Demo new car - air conditioner compressor not working (many fault codes)

[Temjin]

I recently purchased a demo new MG HS EV PLUS from Tasmania, Australia and had it delivered to Brisbane, Australia. (it's far and across the ocean!) I was really looking forward to the car, and I thought the risk of not "inspecting" the vehicle was minimal because it's a demo new with less than 100 km in it.

Unfortunately, I picked up the car yesterday and drove it straight (flat EV battery, on petrol only) without air conditioning. The fans were blowing, but I set everything to the max and still, no cold air was blowing. Besides that, the car drove perfectly fine, and I even charged it to full last night and could drive it in EV mode with no issues.

I called all the MG dealers in Brisbane only to find out they could not even look at the car until a month later! (one dealer had a 2-month wait!) It's ridiculous, and I never expected such a lack of MG dealer service capacity in my city. It's hot and humid in Brisbane, so driving the car during the day is extremely uncomfortable. I wouldn't even consider allowing my family with two young children to sit in the car because of the heat.

I called the dealer from Tasmania, and they offered to reimburse me for any repairs if I brought it to an independent auto air conditioner specialist. So I did that, and the guy told me the faults were out of their league. There were too many fault codes. I've attached three photos that they showed me, but there is one fault code (not in the image) that says "air conditioning compressor low or insufficient voltage" (or similar).

I'm waiting for a faster solution from the Tasmania dealer, but until then, has anyone faced a similar issue?

The car is demo new, but I'm very surprised the dealer in Tasmania has not picked up the air conditioner issue (and all the other fault codes) before delivering it to me. I was told the car had actually not been driven by any customers before I brought it.

So I am really disappointed with MG right now, or maybe it's just pure bad luck on me for getting a dud car.

 

[Coulomb]

So I did that, and the guy told me the faults were out of their league. There were too many fault codes. I've attached three photos that they showed me,

I don't know plug-in hybrids, but on a pure EV, a slew of unrelated errors like that is often caused by a poorly charged and/or faulty auxiliary (12 V) battery. Your car has presumably been on a car carrier (road and/or ship) for many days, perhaps weeks, and they may not have done the right thing with a battery saver, causing the 12 V battery to lose charge.

The good news is that you can probably just charge the auxiliary battery with an ordinary 12 V battery charger (give it a good charge, at least overnight unless it's a very powerful charger), and try to reset as many codes as you can with an OBD2 scanner. Maybe the air conditioning place can do that for you with the scanner in the photos. At that point, maybe the air conditioning will even come good, but if it doesn't, at least they won't be overwhelmed by spurious trouble codes, so they may be able to take the job on after all.

With all the computers on modern cars, and the fact that MGs don't seem to periodically charge the auxiliary battery from the main battery like other EVs and presumably PHEVs do, this is unfortunately not an uncommon problem. Good luck; you need that air conditioning working in Brissie ASAP!

 

[Temjin]

Thanks mate. The dealer from Tassie also mentioned the possibility of the 12V battery being the issue. But I could drive the car back from the depot to my home on with the EV battery flat. (was 0% when I picked it up)

There are also no warning messages/prompts on the instrument pack. Not even the "12V Battery Charging System Fault". I would have thought something would pop up with so many fault codes.
I will try the car battery charger tomorrow, but I don't have an OBD2 scanner, so I am not sure how to reset it.

At one point, I was told it could be a refrigerant issue. (from the Tassie dealer) But I queried why they hadn't picked up this when the car was initially imported over. And I didn't think the cars had to be degassed before being shipped over.

Is MG service always that busy in Brisbane? It's crazy I have to wait at least 4 weeks just to get it in for a check.