Preheat cabin

[matejF]

Does preheating the cabin from the app drain the battery, or will it use the charger if the car is plugged in?

 

[MG Clive]

One will cancel the other out if the battery is on charge at the same time, in other words, you'll be putting as much in with the charging as you'll take out with the pre-heating. But pre-heating doesn't actually use up as much as you might think, probably less than 2% for 10 minutes.

 

[TimothyN]

My app tells me that it's preheating, with the seat and steering wheel heat on, but when I get out there it isn't. It's never worked.

 

[Lovemyev]

Hang on ?.
Are we getting our wires crossed here a bit.
Are we talking about selecting the preheating of the traction battery, or preheating of the internal cabin space here, sorry I am a bit confused here .
@TimothyN I have never had a problem with preheating the front seats in our S5.
I request each seat individually it in the App and it comes back with a successful message on each seat.
Not tried the steering wheel preheating from the App yet, but I know it works inside of the car,
Never had a heated steering wheel before, it feels nice and a little strange at first .

 

[Ian Key]

A rough calculation somewhere on the MG4 forum shows that pre-heating the traction battery isn't worth it unless the journey is over 37 miles as the increased efficiency needs that distance to counteract the energy used.

Normally in the UK, unless the temperature gets well below zero or you need to save time at a rapid charger, it's not needed.

 

[MG Clive]

Hang on ?.
Are we getting our wires crossed here a bit.
Are we talking about selecting the preheating of the traction battery, or preheating of the internal cabin space here, sorry I am a bit confused here .

Well the original question was about heating the interior cabin

 

[DaveIJ]

Mine works fine, just got in a frost free and warm car

 

[TimothyN]

Mine acknowledges the request and shows the seat and steering wheel on, as well as the air flowing into the cabin.

The only teeny, weeny little glitch (barely worth mentioning, I know) is that it doesn't actually happen in the car.

But I only paid £24k for it, so meh!

 

[Lovemyev]

Here is one I have not seen before ?.
Anybody else seen this message in the App when requesting to preheat this morning.
Opened the car and made a short trip, locked it up again, tried it again and it worked fine.
Odd - Bugs at work I guess .

 

[mdiox]

Mine works fine, just got in a frost free and warm car

Id fall asleep... so comfy

 

[Jazzyboy]

Yeah mine works fine so far. You can't have Air Con and seats, its either or. If it don't work then it's a warranty issue.....

 

[T1 Terry]

Still battling with the concept of a preheated steering wheel ..... must be a UK thing
The pre heat in my MG4 51 is a tad excessive at this time of yr, steering wheel too hot to touch and an instant layer of sweat before the ready light comes on and the air con starts ...... parking in the shade would help, but we don't have any here on the workshop block ......

T1 Terry

 

[nem]

The buggy app (not turning on AC etc.) is not new. I would suggest you try to use the white (original) theme in the app @TimothyN. I know, it sounds ridiculous...

I too had issues with the app during the summer when i wanted to turn on AC to cool down the car, but while it usually worked and turned on the fan, it never actually turned on the AC...
After changing the theme in the app to the white one it started working. Give it a shot and feel free to report how it works for you!

 

[TimothyN]

That particular piece of voodoo would seem to be beyond rationality, and mine was already white, but I have changed it to the other colour and back again, just in case Tinkerbell is right, and fairies do exist!

I would guess that the magic you saw was closer to a pattern recognition issue, such as the act of going into settings and out again was what fixed it, as opposed to it really being the white theme.

But who knows? Least of all the developers, I imagine...

 

[Lovemyev]

Yeah mine works fine so far. You can't have Air Con and seats, its either or. If it don't work then it's a warranty issue.....

That explains why my heated seats where still cold yesterday then .
I first requested "preheat the cabin" from the App and it returned as a "OK - request successful".
Then did the same thing for the heated seats, it also returned "OK - Successful".
But the seating did not work ?.
So, it appears that the car can only process the first request you make, NOT any other following
requests, even though the App reports them as OK - "successful".
You have to decide which single feature is your major priority.
I tend to think preheating the cabin, then manually switching on the seats / steering wheel heater if required, when you enter the car maybe the best fit for the frosty glass winter months ?.

 

[TimothyN]

That might explain my problems as well. That's pants.

 

[Lovemyev]

That might explain my problems as well. That's pants.

Tim - I am not 100% sure if ALL S5’s are the same ?.
This is purely what I have witnessed on our car .
I don’t really understand why it appears that you can only appear to have one selection of preheated item, over more than one item myself ?.
Is there a concern with regards to depleting the 12 volt battery here ???.
The heated seats / steering wheel heater and blower fan motor in the heater box are all powered by the 12 volt battery.
Recharging of that 12 volt battery is supplied when the car is in full ready mode.
But the cabin resistor heater element, needs the high power from the traction battery, as the 12 volt battery is not capable of producing enough juice for the heater element.
Therefore the traction battery must be back feeding / charging the 12 volt battery somehow surely ?.
So, does that eliminate any issue that the 12 volt battery could be compromised by suppling power to both the heated seats and steering wheel etc ?.
The car may have the ability to run the other preheat features, but fails to obey the command sent from the App then ?.
The ZS EV did have the ability to heat the front seats from the App on the higher spec model made for Thailand, but not for model intended for the U.K. market strangly enough.
It was originally and option on the App to turn on the heated seats, but it never worked and was quickly removed, together with a few options on the App being deleted.
It appeared to work a bit like this, try to get it to work correctly, if not, just remove it from the App !.
The App health check for the S5 reports less now than the previous models, there is no indication of 12 volt battery status anymore, which I believe on a EV is very important !.