MG4 Mysteries

[Rolfe]

The trip meter usually resets after an hour. (It was two hours on my Golf and I think I preferred that.)

 

[decrep]

More surprises today, doing the Calibration 10-100% charge.
Couldn't get the scheduled charge to work.
The car and the ismart app have a huge disagreement of finishing time.

Today is the only day with forecast all day sun and I wanted to make the most use of it. I did a short test yesterday and car worked out it would take 18hr to get from 10 - 100%. We need the car tomorrow morning, so wanted to finish the charge this evening after the sun had gone down.
This meant best time to start the charge was midnight yesterday.
I tried to schedule this to happen, first I did a test run programed to start in a few minutes time and the display came up with something a screen confirming scheduled charge was a go. So then tried to do the real thing and it just went into normal charge ignoring the schedule. By the time I'd given up trying to get it to work, the battery was up to 11%, so I had to go for a drive, and got it back to 8%. In the end I stayed up to Midnight, watching the Vuelta a Espana, to see if our boy stayed in the lead, and turned it on.
The car said it would finish at 05:45pm, but now the ismart ap is saying it won't finish until 02:35 tomorrow morning. It's now 09:36 so it's been charging for about 9h 45m and increased by 30%, it's got another 60% to go, so that's another 19hr.
Doesn't make sense?
Maybe a temperature thing, it probably went down to 14C in the garage last night, and it was about 17C when I did my check. Can't remember if intelligent battery heating is on or off but I suspect off.
And I've just noticed the finish time is climbing, it now says 02:47.
I've opened the garage doors to let the sun in. I wonder what that will do.

edit, 1005 now and it's gone up to 03:03, last check was about 20m ago.

Another thought, I think the car said 80% finish, but the app says 100% finish. I wasn't worried about the 80% as the car seems to disregard that and it always goes to 100% regardless. however maybe the calculation was only to 80%. Still doesn't add up but it's closer.
Now 1025 and it's still rising now says 03:25, which makes me think, I may have got the "PM" wrong, maybe it was am.

11:23 now, car at 45% and finish predicted 04:22, sun isn't making any difference.
We'll be lucky if it's charged when we get up tomorrow morning

Big fail on my part, should have just used a bit of mental arithmetic.
Charge rate 1.4Kw, charge needed 41kWh, that's going to take about 30hr.
If I wanted it to finish at sunset today, should have started charging around 1pm yesterday. That would have given me more solar, instead of 2 nights of grid use. If it hadn't been cloudy yesterday starting at 10am would have been better still.

When the next calibration is due it will be full summer, and I've learnt a bit, so that should only be a short night's worth of grid energy.

 

[Rolfe]

When I did my SE SR on the granny cable it took about 26 hours. Might not be the same at Australian voltages though?

I never had any problems doing a long charge like that, just setting aside enough time. Once I stopped it because a spectacular aurora was forecast and I went out to get a good view. However when I tried it a couple of weeks ago using Octopus's scheduled charge facility, the Zappi dropped the charge for 15 minutes in the middle which I think invalidates the exercise and I probably need to do it again.

 

[decrep]

yes my charger is only 1.4kW, I have a feeling yours is 1.7kW.

Not sure what happened today. Battery at 99% at 0655, estimated finish 0710. It did reach 100% then according to the app, but still said charging finish at 0730. By 0730 said charging finish at 0735, so about every 5min it updated the finish time by another 5 min. at 0800 the estimated time was getting lower than the actual time, ie it said 0755 at 0800. We had to leave here at 0815, by then it had been pumping 1.4kW into a 100% charged battery for over an hour.
This worried me, does the charger know what it's doing?
I thought it would stop drawing 1.4kW once at 100% and then go into balance mode and just draw a few watts.

So I stopped charging and we left.
It quickly dropped to 99%, so the extra 1.5kWh didn't charge to over 100%
Question is what do I do now???
Plug it back in and see what happens, will it still try to balance?
Or go on drawing 1.4kW indefinitely?

Here's the whole charge process.

Started charging 2345 Sunday night, unplugged 0815 Tues morning.
Little ripples are the fridge, big spikes are the dishwasher and kettle.
So still charging at 1.4kW after 32.5 hours. that's 45.5kWh plus the 10% at start will be close to 51kWh. So maybe it was OK and we could have left it charging.

turned it back on at 99% and this time it turned off 45min later when it said it would, so looks like no extra balancing done.

 

[tsedge]

It can take quite a while to balance the battery at 100%, it all depends how out of balance the pack is. This sounds normal to me. It won't hurt the car, the car is in charge of when the charging stops.

 

[decrep]

Thanks tsedge,
I think I'll wait till there's 2 long sunny days forecast and do the operation again.

