So I have been driving the rental Hyundai for 8 days now and last night while driving home from work I was listening to a story on NPR about the new Volt and the LA auto show and thought about how little I like the idea of the "backup gas engine". But it also made me think that I haven't put gas in the in the rental all week. Sure enough I look down and the gauge is below empty and the little gas pump light is on. No fancy warning bells or anything and I had not noticed. I made it off my exit a few mile ahead and filled up. I can't wait to get #269 back on Monday.
So I got the call Friday that I would be getting #269 back because it is keeping a charge fine and there is nothing wrong. Apparently I am going to get a call from Mini to arrange for them to come out and check out the car at my house with my charger to try to diagnose what is happening.
We will see.
I got a big laugh from that.
ReplyDeleteMy #458 goes in for 13,000 mile checkup on Wednesday, I bet they don't figure out the charging problem on mine either. It has been worse lately. I get the red light often, saying the Ground Fault Interrupter tripped.
One thing, it usually only happens to me when the charge is low, almost never if it is above 50%. Have you seen a similar pattern?
Michael,
ReplyDeleteThere seems to be a small group of people here in New Jersey (5-10) experiencing the charging issue that you are. One of the people having this difficulty posted on the MINI-E Facebook page that he had visits to his house by BMW engineers to look into it. It really seems that it is a supply problem. Most of the people having problems can charge up at other locations (like the dealership) without a problem but when they get the car home, they get the same thing, they plug in, get a couple blinks and then it stops charging.
I'll have to dig around facebook again, not my favorite place but that is where the info is.
ReplyDeleteBut it is NOT a supply problem, the problem is the car is being too fussy. And they have to fix it or this will never fly in production.
So did you get yours back? Any trouble still?
got it back, pluggged it in when i got home from dealweship. Red light on the CC box
ReplyDeleteMike, I wonder if you might have AC voltage that is on the high side? Mine is over 125 volts at the regular house plus so it is over 250 volts on the car charger.
ReplyDeleteThe car probably has a limit that it thinks is too high, and maybe the limit has drifted down too low with the cold.
Do you have an electric dryer or stove you could turn on to try to load down your supply voltage before you plug in the car?
I will try something similar.
Jim McL