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Eurotunnel Nightmare Charge!!!! and a quick question!

SimmieC

Standard Member
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May 15, 2021
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Location
87000 Limoges
Driving
MG ZS EV
Hi All,

First of all Happy Christmas.
Now for the warning.... BE VERY CAREFUL IF YOU ARE THINKING OF USING THE FREE RAPID CHARGER AT EUROTUNNEL
I live in France and my wife and I decided to come back to the UK for the holidays. I am the proud owner of a 6 month old MG ZS EV and I have previously done a number of long trips in the car, so I was quite confident in where to stop etc.
Setting off at 5 in the morning I came across my first situation of the windscreen icing on the inside (yes the inside). Obviously I needed to use the a/c to keep the screen clear. This leads me to a quick question!!!!!
Can I use just the fan on the heating system or can I disable/ isolate the a/c side of the system???
Anyway, after a few more than planed stops, we made it to Calais Eurotunnel terminal. We arrived with time to do a rapid charge (as it was free) before getting onto the train. They have installed a new charger so I was optimistic it would be working. How wrong I was!!
I plugged the car in and waved my card in front of the machine and it excepted it. OK so far, then I received the message on the dash 'Connected but not charging' which as we know always comes up just before the charge starts. So I waited and waited and waited but no further messages came up. So I checked the machine and it showed there was power trying to go in but it wasn't charging? So I thought not a problem I'll wait and charge the other side, so I stopped the charge and got in the car to move it away from the machine as the Chademo might work and I'm considerate like that.
This is when the messages did start to come up on my dash... first 'System Fault' and then 'HV Battery Shut Off'. OH *****.
I've read about similar situations so I locked the car and left it for 10 mins and tried again.. NOPE.
I disconnected the battery (with the 10mm spanner I knew to keep in the glove-box) but.... NOPE.
So out of ideas, I asked a member of staff for help. From this point on it all got very stressful (and tearful, none from me I will add) but the members of staff at Eurotunnel and the recovery truck driver and the insurance people we have been dealing with and the car hire company and the staff at the hotel we had to stay at and the taxi drivers who collected us, have all been very very understanding an helpful and sympathetic.
So in conclusion 'Don't charge at the new charger at Eurotunnel' (maybe I should have just put this at the start and left it at that!!
If you made it this far through my rant, thank you and any comment or ideas of what the problem may have been or an answer to my other question would be much appreciated.
Simon
 
Did you turn the car off before you plugged it in ?
Re- the fault message, did you turn the car off before you unplugged it ?
I know on a rapid you can have the car in Ready mode, but the manual tells you to turn it off before plugging in, Page 150:
Rapid Charging Safety Precautions
• Before connecting the rapid charger, switch the vehicle
power system OFF and wait 10 seconds.
 
I'm 90% sure I did switch off, as it makes sure when you exit the car (lots of bongs!!), to let you know it's still switched on. As for waiting 10 seconds, that I'm less sure of as it was blooming cold and wanted to get into the warm terminal building as soon as possible.
If that was the problem any ideas (for future reference) how to fix it or reset the system??
 
I'm 90% sure I did switch off, as it makes sure when you exit the car (lots of bongs!!), to let you know it's still switched on. As for waiting 10 seconds, that I'm less sure of as it was blooming cold and wanted to get into the warm terminal building as soon as possible.
If that was the problem any ideas (for future reference) how to fix it or reset the system??
Because disconnecting the 12v with the 10mm didn't work, I can only suggest you switch off and wait next time. ;)
 
Hi @SimmieC , my wife and I (and two small children) have exactly the same problem (Calais EuroTunnel charger, HV Battery Shut Off error in our MG 5 EV).

How did you get home in the end?

Was the car fixed in France?
Was it transported to the UK for repair?
How was thw car fixed?

Any ideas or assistance greatly appreciated.

Here is the original thread I started yesterday: Emergency - stranded in France

Charles

P.S. Sadly we had not read your original post above before trying to charge our car at Calais :(
 
Hi Charles,

I get these messages set through to me work e-mails so I've only just picked this up.
As I purchased the car in France (I live in the South West) it was a bit easier in regards to the repair.
The car was taken to the nearest MG garage (Lille) and as it was Christmas it took a few days to be repaired. The guy at the garage said there were no parts required it was a form of system reboot and all was OK.
He said we were the first to come from Calais but he knows of 2 other chargers that will do the same to the car. He told me where they were but didn't know what the make was!!
Our insurance was very helpful in organising hotels, taxis and hire car but as I said we have a French car/insurance.
One thing I do know is it was covered by the warranty so we paid nothing, it was just bloody inconvenient.
Please send me an update when you can and let me know if I can help!!!! (not sure how but..)
 
Hi SimmieC,

Thanks for this info, it was reassuring to read.

We have just been informed our car is being taken to Lille too, so they will have experience fixing this problem.

Our insurance said we could book the hotel for another night, so we have somewhere to stay today whilst we wait.
 
Hi Charles,

Good to hear you have a plan.
Unfortunately, Calais isn't the most attractive town to be stuck in. However, there is CityEurope!!!
If you have a chance could you please take a photo of the offending charger and put it on this thread as I would like to know what the make is for later avoidance.
Keep me/us updated with your adventure and good luck.
Simon
 
[ Edit: These are not the right chargers! See 3 posts down. ]

They're an unusual type of rapid charger, one that I'm not familiar with.

The closest I can come is a poor match to these Chinese chargers (Eurotunnel on the left, Grasen chargers on the right):

Eurotunnel rapid chargers.jpg
Grasen 60kw-dc-charging-ev45051804086.jpg


They have the chamfer/octagonal look, but the cable attachments are totally different. The nozzles and their attachment points look different too.

Anyone else find a better match?
 
Last edited:
Hi Charles,

Good to hear you have a plan.
Unfortunately, Calais isn't the most attractive town to be stuck in. However, there is CityEurope!!!
If you have a chance could you please take a photo of the offending charger and put it on this thread as I would like to know what the make is for later avoidance.
Keep me/us updated with your adventure and good luck.
Simon
This is the charger we connected to at Euro Tunnel Calais, following which the fault in our car appeared. I am not a charger or car technition and have no access to diagnostic data, so there is no way I can say that it was the charger that caused the fault in the car. It is possible that the fault with our car would have occured when we had next tried to charge, irrespective of any particular charger we had used.

PXL_20220219_132234392~3.jpg
 
If it helps, same thing happened to me at the same charger on Wednesday. Disconnecting the low voltage battery briefly worked for me thankfully.
 
If it helps, same thing happened to me at the same charger on Wednesday. Disconnecting the low voltage battery briefly worked for me thankfully.
Oh no, that's really unfortunate.

Very glad to hear you managed to resolve it quickly yourself though.
 
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