Renault 5 E Tech has now stopped charging
Because we have a flexible lifestyle we don’t need to charge overnight and set schedules, so all we’re trying to do is the most basic operation which is to plug in the car whenever it needs a charge, and at any time of day, and the OVO tariff gives us a flat discounted rate for that.
We had eight successful charges. I would plug in, make sure the car scheduling (via MyRenualt App) was Off, and set to Instantaneous Charging and then click on “Charge Now” in the car App. Although there would be a pause each time of a few minutes, and the command seems to not get through a few times, this charging worked 8 times in a row.
(The car has never charged directly from plugging in, it has always required a command to trigger it. It would be wonderful if I can just connect it to the charger and it starts charging, but it has never done that.)
Then, on Thursday afternoon and Friday morning last week the car simply wouldn’t charge. I’ve tried all the usual workarounds:
- close the apps reopen them,
- take the My Renault app off the phone, then re-load and re-pair the car with the app,
- soft reset the car,
- make sure that the Car charge scheduling is not switched on so it conflicts with the OVO schedule,
- set the OVO schedule for the “car ready” time and the OVO schedule told me the car would start charging at 7:30 in the morning, and it didn’t.
- lock and unlock while connected, and have the key near the car
- The final override was to press the “cancel all schedule charges” button in the charger flap on the car, to start immediate charging, but this didn’t work, and then
- finally to go back to the OVO app to set "Urgent Charge", which means that overrides everything and we charge it to higher cost rate per kilowatt, but that didn’t work either. My first two charges were using this more expensive emergency tariff as I was getting used to charging, so it had been working.
Throughout all of this, the Car display would be saying “Checking” and the charger indicator on the car simply flashed white, and from the Renault manual this means “Charger Not Connected Correctly”, but of course it was plugged in, and I waggle tested it, and it required the ‘unlock’ button to remove it.
The Hypervolt and OVO Apps also both showed the car as connected, but waiting for a charge to start, so they had both located the car as being connected to the charger.
I also did a diagnostic check on the Hypervolt charger and this showed everything working as it should.
The car has returned to the dealers for checking.
My key question, Why would I get 8 successful charges, and then not able to charge again?
