10mm Spanner

[SteveIsGreen]

It's been probably by written about before so apologies if it has?

Has this happened to you?

Twice this week I have had to reach into the glove box to grab the 10mm spanner to get my Zs up and running again.
It's now 11 months old and I have never had this happen until now.

You come to the end of a rapid charge or even on the one occasion on a 7Kwh Pod point and the car won't start.
Two Battery light's show up One red and one Orange and the car is dead.
I saw this had happened to someone on YouTube and they said they happened to have a spanner on them so disconnected the earth from the 12v Battery,
left it 30 seconds or so then put it back on and it worked.

So I brought a cheap 10mm and threw it in the glove box. Glad I did now. A recovery would of taken a hr to get to me. Chances are they may not of known what to do so a longer wait for a flat bed to be tow to a dealership to have??

I think it is because if you sat in the car while it is charging with the radio on, after a time it will shut off so I hit the start/stop to turn thee radio back on.
So something might be happening because of the mutably switching on and off?

It's due for it's first service (Lights and levels check!) soon so that is now on the list of extras along with the clunk in the steering and the info screen going blank from time to time.
It's got all the common bugs bless it.
The car has had no updates so know/hope any updates are sorted then.

Just wondered what stories you may have on the fault?

 

[Jomarkh]

You certainly have a list for them to sort.
Will you have the low mileage service?
Did you charge to 100% on the rapid?
Do you know what BMS you have?

 

[SteveIsGreen]

You certainly have a list for them to sort.
Will you have the low mileage service?
Did you charge to 100% on the rapid?
Do you know what BMS you have?

1st years service. It's only done 5000mls. (I blame that on Covid)
No too not 100%. I'm a wise old soul. Been driving 6 year in EV's so I got the basic's lol.
The first time it happen I was waiting to pick up my kid and was just topping up on a pod point 7Kwh. Car was at about 50% and I was charging for 30ish mins. So grab 3%ish
The rapid charge I took it to 80%. As always. Just not worth sitting around waiting and so on
BMS should be fine? Not looked at the voltage lately. I mostly charge from home on solar overspill and cheap rate grid and rarely charge to 100% because I mainly don't need too

 

[Jomarkh]

I should have guessed you have had ev's when you used the title '10mm spanner'

 

[Lovemyev]

Some folks have said that they find powering everything down, before they end the charge can help avoid this “locking up” issue.
Some have also said, that by locking up the car and walking away for 20 mins can reset the car.
Not ideal, but has been known to work.
Of course the 13 volt battery disconnect is a favoured option.
The latest BMS update is aimed at allowing the car to get passed 80% on certain rapid units, apparently???.

 

[JodyS21]

I'm seriously thinking of fitting a car battery terminal isolator switch just in case it happens to ours.

 

[SteveIsGreen]

I'm seriously thinking of fitting a car battery terminal isolator switch just in case it happens to ours.

10mm in the glove box is just as easy. It take no effort to undo the earth.

 

[JodyS21]

10mm in the glove box is just as easy. It take no effort to undo the earth.

The response I would get from my wife if she was stuck and I said "just use the 10mm spanner from the glovebox to take the battery terminal off and then put it back on" would not be nice.....

 

[Lovemyev]

I'm seriously thinking of fitting a car battery terminal isolator switch just in case it happens to ours.

To be honest @JodyS21 I though about doing the same thing, but as @StevieJ said, whipping off the negative terminal on the 12 volt takes about 5 seconds.
I just found a spare 10mm spanner then placed it in a small resealable plastic bag, then taped the bag to the side of the battery.
The bag rest's on the battery tray, then just a bit of strong tape to hold the top of the bag to the battery case.
Just saves it rattling around in the glovebox.
If this is not practical, then yeah - go for the battery isolation switch !.

 

[Dave53]

It's been probably written about before so apologies if it has?

Has this happened to you?

Twice this week I have had to reach into the glove box to grab the 10mm spanner to get my Zs up and running again.
It's now 11 months old and I have never had this happen until now.

