Charging cable not locking

[Ian Key]

I put the car on to charge last night exactly as I've done many times before but when I looked this morning it had failed to charge.

I checked the iSmart app to check the charging percentage in case the amount of charge had altered to below it's current charge level and the Zappi app. The Zappi app said EV preventing charge.

I pulled the cable from the car and realised I'd done so without unlocking the car. Obviously the car hadn't locked the cable in place so hadn't accepted the charge from my wall charger.

A quick squirt with silicone spray and three or four locks and unlocks seems to have cured the locking problem. I'll find out this evening if it has.

 

[Diggsy]

Sometimes if you plug the cable in and don’t lock the car this happens. Are you sure the car was locked?

I’ve also had the cable not lock onto the car once before, and from memory it was a result of plugging it in then leaving it too long to lock, although I can’t be certain, as it was ages ago - I always listen for the mechanism locking the cable in place before I leave the car for the night now.

 

[JonnyG]

Yep, I had nearly exactly the same as above but I think I waited too long a time from opening the flap to plugging in the cable. From recollection the blue charging lights had gone out by the time I plugged the cable in. I now have a routine of having the charging cable all ready to plug in when openiing the flap and then locking the car after about 20 seconds. Then doublecheck that the dash says "charging scheduled" after locking the car.

Good luck for tonight ! ... hopefully just a one off

 

[Ian Key]

Update: Charged OK last night. I think as @Diggsy said I had unlocked the car to open the flap but after the cable was plugged in I was slow locking the car so it self locked and didn't lock the cable into the socket.

Only glitch was I forgot to set the percentage charge to 80% before connecting the car to the charger so I now have a fully charged battery with no plans to go anywhere. Oh well, I suppose I'll just have to go for a drive in the Derbyshire countryside this morning. It's a hard life

 

[Diggsy]

Glad to hear all is well…enjoy the drive today

 

[Jto]

Update: Charged OK last night. I think as @Diggsy said I had unlocked the car to open the flap but after the cable was plugged in I was slow locking the car so it self locked and didn't lock the cable into the socket.

Only glitch was I forgot to set the percentage charge to 80% before connecting the car to the charger so I now have a fully charged battery with no plans to go anywhere. Oh well, I suppose I'll just have to go for a drive in the Derbyshire countryside this morning. It's a hard life

Hi
I had not pushed the plug all the way in this week and it said the car was charging on the app put the car did not charge so push in and lock with key and give it pull. And charging to full will not do any harm and balance the battery.

 

[Ian Key]

Hi
I had not pushed the plug all the way in this week and it said the car was charging on the app put the car did not charge so push in and lock with key and give it pull. And charging to full will not do any harm and balance the battery.

It depends on the battery. I had balanced the battery two days ago but as I wasn't intending to use the car for a couple of days after this charge I didn't want it sat there fully charged.

 

[Jto]

It’s not going to do any harn

 

[ReintjeWA]

It depends on the battery. I had balanced the battery two days ago but as I wasn't intending to use the car for a couple of days after this charge I didn't want it sat there fully charged.

You might find this thread an interesting read

MG4 Long Range Battery Chemistry

Hi, I have been reading papers on batteries recently and have been pondering what they tell me about the likely characteristics of the NMC battery in my MG4. Can anyone tell me? 1. Does the NMC battery use a single crystal cathode? 2. What is it's chemistry? For example is it NMC532, NMC811...

www.mgevs.com

In general terms you are correct that often charging to 100% is not recommended on nmc batteries, but it appears that specifically the MG4 nmc batteries don’t suffer from high degradation, so I wouldn’t worry too much about it.

Besides, our previous ICE cars all lost horsepower over the years, never hear people talk about that.