Mihir
Established Member
I was driving back with my wife and my little son from Taunton to Milton Keynes yesterday and stopped at Leigh Delamere Services on M4 with 14% SOC and 25 miles left at about 4.15pm. When I reached there, there was a Renault Zoe on charge using the GridServe CCS 120 kW charger. (It was the only 1 CCS one. I had not checked that on ZAP Map. Point to learn - Look for places with more than 1 CCS charging points). It was at 50% and the owner did come back till it was about 95% charged. I was patiently waiting! Whlist I was waiting, I started charging using my type 2 cable on a 22kW AC charger that was free. Once the Zoe owner was back at around 4.45pm, I disconnected the AC charger and tried to connect to the CCS and the car would not charge saying charging ceased. I also noticed a Vehilce Control System Fault and asking me to stop immediately! The car just wouldn't start after that.
I called AA for assitance and meanwhile looked for more information. I saw one thread where people have complained about this problem in Gen 1 cars. It needed 10mm spanner to disconnect the battery and reconnect. Someone suggested to lock the car and start again after 10 mins. And some of them even suggested that it had to be taken to the garage etc and it took about a week to fix! This made me a bit nervous too. I tried locking and starting after 10 mins. And it did not help!
AA help finally arrived at about 5.50pm. To my surprise he mentioned that he had no clue about electric cars at the first place as he did not deal with them often(point to note - When you call AA for help, please mention to them to send someone who has EV knowledge!). He scrambled on his system to come back to tell that there is nothing on his system about this fault. I told him that I checked on google and it was suggested to use the 10mm spanner to disconnect and reconnect the battery. He said we can try that and it was called battery reset. He did that and it did not help!
I had also read a post that said it needed an OBD dongle and clearing of the fault by technician in the garage. I suggested that to him and he said he can try and do that. He did that and told since this was a new car, it wasn't on their systems and it was not detecting initially. I am not sure what he did after that but he managed to connect to the car and clear the faults on his tablet and the fault finally disappeared from the dashboard screen. And I was able to move the car! However the CCS charger would still not charge the car and charging was ceasing all the time. We connected to the AC and it was charging. He mentioned that it could be a fault with BMS somewhere! Whilst we were waiting and solving all this, 2 more Gen 1 MGs came by and they did exactly the same as me(connect to AC for a bit and then DC) and none of them had any issues!
I could not sit and slow charge my car since I was about 100 miles away from home and so decided to go away to another charging point which was about 2 miles away! Ionity chargers at Chippenham and once I plugged it and it started charging straight away! A big big relief to us! Charged for about 30 mins and we were on the move again!
It is still a mystery to me why this happened and what caused it to happen. It creates panic if you are unsure what to do. Thanks to the forum and some old posts, I could atleast dig into previous experiences and some possible solutions. I was plain lucky that one of the solutions worked for me! I am still not sure if it was the AC charging that caused the issue. Or was it the Renault Zoe charging before me that caused the issue (one of the posts suggested this too!) Or was it a fault with the GridServe charger as Ionity did not have any issues charging my car(but the other MG's used the same charger after me and it worked for them!). The 10mm spanner battery reset did not help and the AA technician had no clue what was going on. I am not sure if this needs a check with the MG dealership? Or can I just ignore this as a one off and get on! It does become a bit of a panic situation especially when you are out with family and kids. An unforgettable experience least to say!
I called AA for assitance and meanwhile looked for more information. I saw one thread where people have complained about this problem in Gen 1 cars. It needed 10mm spanner to disconnect the battery and reconnect. Someone suggested to lock the car and start again after 10 mins. And some of them even suggested that it had to be taken to the garage etc and it took about a week to fix! This made me a bit nervous too. I tried locking and starting after 10 mins. And it did not help!
AA help finally arrived at about 5.50pm. To my surprise he mentioned that he had no clue about electric cars at the first place as he did not deal with them often(point to note - When you call AA for help, please mention to them to send someone who has EV knowledge!). He scrambled on his system to come back to tell that there is nothing on his system about this fault. I told him that I checked on google and it was suggested to use the 10mm spanner to disconnect and reconnect the battery. He said we can try that and it was called battery reset. He did that and it did not help!
I had also read a post that said it needed an OBD dongle and clearing of the fault by technician in the garage. I suggested that to him and he said he can try and do that. He did that and told since this was a new car, it wasn't on their systems and it was not detecting initially. I am not sure what he did after that but he managed to connect to the car and clear the faults on his tablet and the fault finally disappeared from the dashboard screen. And I was able to move the car! However the CCS charger would still not charge the car and charging was ceasing all the time. We connected to the AC and it was charging. He mentioned that it could be a fault with BMS somewhere! Whilst we were waiting and solving all this, 2 more Gen 1 MGs came by and they did exactly the same as me(connect to AC for a bit and then DC) and none of them had any issues!
I could not sit and slow charge my car since I was about 100 miles away from home and so decided to go away to another charging point which was about 2 miles away! Ionity chargers at Chippenham and once I plugged it and it started charging straight away! A big big relief to us! Charged for about 30 mins and we were on the move again!
It is still a mystery to me why this happened and what caused it to happen. It creates panic if you are unsure what to do. Thanks to the forum and some old posts, I could atleast dig into previous experiences and some possible solutions. I was plain lucky that one of the solutions worked for me! I am still not sure if it was the AC charging that caused the issue. Or was it the Renault Zoe charging before me that caused the issue (one of the posts suggested this too!) Or was it a fault with the GridServe charger as Ionity did not have any issues charging my car(but the other MG's used the same charger after me and it worked for them!). The 10mm spanner battery reset did not help and the AA technician had no clue what was going on. I am not sure if this needs a check with the MG dealership? Or can I just ignore this as a one off and get on! It does become a bit of a panic situation especially when you are out with family and kids. An unforgettable experience least to say!