You come to the end of a rapid charge or even on the one occasion on a 7Kwh Pod point and the car won't start.
Two Battery light's show up One red and one Orange and the car is dead.
I saw this had happened to someone on YouTube and they said they happened to have a spanner on them so disconnected the earth from the 12v Battery,
left it for 30 seconds or so then put it back on and it worked.

So I brought a cheap 10mm and threw it in the glove box. Glad I did now. Recovery would have taken an hr to get to me. Chances are they may not have known what to do so a long wait for a flatbed to be towed to a dealership to have??

I think it is because if you sat in the car while it is charging with the radio on, after a time it will shut off so I hit the start/stop to turn the radio back on.
So something might be happening because of the mutably switching on and off?

It's due for its first service (Light check) soon so that is now on the list of extras along with the clunk in the steering and the info screen going blank from time to time.
It's got all the bugs bless it. The car has had no updates so know/hope any updates are sorted then.

Just wondered what stories you may have on the fault?

My car like dome others went one step further and had to get the AA to come out, the magic 10mm spanner did nothing, locking the car, turning it off and on a few times did nothing, recovered to the garage, which I was happy about as all the updates were applied, no new BMS number shows on the OBD app. updates were just added to original BMS, now the bit of other magic if all else fails is use your OBD dongle on the Torque and clear all the fault codes, I had read before but forgot when my car was recovered that 2 previous people in the same situation as me, the garage and the AA man did this when all else failed and it worked, when I went to pick up the car they as good as saying that they had erased the fault codes and applied all the updates for the car, lower top voltage, infotainment update ( it is now a lot quicker), the car is running great again, and KERS on full charge etc.

 

[Srp111]

Interesting , never heard of this before but thanks for the tip

 

[Tim Green]

I hope this does not happen to me! I didn't pay about £25k to have this kind of BS.
It would be back to the trade in garage. (But I have put a 10mm spanner in the glovebox)!

 

[Lovemyev]

I hope this does not happen to me! I didn't pay about £25k to have this kind of BS.
It would be back to the trade in garage. (But I have put a 10mm spanner in the glovebox)!

Don’t worry, It has not happened on every car Tim.
It’s just a bit of a “Safe Guard Plan” that can get you out of tight fix, instead of waiting for the recovery people, maybe.
This problem appears to manifest itself when the car is subjected to a few limited set’s of circumstances.
A common situation ( but not in every case ) appears to be at certain rapid chargers.
The method of how YOU complete the charge cycle can upset the car if it’s rushed or incorrectly followed.
E.G. - Owners have experienced problems when trying to drive away, after pressing the START button, then switching the gear selector into reverse or drive BEFORE the car has fully booted into the READY status.
The car does not like this and refuses to move and throws up warning lights.
This not just limited to the ZSEV buy the way.
I have witnessed this on my previous VW PHEV,
Similar situation with the charging protocol.
Conduct the steps in the correct order and allow the car a little time to process just what is going on.
I also carry a 10mm spanner in the hope that I never need it.
A bit like the decision / option to carry a spare wheel or a small battery boost pack around really.
Why not ???????.

 

[Dave53]

My car like ome others went one step further and had to get the AA to come out, the magic 10mm spanner did nothing, locking the car, turning it off and on a few times did nothing, recovered to the garage, which I was happy about as all the updates were applied, no new BMS number shows on the OBD app. updates were just added to original BMS, now the bit of other magic if all else fails is use your OBD dongle on the Torque and clear all the fault codes, I had read before but forgot when my car was recovered that 2 previous people in the same situation as me, the garage and the AA man did this when all else failed and it worked, when I went to pick up the car they as good as saying that they had erased the fault codes and applied all the updates for the car, lower top voltage, infotainment update ( it is now a lot quicker), the car is running great again, and KERS on full charge etc.

I hope this does not happen to me! I didn't pay about £25k to have this kind of BS.
It would be back to the trade in the garage. (But I have put a 10mm spanner in the glovebox)!

To be fair it was in my opinion the power point that caused the issue and not the car due to its error. In my opinion, there is a total lack of good servicing on most power points and needs to be addressed.

 

[JodyS21]

To be honest although it is very annoying, these things do go wrong with such tech, we’ve all had to hard reboot numerous devices and still do occasionally.
I think the issue is the lack of foresight by MG (this is a common theme) to not have an accessible hard power reboot switch. The ideal solution (as used on many devices) is to code the start button such that if it’s pressed for say 30secs causes a complete hard reboot.

