Either my car or my home charge point is playing up... which one?

[mbnvcxz]

Hi everyone.

I have a 2012 Peugeot iOn, in my possession since 2019. 12V battery replaced in 2019. I'm in England, UK.

I'm having some issues charging it at home, but it's kind of intermittent, and I want to pin down where the problem is - I'm not even sure yet whether it's the charge point I had installed at home, or the car's on board charger. Or - looking on the bright side - I guess it could be both!

The symptom, when it occurs, is that when plugged in to my home charge point, the car will start charging, but often after a short time (which seems to vary from 20 seconds to 10 minutes to 1 hour) it stops - well before fully charged. Occasionally it will charge properly, but things have deteriorated over time and it is now failing more often than succeeding.

I can attempt to restart the charge by unplugging and re-plugging the car, but this tends to give the same result. Same if I try to get it going again by pressing the 'boost' button on the charge point.

When I give up and switch to using a granny lead from a standard mains outlet through an open window, charging is reliable (though obviously slower!) and I've yet to have a problem doing that. Here is said granny lead:
https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/81nNkhUzbZL._AC_SY450_.jpg

The charge point where the issue occurs is a tethered Smart Charger made by Indra (installed by ChargedEV) which looks like this: https://uploads-ssl.webflow.com/5fa17f477a07c8223b85a59c/60ddd5c0658d91a43a8ac3d7_Tethered%203962F2%400.3x-2.png
It came with a 3 year warranty so it's still under warranty.

The 'smart' features didn't work out too well for me, so I actually use the Smart Charger with it disconnected from the internet (it uses an ethernet cable) which means it should default to charging the car at the highest allowable speed whenever it's plugged in. So, at least in theory, the Smart Charger should not be deciding to delay charging until night time/off peak/low demand etc. However I don't trust it very much - I had some problems with it not behaving as expected when trying to use the 'smart' features. Having spent many months with it disconnected from the internet, it was problem-free until now.

The car is sadly not free of suspicion either... On two occasions when driving it has shown me a warning light on the dashboard - the yellow car outline with the ! symbol inside. The handbooks says something about a major electrical problem When this happened, it happened as soon as I turned the key to READY, and it stayed on until I finished my journey. Then when I turned the car off and on again, the warning light was gone, and stayed gone for many months. There was no noticeable effect on the car's performance, and the last time this happened was months ago so I hoped it was gone.

However last night for the first time I saw that warning light flash up on the dashboard at the moment the charging failed. I don't think it used to do this, though I don't always hang around to find out. So that made me question whether the Smart charger is at fault, or if it's the car.


Can anyone shed any light on whether I should be investigating the Smart Charger or the car?

My reasons to suspect the Smart Charger:
1) It used to play up when it was online, and stop charging against my wishes - though I believed this was because it was trying to wait until the grid was running on renewable wind energy at night time, and using it offline seemed to get around that.
2) The coloured LEDs on the Smart Charger are doing some stuff that doesn't really correspond to the error codes given in the PDF manual. Though I do wonder if it's had a firmware update from the internet and I just don't have a corresponding updated PDF manual.
3) I can charge fine using other sources, e.g. granny lead, and occasional Chademo or public AC charging via Type 2 to Type 1 cable.

My reasons to suspect the car:
1) The warning light.
2) We used to have similar problems when using a much older and tired-looking granny lead that came with the car... though with the new granny lead it seems fine.
3) Rumours of these cars having compatibility issues with certain charge points...

I have seen the enormous forum thread "Troubleshooting and repair for On-board Charger (OBC)" and I have to admit I am not technical enough to understand most of it. There is a Peugeot dealership about 30mins drive away who I would probably have to turn to, though my last experience with them (trying to recover the radio code) was not a brilliant one.

 

[kiev]

Howdy and welcome to the forum, sorry to hear of your issues.

My first guess after hearing many reports such as yours is to replace the 12V starter battery; it could very well be over 3 years old and given up the ghost.

An old, weak or worn out aux battery can cause a multitude of issues with an electric car as it provides all the low voltage supplies for the control units, relays and contactors.

Your intermittent symptoms for both charging and driving point to a weak 12V battery. If you have a voltmeter or digital multimeter you could check the voltage and verify if this is true.

Don't let it go too long as it is false economy to try to stretch out the expense here; the loss of 12V power could cause a domino effect that damages some very expensive and hard to reach components. It is a standard type 151R battery, and a new one may need to be charged first since the pandemic has caused on the shelf batteries to get stale.

 

[PV1]

Koorz does this on occasion when I charge from level 2 (240 volts) at work. Can’t figure it out. Charges perfectly from level 1 (120 volts). Took it to the dealer when it first happened but they said everything’s good. I suspect something with the charger is going out of spec and shutting down. It does the same thing on all 3 charging stations at work.

Never had the waning light stay on during READY because of it though.

