Anyone else struggling with scheduled charging (eON)?

[BZ4XGrr]

Hi All,

First time posting here, but I've run out of options and need someone to tell me I'm not mad.

We took ownership of a brand new BZ4X in January and we are having a nightmare with it.

Around 25% of the time, the car will fail to charge.

We are with eON and will plug the car in around 10 or 11pm before we go to bed. There is no charging schedule set on the car; instead, our eON Next app has the schedule set to run between 00:15 and 06:45 when our rates are cheapest. Our tariff is eON drive.

Most of the time, we wake up and all is fine. However, 1 in 4 times we wake up to find that the car hasn't charged overnight.

In the eON app, it shows the car as 'plugged in but not charging'. When we look at the insights, it shows a charging session of 6:30 hours but with zero KWH drawn.

Our car has been in and out of the garage on three separate occasions and is currently with them now, with the highest level escalation to Toyota HO, but they are unable to find any fault or replicate the issue.

We are also experiencing the issue at public chargers, including my workplace. So, not just scheduled chargers, but immediate charges also - multiple locations, multiple charging point providers, multiple cables and multiple users.

We have raised a support ticket with eON who have looked at the logs and can't see anything wrong with the charger: they are seeing an error code that shows the car is suspending the charge.

We've eliminated WIFI as a potential cause. Our local Toyota garage have been supportive, but unable to find any issue; once we started saying we wanted to return the car their salesperson adopted quite a different tone and suggested we can't give it back because they can't find a fault.

So, we are now paying £500 a month for a car that fails to charge 25% of the time, where we can't rely on it for its intended purpose.

Looking at these forums I can see a few other threads from people experiencing charging issues. I'd like to know other people's experiences, but also advice on where we go from here: the garage don't seem able to replicate the issue, but it doesn't surprise me because they have totally different infrastructure to us at home.

Help, please!!

[JonathanP]

What charger do you have at home, as I assume EON should be telling the charger when to charge?

The only time I had an issue with overnight charging is when I unlocked the car, which with the Zappi seems to unlock the charging port.
Is the EON tarrif only active at night as I wonder if you can plug it in during the day and tell it you want a 90% charge by 4am, as that should force it to charge during the day (assuming EON cheaper rate is limited to only overnight, Octopus isn't as it will charge at the cheaper rate as long as it's scheduled via them).

I assume you hear the cable lock in place and you have tried a different cable (maybe the garage will be kind enough to lend you one they know works).

When you say you have issues out of the house I assume you mean on the Type 2 connector and not the CCS.
Also check Zapmap to check that issues haven't been reported with the charging unit by other people.

Most issues do seem to be down to the 'smart' electric tariff and OHME chargers seem to have more problems than others (but that could just be down to more people having on OHME charger)

[BZ4XGrr]

We have got the Vestel-type charger (the standard one eON offers), but we've experienced the same issue with EVC+ public chargers, as well as PodPoint chargers. All on the Type 2 connectors.

The eON tariff is between midnight and 7am, so we have the schedule set 00:15 - 06:45 just to ensure we don't go over - this is set up in the eON app and the car itself has no schedule set. 

We hear the cable lock click in place and have tried different cables - we've experienced the issue in different locations, using different cables, both scheduled and unscheduled, with different users (my wife and me). Initially Toyota tried to suggest it was because we weren't using an official Toyota cable, but they don't sell a cable longer than 5 metres and our car is 8 metres from the charging point. Also, we've had the issue with the official cable also.

We've tried lots of different things. One thing I have noticed is that you really do need to hold the charging cable in for a good few seconds to get it to definitely lock correctly. It's ridiculous. I see other people pull up in their Leaf / Tesla etc, chuck their cable into the socket and then walk away. For us, we have to hold the cable in for 5 seconds until it clicks, then I have to open the app and do a 'boost' to make sure it charges (which takes up to 10 minutes, as eON build in a random delay), and then I have to cancel the boost and leave it to scheduled charge.

I can't just 'plug it in and walk away'.

I am very confident that the issue is with the car. The fact that my eON app shows 6:30 hours of charging but 0 KWH charged on multiple occasions means it recognises that the car is plugged in, but the error is that the car is not authorising the charge, or it is suspending the charge in some way.

We really want to give the car back but the garage are arguing that because they can't find a fault, they can't accept the car back. But they are not checking for a fault in the same set of circumstances as we are: they are just plugging the car into an always-on charging point.

[wivenhoe]

Is the charge trouble free on an DC public charger or have you only used AC chargers. My Lexus RZ failed to charge on AC but was ok on DC chargers so they replaced the AC charging module. No issues since.
On the RZ forum somebody had the same ‘clicking’ issue and had some bits replaced. 

[BZ4XGrr]

Hi - Both on DC and AC chargers, same issue. I've shared feedback with Toyota garage as I'm sure it's something on the charging connection car-side that's the problem. The issue is there are so few BZ4X on UK roads that the garages don't really have experience of the diagnostics on them.