I unplugged the charger, and there was a message on the of the dash "Electrical fault, please service vehicle." The car was dead, and would not start or function in any way. The only thing I could do was shift from park into neutral.
I called the Porsche 800 number, which was incredibly frustrating. They put my in some kind of line to get a top truck, and sent me a link to an app which just showed me that no towing company would accept the job. They knew nothing about the fault, and told me "we just schedule towing." Then I got transferred to the concierge - who was supposed to set up lodging, transportation. Their only offer was to check and see if there were any ubers near my location, but could not answer whether I needed to go with the tow truck to the dealer, how I was supposed to get back to my hotel, whether I could get a loaner or rental car, or how I was supposed to work the next day or back to Michigan. But they did tell me that there was a $60 limit on Uber and a 3 day limit on loaners or hotels. And every question was answered with "Call customer relations" which of course was not open until Monday.
A tow truck driver did arrive about 11:15 PM - at this point I was standing next to my dead car in a isolated Walmart parking lot, in a kind of sketchy area of Indy, by myself, with my dead $100k+ plus car.
Tow driver was great, and a friend of a mechanic I knew from racing, so we had a good time trying to figure out how to back the Taycan on a flatbed. Tip - the tow hook is REVERSE THREADED!
We got it hooked up and I got in to put it in neutral and it fired right up. So I unhooked it, gave the guy a big tip, and went on my way.
Next morning I had it at the local Porsche dealer. They scanned it, and it just showed a charging communication error, and had no idea why it had shut down. Somebody at the dealer may have admitted that they knew almost nothing about the cars, and said that fixing them was like throwing darts at a wall. My salesman emailed me and said that he had heard that if this happens you should lock the doors, and let it sit for 20 minutes and it would reset itself.
So that's the moral I guess. If it dies when charging, lock it up, let it reset, and go on your way. BTW, this was not a dead 12v battery. I had driven about 400 miles that day. The rest of the trip was amazing, and by the time I arrived back home I wasn't pissed off any more, but you can only imagine the joy I felt standing in a parking lot in the ghetto being told to call a number nobody would answer for another 3 days or so...
I was in the middle of a road trip to Indianapolis from the Detroit area, and stopped at an EA charger in Indy - the only one in the city, on Friday night.
As I was charging (started at 10%) the charger screen suddenly turned red, as did the light on the charge port. "Charging error." I had about 60% charge at this point. It was about 10 PM, the Walmart closed at 11.
I unplugged the charger, and there was a message on the of the dash "Electrical fault, please service vehicle." The car was dead, and would not start or function in any way. The only thing I could do was shift from park into neutral.
I called the Porsche 800 number, which was incredibly frustrating. They put my in some kind of line to get a top truck, and sent me a link to an app which just showed me that no towing company would accept the job. They knew nothing about the fault, and told me "we just schedule towing." Then I got transferred to the concierge - who was supposed to set up lodging, transportation. Their only offer was to check and see if there were any ubers near my location, but could not answer whether I needed to go with the tow truck to the dealer, how I was supposed to get back to my hotel, whether I could get a loaner or rental car, or how I was supposed to work the next day or back to Michigan. But they did tell me that there was a $60 limit on Uber and a 3 day limit on loaners or hotels. And every question was answered with "Call customer relations" which of course was not open until Monday.
A tow truck driver did arrive about 11:15 PM - at this point I was standing next to my dead car in a isolated Walmart parking lot, in a kind of sketchy area of Indy, by myself, with my dead $100k+ plus car.
Tow driver was great, and a friend of a mechanic I knew from racing, so we had a good time trying to figure out how to back the Taycan on a flatbed. Tip - the tow hook is REVERSE THREADED!
We got it hooked up and I got in to put it in neutral and it fired right up. So I unhooked it, gave the guy a big tip, and went on my way.
Next morning I had it at the local Porsche dealer. They scanned it, and it just showed a charging communication error, and had no idea why it had shut down. Somebody at the dealer may have admitted that they knew almost nothing about the cars, and said that fixing them was like throwing darts at a wall. My salesman emailed me and said that he had heard that if this happens you should lock the doors, and let it sit for 20 minutes and it would reset itself.
So that's the moral I guess. If it dies when charging, lock it up, let it reset, and go on your way. BTW, this was not a dead 12v battery. I had driven about 400 miles that day. The rest of the trip was amazing, and by the time I arrived back home I wasn't pissed off any more, but you can only imagine the joy I felt standing in a parking lot in the ghetto being told to call a number nobody would answer for another 3 days or so...
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