 

[GregFordyce]

Try lubricating the gear selector at the back of the car. Mine gave similar symptoms when the gear selector was stiff after sitting for 2 years. The car won't charge if it's not in park and a stiff gear selector may be keeping it from fully engaging park and thereby causing the charging to stop.

 

[mbnvcxz]

Howdy and welcome to the forum, sorry to hear of your issues.
...
Your intermittent symptoms for both charging and driving point to a weak 12V battery. If you have a voltmeter or digital multimeter you could check the voltage and verify if this is true.

Don't let it go too long as it is false economy to try to stretch out the expense here; the loss of 12V power could cause a domino effect that damages some very expensive and hard to reach components. It is a standard type 151R battery, and a new one may need to be charged first since the pandemic has caused on the shelf batteries to get stale.

Thank you kiev, I do have a multimeter so I will check how the 12V is performing. I also appreciate the tip about batteries off the shelf that may have run down!

<span>Koorz does this on occasion when I charge from level 2 (240 volts) at work. Can’t figure it out. Charges perfectly from level 1 (120 volts). Took it to the dealer when it first happened but they said everything’s good. I suspect something with the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/?field-keywords=electric%20vehicle%20charger&tag=myelecarfor-20" class="interlinkr" target="_blank">charger</a> is going out of spec and shutting down. It does the same thing on all 3 charging stations at work. </span>

Never had the waning light stay on during READY because of it though.

Interesting, thanks for sharing your experience!

Try lubricating the gear selector at the back of the car. Mine gave similar symptoms when the gear selector was stiff after sitting for 2 years. The car won't charge if it's not in park and a stiff gear selector may be keeping it from fully engaging park and thereby causing the charging to stop.

I am intrigued by this and will definitely try to check it out. You have actually reminded me of something I forgot to mention - one time when repeatedly re-connecting the home charge point was not helping, I tried moving the car a few feet and putting it back in Park, and it did actually charge after that! So it sounds like at least a possibility. Any tips (or links to a guide) on how to access this gear selector? It sounds like you're not talking about the lever next to the driver's seat but something near the motor under the boot floor?

 

[GregFordyce]

Under the car at the back you will see where the selector cable attaches, if your not sure have someone move the gear lever, with parking brake firmly set, and you will see it moving at the back of the car. Spray grease, chain lube or penetrating oil will free it off. I think there is a guide on the forum here somewhere.

 

[mbnvcxz]

Your intermittent symptoms for both charging and driving point to a weak 12V battery. If you have a voltmeter or digital multimeter you could check the voltage and verify if this is true.

Ok, I left the car unused overnight and got some multimeter Voltage readings from the 12V battery:

Before turning anything on: 12.94
Ignition on/READY (the radio happened to be on, if relevant) 14.67
Plugged in to wall box charger (this seemed to be a successful charge) 14.65

Do those look healthy?

I also checked the date of when I replaced the 12V battery, it was Dec 2019 so it's just under 2 years old (still under 3y guarantee for what that's worth).


I will have a go at lubricating the Park/Drive selector thing next time my dad is over, he's better than me at this sort of thing.

 

[kiev]

That data looks good--12.94V before anything is turned ON is a good sign.

The 14V readings indicate that the DC/DC converter is working properly during charging and driving. It converts 360V from the pack down to ~14V to recharge the 12V battery.

One additional measurement to take: read the 12V battery voltage when the key is turned to ON but not started the car to READY, with the headlights ON and the inside blower fan turned ON to high. This will load the 12V battery without the help from the DCDC to see how it is holding under load.

 

[kiev]

Under the car at the back you will see where the selector cable attaches, if your not sure have someone move the gear lever, with parking brake firmly set, and you will see it moving at the back of the car. Spray grease, chain lube or penetrating oil will free it off. I think there is a guide on the forum here somewhere.

i had a good picture of the sensors on myevblog but that no longer exists. But here is a picture of the gearbox that you can easily see under the left rear of the car. The cable runs thru the U-shaped bracket to the ball end on the linkage. Some cars have 2 separate sensors with a linkage bar such as shown here, but others only have 1 with the redundancy built in to the sensor.

Just crawl under there and look around to get familiar with it all. Squirt some lube on all the link ends, the cable and anything that moves when the gear select is shifted from P to the bottom gate. The key will need to be turned to ACC or ON, and the brake pedal depressed to move the shifter lever, but car should be OFF when doing this (not in READY).

 

[ed5000]

I'm starting to have some similar charging issues with my silver I-miev. It indescriminately stops charging maybe a half hour later giving me about one bar on the fuel gauge. I get no error codes on the dash and my aux. battery is about 4 years old so I may just change it just to make sure.

