[uktp]

Hi, I have a 2015 Zoe in 22 kwh and a Rolec home charger, all bought and installed 2 years ago. We have been using a Tesla 3 from on.to for the last 2 months and sharing the charger with no problems. Although when you have a Tesla you use the Zoe a little less. The charger was working fine with the Tesla anyway.

Anyway now the Tesla has gone I plug in the Zoe and get the "Check Charging Post" error.

It is hit and miss. I have tried supporting the cable and resetting it and sometimes it works sometimes not.

Yesterday I tried in the middle of the day and got the message> So unplugged locked the car and came back 20 minutes later and then it did start charging. So then I set the timer for my Octopus Go 12.30 and came back this morning to find it hadn't charged.

By chance I had a service with Renault yesterday and asked them to look at it. Instant response, no consideration, was "that will require a diagnostics check at a cost of £280". This annoyed me just a little. So I tried- "have you heard of the error before", "do you have any ideas of what it could be" and got the "it is an electric car and they are very complicated we can only tell you what is wrong if you pay" response. Anyway I declined their offer as I had no confidence that the diagnostics would actually give a clear answer- apart from it being a disgraceful rip off.

As far as I can see it could be any of the following

• faulty charger, that upsets the Zoe but not the Tesla, some mentions of the Zoe being overly sensitive
• intermittent earthing problem, due to what? sensitive Zoe doesn't like it
• faulty Zoe, but no idea what it could be
• some talk of the 12V battery possibly being the problem, I will get it tested but would have thought Renault would have checked it as part of the service

Anyway with the many experts here I would be very grateful if anyone has some suggestions. I will try and get the charge point installer to tell me what they suggest as well.
thanks!

 

[rossnruss]

Seem to remember reading about the earthing issues with Zoe as well, ours has come up with the error on occasion and usually happens with the same chargers.

Is she charging more reliably on public posts? I think some people have solved the issue by soaking the soil near their earth rod to improve conductivity?

£280 for a diagnostic is excessive. Have just fought our garage for a warranty claim and after finally having it accepted they've said the warranty will only cover 50% of the diagnostic. I expect this is because they are charging well above the going rate. Seems to be active hostility towards these products from some dealers.

 

[Spike]

Check the pins on the car and your charging cable. Presume you are using a different cable for each car? On our Zoes we found that the charge port pins needed a clean with switch/contact cleaner when we were getting charge errors. If yours is a 2015, they may just need a bit of a clean up. Also, does your Rolec have a separate earth rod? Zoe is very sensitive on earth leakage. Others have found a bucket of water poured around the rod helps to resolve charge errors.

 

[NGee]

Before spending any money, try the following:

Find your earth rod
Pour about 250g table salt into a 7.5litre watering can and mix
Slowly pour salted water around earth rod so it soaks in nicely
Wait 30 minutes
Try again

We have the same reported issue at the end of long dry spell when the ground conductivity gets too low for Zoe. The Leaf doesn't care, but Zoe seems more sensitive. This fixes it every time.

Apparently having a pee every so often over the earth rod will have the same effect, but I'm not so keen on that solution!

 

[uktp]

Thanks everyone. I think I know where the earth rod is and would try this. In the meanwhile, 1) the installer is happy to come out 2) I pressed the T button on the RCD and now the switch is all floppy and I can't switch it back on- any ideas?

If it is as simple as earthing the rod it is really shocking that Renault try and charge like this.

 

[Zarni]

Ah, it's gone all floppy . To reset try pushing the switch down first then up.

Most charging problems I've seen or heard about that refer to the earthing give a "Battery Charging Impossible" error. Can't say I've ever heard of the "Check the charging post" though, still adding the water around the earth rod can't hurt.

Do you have a granny charger you could try? Just to prove the car is fine.

If G.a.r.y is about he might be able to say what messages he had on the his black Zoe he repaired. There was mention that the charging problem was down to dirty pins on the car end. It might make sense if you haven't used it that much.

 

[BogieMan]

Using a Konnwei OBD and the CanZe software on an android phone will allow the Zoé to tell you what it thinks the earth resistance is. It may also give you fault codes and more, for a cost of less than 10% of £280 !
Shocking what some garages will charge for some things, I expect them to make a profit, but not take the proverbial.
It doesn't seem to be an earth problem as the problem is intermittent in a short time period.
If your 12v battery has not been renewed it might be prudent to change it yourself, I wouldn't bother with your garage with their price markups.

 

[uktp]

Thanks everyone. The charging point installer came out to have a look, which was very good of them. It looks like it was an earthing problem as this was below the level the Zoe needs. Few buckets of water and it seems to be OK again. They said it is a well known problem with Zoes. It is clearly shocking that SMC Renault didn't know this could be the problem before inviting me to spend £280 on a diagnostics check. So the current dealer has lost our business.

 

[NGee]

Good news - a cheap fix.

Did the installer say what the level is that causes problems to Zoe, or what the reading he was getting was?

 

[uktp]

I think it was 120 ohms and he said the Zoe is famously picky. I am going to attach another earth stake to the existing one and hopefully that will help.

 

[NGee]

That sounds about right as I think the accepted safe limit for earthing on a dwelling is 200 ohms, so Zoe is quite picky as I imagine this limit is pretty cautious.

We had a measurement of our earthing at 50 ohms when the ground was wet, and we're getting an earth rod attached directly to the charging post and put into a big of ground which isn't exposed to sunlight so will hopefully stay damper for longer...