My ZS EV can't drive more than 60 miles before desperately needing to charge.

[Genni]

My zs ev is fairly new and I have had battery problems with it since the get go but the sales people keeps trying to dob me off with rubbish excuses or telling me It's normal. My car cant drive 60miles without desperately needing a charge. It's not driving style either. I've tried eco/normal, different kers levels for different roads. It doesn't matter if I'm on country lanes or a big A road or motorway. I also can never use the fans in my car if my journey is more than 30 miles because that zaps the milage as well. My car went into services yesterday for the 3rd time in the less than 8 months since I've had the car. 1st time because it wouldnt charge, then because it was draining too quickly and also getting rejected by charging stations and now because the red "please slow charge the vehicle" error keeps popping despite having slow charged the vehicle many times now as well as the poor milage my car is getting. Is anyone having these similar issues with their cars? I'm way passed p****ed off cause I keeps getting alot of sales rubbish from the guys who sold it to me and no one actually seems to be fixing it. Is this just that the make is rubbish and everyone has this rubbish car or is mine broken?

 

[mj224]

60 miles is totally unacceptable. At this time of year, 150+ would be the minimum, depending on driving style.

Are you happy that you are charging it correctly? And not using heating and Aircon excessively?

Can you get to talk to the service manager, and show him the problem? In Swansea we have an excellent service manager, helpful and informative.

Someone has to listen to you, shouting always works, after fair warning..Good Luck..

 

[mystreet]

From what you have put, I would bet that you have the bad BMS software and your batteries are way out. Insist thst the garage updates your BMS software to the latest version.

Can you try another dealer

 

[ChrisT]

I am getting 140 to 160 miles range so it sounds like you have an issue. Possibly something is draining the battery or the battery is not healthy. Has the garage health checked the battery. How many miles are you getting per bar, remembering that not all bars are equal. Maybe do a test yourself and use the tripometer to get the real range , dont use the GOM. Make sure the car is fully charging to 100% before starting. Plugging the car in to charge gives the battery charge on the dash for a few mins so you can see what's left. Forget Kers, the car should still be giving 140 range when driven normally and in normal road conditions.

 

[Genni]

60 miles is totally unacceptable. At this time of year, 150+ would be the minimum, depending on driving style.

Are you happy that you are charging it correctly? And not using heating and Aircon excessively?

Can you get to talk to the service manager, and show him the problem? In Swansea we have an excellent service manager, helpful and informative.

Someone has to listen to you, shouting always works, after fair warning..Good Luck..

Thanks for the response. I am happy I am charging it correctly and as I mentioned I can barely put the fans on for fear I won't reach my destination sometimes. Twice now I have been stuck at a services with the charging ports not acknowledging my car and 4 times now I have barely made it to my destination with the battery light flashing at me to charge. I take it your own car doesn't have this problem?

 

[Genni]

From what you have put, I would bet that you have the bad BMS software and your batteries are way out. Insist thst the garage updates your BMS software to the latest version.

Can you try another dealer

Hi, they mentioned that they had a procedure done to it yesterday when it went in again. What is the BMS software?

 

[Genni]

I am getting 140 to 160 miles range so it sounds like you have an issue. Possibly something is draining the battery or the battery is not healthy. Has the garage health checked the battery. How many miles are you getting per bar, remembering that not all bars are equal. Maybe do a test yourself and use the tripometer to get the real range , dont use the GOM. Make sure the car is fully charging to 100% before starting. Plugging the car in to charge gives the battery charge on the dash for a few mins so you can see what's left. Forget Kers, the car should still be giving 140 range when driven normally and in normal road conditions.

Hi my car has had to go in to the servicing dept about 3 or 4 times now, all for battery issues. Either not charging, or taking 24 hours to charge, or draining really quickly, or not giving me the milage it should or battery warnings popping up. Each time I have been given some crap excuse as to why it absolutely
must be my driving style or charging style. They do some updates and tell me it's fine and then the issues come back or persist. I set off on a 65 mile journey the other weekend with my car telling me I had more than 170 miles in the car. I managed to roll to my destination with less than 10 miles left on the electric (a very tense journey as I had long since past the last charging point). this was in eco mode, no fans on.

 

[ChrisT]

As above it may be the BMS issue. Can the garage take it for a test drive. They could drive it to see what range its giving. That would confirm to them that the issue is not driver related. They dont have to drive far, reset the tripometer, make sure they know to starting battery percentage by plugging it in to charge and then drive it 30 miles or so?

 

[Genni]

60 miles is totally unacceptable. At this time of year, 150+ would be the minimum, depending on driving style.

Are you happy that you are charging it correctly? And not using heating and Aircon excessively?

Can you get to talk to the service manager, and show him the problem? In Swansea we have an excellent service manager, helpful and informative.

Someone has to listen to you, shouting always works, after fair warning..Good Luck..

 

[Genni]

As above it may be the BMS issue. Can the garage take it for a test drive. They could drive it to see what range its giving. That would confirm to them that the issue is not driver related. They dont have to drive far, reset the tripometer, make sure they know to starting battery percentage by plugging it in to charge and then drive it 30 miles or so?

