[Adski]

I'm back in the world of Zoe! So Hi to everyone out there. We're going to lease a 135 GT Line ZE 50 Rapid Charge and it looks like it is coming a bit quicker than I was expecting. I'm looking forward to it but I am sure it will have as many quirks as my first Zoe. So my question is is there anything I should look out for on delivery: ie are there any major issues that I should check for before accepting the car?

 

[dbsanfte]

Check that the heating works. A/C repairs on a Zoe can get expensive.

 

[G.a.r.y]

Check that the heating works. A/C repairs on a Zoe can get expensive.

Its a brand new car so any repairs would be under warranty.

Common issues with the ZE50 are a creaking from the tailgate (welding issue), the connected services not working (i.e. app on your phone cant communicate with the car) and a software (BMS) issue giving artificially low battery health, affecting range. Ask the dealer where it is coming from if these things have been checked/resolved before delivery. The creaking tailgate seems particularly common !

Cheers.

 

[Adski]

Thanks. All exactly the kind of things I need to know. Is there away of checking the tailgate without driving it?

 

[cah197]

Check that the heating works. A/C repairs on a Zoe can get expensive.

It’s a brand new car.

 

[Adski]

It’s a brand new car.

Shame to hear that heating/ac is still a thing with the Zoe.

 

[cah197]

Shame to hear that heating/ac is still a thing with the Zoe.

It’s not.

 

[MrMoonUK]

It’s not.

this compared to my older Zoe the new one is miles better on heating

however I still don’t think it’s a £30k car, and Renault are still useless, my remote aircon doesn’t work after 3 attempts. By the time they fix it my lease will be up

 

[Adski]

this compared to my older Zoe the new one is miles better on heating

however I still don’t think it’s a £30k car, and Renault are still useless, my remote aircon doesn’t work after 3 attempts. By the time they fix it my lease will be up

It's not really a £30K though is it? Nobody is paying that for one or leasing one based on list price. A top of the line GT is pretty much the cheapest electric car out there. Certainly to lease.

 

[Matthew]

this compared to my older Zoe the new one is miles better on heating

however I still don’t think it’s a £30k car, and Renault are still useless, my remote aircon doesn’t work after 3 attempts. By the time they fix it my lease will be up

The car is connected to EE.. if you have the remote aircon patch applied to fix it and especially if you're finding it works in some locations but not others, check you're in an area of EE coverage. Also remote aircon doesn't appear to work when the car is not locked. As for heating performance.. I think the ZE50 has a cabin PTC that kicks in at the lower temps, I can hear it clicking off and on. Didn't notice one in the ZE40

It's not really a £30K though is it? Nobody is paying that for one or leasing one based on list price. A top of the line GT is pretty much the cheapest electric car out there. Certainly to lease.

Agree. I'd like to see some decent competitors but nobody has managed to convince me that VW have a clue what they're doing right now either

 

[Adski]

Had the Zoe for a few days now and took it on it's first long out of town trip. Drove from London to North Gloucestershire then down to Bristol, then from Bristol to Southampton and back to London. (All legitimate travel within Covid regs BTW). Without experience of Motorway and A Road travel in ZE50 I'd factored in a few top up charges and a longer stop in Bristol. But wow. The car easily handled the leg to Bristol with plenty to spare. Left on a CCS charger for an hour whilst I did my errands the car then returned to London via Southampton with plenty of remaining range. For the last part I realised I could do the whole M3 at 'normal' (cough-cough) ICE motorway speeds. The car is a totally practical longer range motor car and I can think of only 2 or 3 trips a year I do where I'm even going to even have to think about the fact that it is an EV. Temp was 8-10°C throughout. Around my part of London with 20 mph speed limits it is almost impossible to get the range to go down and it looks like free top ups while shopping are going to cover nearly all our fuel needs week to week.

 

[cah197]

The Zoe 50 is a real step up from the old one on motorways.

Great to have the acceleration on tap, as well as Rapid charging.

 

[Adski]

Only downside Android Auto cut out several times when phone attached via USB. Is that a thing or my mobile perhaps? Also it was a shame to lose the Sat Nav map from between the dials when using navigation via Android.

 

[cah197]

Only downside Android Auto cut out several times when phone attached via USB. Is that a thing or my mobile perhaps? Also it was a shame to lose the Sat Nav map from between the dials when using navigation via Android.

That happens to me, not just with the Zoe.

It’s when the cable gets knocked.

 

[Matthew]

That happens to me, not just with the Zoe.

It’s when the cable gets knocked.

I started having it on Apple Carplay. I changed the cable been fine since. Also something about Carplay can really mess up Siri and make apps not start properly (some sort of memory leak).. it's a bug in iOS and giving the phone a reboot fixes it until a week later where I use the car again to roll the tyres and the phone plays up a day later again.

All this is a really long rambly post to basically say - try a different cable 😂 and reboot your phone.

 

[Adski]

Yes I replaced the cable and never had an issue since. Though I tend to use Renault's own navigation more than I thought I would as I like having the map between the dials on the driver display.