 

[RichardC]

Don’t worry, It has not happened on every car Tim.
It’s just a bit of a “Safe Guard Plan” that can get you out of tight fix, instead of waiting for the recovery people, maybe.
This problem appears to manifest itself when the car is subjected to a few limited set’s of circumstances.
A common situation ( but not in every case ) appears to be at certain rapid chargers.
The method of how YOU complete the charge cycle can upset the car if it’s rushed or incorrectly followed.
E.G. - Owners have experienced problems when trying to drive away, after pressing the START button, then switching the gear selector into reverse or drive BEFORE the car has fully booted into the READY status.
The car does not like this and refuses to move and throws up warning lights.
This not just limited to the ZSEV buy the way.
I have witnessed this on my previous VW PHEV,
Similar situation with the charging protocol.
Conduct the steps in the correct order and allow the car a little time to process just what is going on.
I also carry a 10mm spanner in the hope that I never need it.
A bit like the decision / option to carry a spare wheel or a small battery boost pack around really.
Why not ???????.

I had the starting sequence problem last week. I got in and did not think about what i was doing. But I knew I had done something wrong and got the warning lights.
The trusty 10mm soon cured the issue. Now I am extra careful about getting the starting sequence correct.

 

[JCFlippen]

I’ve been looking at other forums and found that Zoe and ID3 amongst others have had variations on the same fault. 10mm spanner useful for many marques.

 

[Lovemyev]

I’ve been looking at other forums and found that Zoe and ID3 amongst others have had variations on the same fault. 10mm spanner useful for many marques.

As said above, I did this once in my VW PHEV.
Pressed the START button and dragged back the gear selector into “D” before the car had fully booted.
It came up with a yellow hybrid failure warning and contact your dealer urgently !.
The car refused to move in any gear.
I shut down the car, jumped out ( leaving my bewildered passengers looking on ) then locked all of the doors.
Waited for about 30 seconds, then unlocked the door, jumped in again and booted up the car.
This time making sure I give the car enough time to complete the start up cycle.
Car booted up fine, pulled the car into drive and off we went !.
No spanner required, no warning lights on the dash, car was completely back to normal.
With the MG - it just sounds a little less forgiving in this type of situation.
I firmly believe it is trying to interpret so many commands ALL at the same time, it just says, you know what, I can’t coup with this and therefore, falls completely on its arse and locks up !.
The old 12 volt disconnect CAN clear it’s head and allow you to start over again.
A relative had a similar situation a few months ago with his ZS EV.
Pulled into a parking space and closed the car down, left the car and then locked the doors, then looked back ( as you do ) and decided he would move the car a little more forward.
Jumped back in ( in a hurry ) and pressed the START button.
Then switched the car into drive TOO early.
Car decided throw a massive wobble and the dash was lite up like a Christmas tree !.
No drive no nothing.
Rang the A.A. and luckily, he was there in 15 minutes.
Straight away, he did state that he knew nothing about EV’s - but that a few of his fellow workers had disconnected and then reconnected the 12 volts battery, with amount of success.
This he did and after about 2 minutes he said :- “Try that m8”.
Worked like a boss !.
Even he was a little taken back to be honest.
“First EV fix” - He said.
My relative now carry’s a 10mm spanner in the glove box at all times of course.
Maybe somebody should design a small sticker in the shape of a spanner that can be attached to the boot lid and placed under the ZS EV badge !.
Each time you need to use it, you add another spanner sticker along side each other, how funny would THAT be .
Clear evidence to the dealer that your car is suffering from “Spanner Syndrome”.
A little like the WW2 planes had on them.

 

[Deleted member 2439]

I hope this does not happen to me! I didn't pay about £25k to have this kind of BS.
It would be back to the trade in garage. (But I have put a 10mm spanner in the glovebox)!

Like it or not - you are an early adopter of technology. It’s not called “bleeding edge” for nothing.

 

[Chrispydoc]

My 5 year old Mitsubishi PHEV sometimes needs the 10 mm spanner treatment. Not a big deal.