Yes I think now I should have insisted they test it out with a proper drive. I'm not sure when I will know of it is fixed because I am too nervous to take it on any journey more than 50 miles or so because it has never been able to handle the journey comfortably and I dont want to get stranded in some Welsh mountains somewhere.

 

[Paulie68]

Yes I think now I should have insisted they test it out with a proper drive. I'm not sure when I will know of it is fixed because I am too nervous to take it on any journey more than 50 miles or so because it has never been able to handle the journey comfortably and I dont want to get stranded in some Welsh mountains somewhere.

First thing to do, after you've fully charged your car, scroll down to the electrical information part of the dash display and tell us what the voltage is showing. Anything less than 449v, and the issue is the faulty BMS mentioned.

Even if you drove like a maniac in cold rainy weather with the air con and heating on, you'd be hard pressed to get less than 100 miles if the car is functioning normally! Your dealer is crap, are there any others not too far away you could contact?

 

[Genni]

First thing to do, after you've fully charged your car, scroll down to the electrical information part of the dash display and tell us what the voltage is showing. Anything less than 449v, and the issue is the faulty BMS mentioned.

Even if you drove like a maniac in cold rainy weather with the air con and heating on, you'd be hard pressed to get less than 100 miles if the car is functioning normally! Your dealer is crap, are there any others not too far away you could contact?

Thanks for that, I will check the voltage on it and see what it says. Obviously it has just got back from the service dept today and they told me that MG had told them they had to do some sort of update so hopefully that was it and now the problem is fixed. I'm glad you say that it should be able to do 100miles easily even in bad conditions and with fans because my dealers have tried to convince me so many times that its my driving. They are totally crap and I have had to take my car to the next nearest twice already in my desperation to get issues fixed.

 

[Mark Holmes]

My zs ev is fairly new and I have had battery problems with it since the get go but the sales people keeps trying to dob me off with rubbish excuses or telling me It's normal. My car cant drive 60miles without desperately needing a charge. It's not driving style either. I've tried eco/normal, different kers levels for different roads. It doesn't matter if I'm on country lanes or a big A road or motorway. I also can never use the fans in my car if my journey is more than 30 miles because that zaps the milage as well. My car went into services yesterday for the 3rd time in the less than 8 months since I've had the car. 1st time because it wouldnt charge, then because it was draining too quickly and also getting rejected by charging stations and now because the red "please slow charge the vehicle" error keeps popping despite having slow charged the vehicle many times now as well as the poor milage my car is getting. Is anyone having these similar issues with their cars? I'm way passed p****ed off cause I keeps getting alot of sales rubbish from the guys who sold it to me and no one actually seems to be fixing it. Is this just that the make is rubbish and everyone has this rubbish car or is mine broken?

I’m wondering if you had the dodgy BMS installed on your car. I’d get it in to be check at another dealer ASAP the update is free and you should be easily exceeding the predicted 163 miles this time of the year...

 

[Mark Holmes]

Thanks for that, I will check the voltage on it and see what it says. Obviously it has just got back from the service dept today and they told me that MG had told them they had to do some sort of update so hopefully that was it and now the problem is fixed. I'm glad you say that it should be able to do 100miles easily even in bad conditions and with fans because my dealers have tried to convince me so many times that its my driving. They are totally crap and I have had to take my car to the next nearest twice already in my desperation to get issues fixed.

As Paulie68 has quoted check your voltage when fully charged is should be about 449 volts...that will be a very good indication if it’s the BMS or not.

 

[Kithmo]

60 miles seems very low, even for the bad BMS, it could be a faulty battery.
A duff cell would throw up the slow charge warning because it would be way out of balance with one (or more) duff cell(s).

 

[micky]

60 miles seems very low, even for the bad BMS, it could be a faulty battery.
A duff cell would throw up the slow charge warning because it would be way out of balance with one (or more) duff cell(s).

hi genni just read everythink its awful what you are going thro it does look like you may have the faulty BMS the latest is EU01 ! even if they have updated to the latest you may find you will need to balance your battery after each charge which could take many hours of balancing to bring the voltage backup to 450 volts

 

[Dave53]

Hi Genni
According to what I have been told if you have the faulty BMS, your supplying dealer should have been given information from MG to recall the car for the update, if they have done this fine what they may have not done is fix the damage to the battery balance, that can take many hours, again what I have heard the dealer should do this for you until it's back to a healthy state and the dealer should give you a courtesy car and claim the costs from MG due to it being MG's issue with the faulty BMS, good luck and hope you get it sorted out.

 

[Genni]

Thanks all, I will check the voltage next time it's charged and see how it goes. Hopefully whatever they did to it yesterday qill have fixed it. They didn't tell me it may take a few charges for it to fully sort out the problem though so my thanks to you guys.

hi genni just read everythink its awful what you are going thro it does look like you may have the faulty BMS the latest is EU01 ! even if they have updated to the latest you may find you will need to balance your battery after each charge which could take many hours of balancing to bring the voltage backup to 450 volts

Yes hopefully whatever they did to it yesterday was this. Next time it's charged I'll chexk the voltage. At least now I know that I can expect it to take a few charges to resolve because I wasn't told this at the garage

 

[Dodger]

Who is your dealer?

 

[mystreet]

Who is your dealer?

It might be the one near Ikea Birmingham but only @Genni can tell us.