 

[Coulomb]

this time it turned off 45min later when it said it would, so looks like no extra balancing done.

On my ZS Mark 1, I find the estimated charge time to be pretty wild. So I would not take it stopping when it said it would as an indication that it didn't do any balancing that session.

It's also possible that it factors in some estimated balancing time when giving the estimated charge time. If so, this would be a very approximate time.

 

[decrep]

Thanks guys!

I'm still having trouble with scheduled charging, it says it's going to do it, a minute before it's due to start, it says it's connecting, at due time relays are heard, but it still says connecting, the app may say it's charging, but no power is drawn from the mains. After a while it says connected but not charging and the app agrees.
Pressing the start charging button does get it going, so apparently there's no reason for it not to work.

Am I missing something here?

 

[DixieTGS]

I thought it would stop drawing 1.4kW once at 100% and then go into balance mode and just draw a few watts.

My LR has done some similar things:

After the infotainment displays trickle charging, it has continued to draw full power for 40-50 minutes. But now at 3000 miles and 8 months it doesn’t seem anywhere as bad as it used to be.

The total time to balance went to over 2 hours once and I had to stop it to use the car. The next charge on the following day it balanced pretty quickly.

The time to finish on the app has always followed what other people here have described. When the finish time catches up with real time, the finish just follows real time. No 5 minute increments and the finish time never goes below real time.

I charge with a 3rd party granny charger and have never got scheduled charging to work usefully. By that I mean it has worked when I've asked it to start in 2 minutes time, but never if I've asked it to start early in the morning using either the app or in car controls.

To be honest the last issue is probably something in the sequence I'm doing wrong, but as a low mileage user I haven't needed to look at this properly yet.

 

[AlC]

Adding another mystery to the list:

Sometimes when I shutdown the car by locking it, it makes the notification "boing" sound, but nothing appears on the screen because it is shutting down.

I suppose it's impossible to know what the notification noise is about, but I'm still curious. Perhaps some module is shutting down earlier than the rest of the car and causing the car to think something has failed.

As an aside, I think it's silly that the car uses the exact same noise for "I'm ready to drive" and "Just letting you know the wheel isn't straight so don't drive into the kerb" but also for "Oh no, EPS has failed and you're about to drive into a tree!"

It'd be nice to have different tones for notification, warning and error. I start to tune the sound out after a while.

 

[AlC]

I charge with a 3rd party granny charger and have never got scheduled charging to work usefully. By that I mean it has worked when I've asked it to start in 2 minutes time, but never if I've asked it to start early in the morning using either the app or in car controls.

To be honest the last issue is probably something in the sequence I'm doing wrong, but as a low mileage user I haven't needed to look at this properly yet.

My best guess would be your third party granny charger notices that it's not charging after a while and goes to sleep, then when the car tries to kick off the scheduled charge, the charger doesn't wake up again. If the charger supports scheduling I reckon I'd try setting it on the charger instead.

 

[Ian Key]

Sometimes when I shutdown the car by locking it, it makes the notification "boing" sound, but nothing appears on the screen because it is shutting down.

I wonder if it's the Bluetooth connection to your phone disconnecting.

 

[DixieTGS]

My best guess would be your third party granny charger notices that it's not charging after a while and goes to sleep, then when the car tries to kick off the scheduled charge, the charger doesn't wake up again. If the charger supports scheduling I reckon I'd try setting it on the charger instead.

Swapping back to the MG charger was the first thing I tried when it didn't work. But thinking back I probably wasn't locking the car at that stage, so worth checking again, thanks.

The 3rd party charger has a display of energy taken from the mains and a long lead which is why I prefer it when at other people's houses. Also for non scheduled charging it has worked every time regardless of what order I set it up, and even if I open the car or change settings part way through. Luckily using the MG charger would not be a problem for scheduled charging at home.

 

[Kithmo]

Adding another mystery to the list:

Sometimes when I shutdown the car by locking it, it makes the notification "boing" sound, but nothing appears on the screen because it is shutting down.

Usually that's lights left on manual, can't think of anything else it might be.

 

[Rolfe]

Sometimes it's a door or the tailgate not properly shut, or there is still a key in the car.

 

[Kithmo]

Sometimes it's a door or the tailgate not properly shut, or there is still a key in the car.

I was going to say that, but it wouldn't let you lock it in that case.