A week ago I went to plug it in and it wouldn't start charging at all. I checked the mcu fuse and it was ok. I unbolted the J1772 port from the right rear of the car and tugged on it's short wires then plugged it back in and it started charging right away and has been charging for about a week just fine until last night. Does anyone know how to disconnect the yellow wires from the back of the charge port? Maybe the port need replacing?

Thank you,

Ed

 

[MickeyS70]

I came across a similar issue on a German forum https://www.goingelectric.de/forum/viewtopic.php?f=225&t=39628&hilit=CMU&start=10 turned out to be a CMU problem, one of the cells briefly reported a low voltage, charging stopped and once re-started usually worked fine again, seems to have been more pronounced in cold weather?!

 

[ed5000]

Thanks for the idea here. I started off by dissembling and cleaning out the charge port but I still couldn't charge yesterday.

Then I changed the starter battery today and tried charging and everything started working again. I'm just not sure for how long though.

Since there's no error codes I suspect the pilot signal maybe dropping out.

 

[mbnvcxz]

I don't really have anything to comment on the last two posts as I'm only guessing myself with all of this. But just to update on my own situation with intermittent charging failures.

My dad helped me lubricate the park/drive/reverse selector at the back of the car last November. This did seem to correlate with an improvement in charging. It went from around 50% success rate to around 90% success rate.

Recently, it has got worse again, back to maybe 50% or worse. I guess we could try some more lube and see if that helps - at least that might help to pin down whether that is the issue or not.

The other thing that occurred to me is whether it might be temperature (weather) related. It just so happened to be pretty good through the winter and dodgy again as the weather has warmed up.

I have been using the main plug/granny lead quite a bit lately and had 100% reliability with that, so I still have my suspicions it's our tethered wall box unit playing up. It's still under warranty until July so if nothing else helps, I might try to have that replaced (again).

 

[ed5000]

I don't really have anything to comment on the last two posts as I'm only guessing myself with all of this. But just to update on my own situation with intermittent charging failures.

My dad helped me lubricate the park/drive/reverse selector at the back of the car last November. This did seem to correlate with an improvement in charging. It went from around 50% success rate to around 90% success rate.

Recently, it has got worse again, back to maybe 50% or worse. I guess we could try some more lube and see if that helps - at least that might help to pin down whether that is the issue or not.

The other thing that occurred to me is whether it might be temperature (weather) related. It just so happened to be pretty good through the winter and dodgy again as the weather has warmed up.

I have been using the main plug/granny lead quite a bit lately and had 100% reliability with that, so I still have my suspicions it's our tethered wall box unit playing up. It's still under warranty until July so if nothing else helps, I might try to have that replaced (again).

I've been seeing some of the same issues. For me using the L1 evse seemed to work more often than L2 but right now with the new starter battery it's been working great. It charges on L1 and L2 just fine.

I also lubed to park/drive selector but it's been a couple years. I may do it again.

Thanks, Ed

 

[jray3]

Thanks for this good thread with some newer members! It's a reminder to me to go lubricate MR BEAN's gearbox lever, but I'd like to mention that I've seen physical resistance to inserting a J1772 handle on some vehicles such that EVen if the latch snaps down, insertion is incomplete and communications will be intermittent (especially in cold weather). So, I use a squirt of DeOxIt D5 spray from time to time on both the pins and the housing. It's a plastics-safe electronic contacts cleaner that my EV mentors swore by. It really makes a difference on my Kia SOUL EV, which has a charger handle retaining latch that acts up from time to time...

Good Luck
-Jay

 

[ed5000]

Thanks for this good thread with some newer members! It's a reminder to me to go lubricate MR BEAN's gearbox lever, but I'd like to mention that I've seen physical resistance to inserting a J1772 handle on some vehicles such that EVen if the latch snaps down, insertion is incomplete and communications will be intermittent (especially in cold weather). So, I use a squirt of DeOxIt D5 spray from time to time on both the pins and the housing. It's a plastics-safe electronic contacts cleaner that my EV mentors swore by. It really makes a difference on my Kia SOUL EV, which has a charger handle retaining latch that acts up from time to time...

Good Luck
-Jay

That sounds good. I just ordered a can so I'll be ready for the next time. Ed

 

[ed5000]

I just want to let everyone know my car has been charging great with the new 12 volt starter battery I installed recently until Saturday when I went to plug it in and nothing! I tried everything but no charging. I even tried 3 different EVSEs that I have and nothing.

Then I figured it out. We had a heat wave here in California on Friday the day before and I used the air conditioner for the first time in a while and had left it on. By leaving it on, for some reason, the charger would not work!

After thinking about it for a while thinking about what could be different I came upon the idea that I had used the AC. So I went out and turned it off and everything is working!

Has anyone else's I-Miev done this? Maybe I have a special model that prevents wasteful air conditioning while charging. :?: The funny thing is that the AC wouldn't run without the key in the car anyway.

Anyway, I'd like to say the car is still working great thanks to everyone here!