 

[JanB]

Let me add a few more annoying issues in:
-Vibration from X-Power above 70kph+, seems like MG can't fix it.
-Climate control thinks it's in a whole other eco system. Could be set at 30 and still blow cold, may as well use a magic wand on the setting, it might be more accurate.
-Throttle pedal freezes and no response for several seconds while driving.
-I.Smart app drops out constantly, no connection and unknown car location.
-As mentioned, the info screen random start up and freezes occasionally.
-Radio doesn't always start, and sometimes takes pressing the screen / buttons for 10 minutes to get working.
-Gear selection won't engage, twizzle that knob back and forth but it just won't let you have a gear.
-Camera sticks on, freezes screen.
-Adaptive cruise brakes for anything, sometimes for shadows, dips or just for fun.
-Lane keep has about as much finesse as a drunk 12 year old.
-Charging difficult to start some times; lock and unlock, charger on/off for 5 minutes.
-Charging cable gets locked in the port and again, need to spend 5 minutes locking / unlocking to try and release.
-Regen varies, sometimes works well, other times need to jump on the brakes as it just doesn't slow down as much. (regardless on battery soc)
-Stopping with opd downhill, the big jolt at 7kph.
-The car starts reversing at a stop with opd if you touch the brake pedal.
-The info screen swapping sides from rhd to lhd orientation.
-Charging flap randomly opens.
-A bubbling / kettle like sound behind steering wheel.
-Massive power loss and under performance.

All of this has been reported a few times and nothing the dealer will do.
I do like that its a good price, but I suppose that's why there is so many issues.
It seems put together reasonably well, if only they could sort out the electrical systems.
Seems to drive well and handle ok if you remove all the electrical safety features which to honest, make it quite scary as they don't work very well. (anchoring on the brakes for no reason, yanking the steering in all directions for no reason)

I think I would really like this car if they sorted the the info screen out, safety features and power issues. It could've been a great car.

This sound behind the steering wheel: when do you notice most? I hear something at speeds between 20-40kph. I'd describe it, as a mechanical clock, like plastic gears engaging. It oszilates roughly once per second.
Its not very loud and you really only notice, cruising slowly.
Do we mean the same?
Did anymore else make this observation?

 

[woody1]

Let me add a few more annoying issues in:
-Vibration from X-Power above 70kph+, seems like MG can't fix it.
-Climate control thinks it's in a whole other eco system. Could be set at 30 and still blow cold, may as well use a magic wand on the setting, it might be more accurate.
-Throttle pedal freezes and no response for several seconds while driving.
-I.Smart app drops out constantly, no connection and unknown car location.
-As mentioned, the info screen random start up and freezes occasionally.
-Radio doesn't always start, and sometimes takes pressing the screen / buttons for 10 minutes to get working.
-Gear selection won't engage, twizzle that knob back and forth but it just won't let you have a gear.
-Camera sticks on, freezes screen.
-Adaptive cruise brakes for anything, sometimes for shadows, dips or just for fun.
-Lane keep has about as much finesse as a drunk 12 year old.
-Charging difficult to start some times; lock and unlock, charger on/off for 5 minutes.
-Charging cable gets locked in the port and again, need to spend 5 minutes locking / unlocking to try and release.
-Regen varies, sometimes works well, other times need to jump on the brakes as it just doesn't slow down as much. (regardless on battery soc)
-Stopping with opd downhill, the big jolt at 7kph.
-The car starts reversing at a stop with opd if you touch the brake pedal.
-The info screen swapping sides from rhd to lhd orientation.
-Charging flap randomly opens.
-A bubbling / kettle like sound behind steering wheel.
-Massive power loss and under performance.

All of this has been reported a few times and nothing the dealer will do.
I do like that its a good price, but I suppose that's why there is so many issues.
It seems put together reasonably well, if only they could sort out the electrical systems.
Seems to drive well and handle ok if you remove all the electrical safety features which to honest, make it quite scary as they don't work very well. (anchoring on the brakes for no reason, yanking the steering in all directions for no reason)

I think I would really like this car if they sorted the the info screen out, safety features and power issues. It could've been a great car.

? Love the descriptions. I'm in Australia and have a MG4 64. I agree that turning off most of the electronic safety systems is the way to go. The car is nice to drive, but would not buy another one, unless the software was radically enhanced and....... the dealers actually knew what they were doing. Unfortunately over here they they are incompetent, indifferent and don't seem to give a toss.

 

[dsr]

OK well I worked out the mystery of the self locking doors not automatically unlocking sometimes.

If the front passenger side door is opened first, and then the drivers side door is open within ~1 second or so of the passenger door, the rear doors are not automatically unlocked.

If you open the driver's side door first or allow ~2-3 seconds after the passenger side door is opened, all doors unlock automatically. Weird.

Another mystery I haven't been able to solve is: How long after stopping the car do I need to wait before the "after start" trip meter will reset? Sometimes I'll jump back into the car a after 10+ minutes, and having shut down the car by locking the doors, and the "after start" trip meter still thinks I'm on the same trip.

Thank you for that one. It has happened to me 3 or 4 times in my first year of ownership and I have never understood why.