Charger Malfunction - charging interrupted mid-charge

[Larry_in_Seattle]

If this thread exists elsewhere, please feel free to move this to the appropriate place. I couldn't find one. I am an out-of-CA owner, so this is a really important topic for me!

Wednesday night, I set my car for extended charge (BTW, I never use timer based charging) knowing I had a long trip ahead on Thursday. Battery was low with maybe 25 miles range showing. About 30-40 minutes later I get an email from Entune telling me that charging was interrupted. I was up to about 39 miles on the GOM and sure enough, the charger had stopped working. My Ecotality (Blink) charger has been working flawlessly with the RAV 4 since day 1 (beginning of May), but I unplugged it from the car, waited 10 minutes or so, and plugged it back in. Charging started again and I went to bed.

Upon waking on Thursday morning I see that at 1 AM I got another email telling me that charging was interrupted. I had something like 46 minutes of charging before it shut off again, and only 77 miles of range showing. "Check EV system" warning is also lit. At that point I bailed on the RAV4 for the day and took the Jetta. I also decided to use my JESLA as I was "Sure" it was an EVSE problem. I left fully expecting to have a fully charged car upon my return in the evening. However, after my morning meetings I checked email and discovered that charging was interrupted and quit once again. Range shows 103 miles on this 'extended' charge, and says charging time is 30 minutes at 240V. Now I'm pretty sure that it is the car's charger that is causing the problem as how likely would it be that 2 different EVSE's were bad at exactly the same time.

I called Carson Toyota and spoke with Sean in the service department. He wasn't aware of others with this specific problem but said others HAD experienced charging problems using non-Toyota approved EVSE's. I've had zero problems with either Blink or JESLA up until this time. He suggested 'rebooting' the system by turning the car on and off 5 or 6 times and see if that would clear up the problem. (I forgot to ask whether that meant in rapid succession or spaced over time.)

Here's what I did when I got home, and the results:
1. Turned on car, Check EV Sytsem message lit.
2. Turned off car immediately, and tried again less than a minute later. Same warning but drove car for 10 minutes or so before turning off.
3. Turned car ON again about 1 minute after turning off. Check EV Warning still on.
4. 45 minutes later, turned on the car and NO EV warning light. Tried 3 times in a row. Each time no warning. Let's try charging again!
5. Plugged in again to charge up to 100% extended charge. Entune message says "Charge Completed", GOM says 119 miles. Turned on car. No warning lights.
3. Friday morning (today): Started up with no EV System warnings, drove to my appointments for the day with no repeat of the error message.

QUESTIONS:
1. Anyone else experience this kind of problem?
2. Is it being overly optimistic to believe that simply cycling the power a few times cleared the error code and that everything is now fine?

I wish I could simply take it to my local Toyota dealer or Tesla dealer, but as of now that isn't an option.

Your thoughts or experiences?

 

[miimura]

I'm sorry you're in this situation, but I think the only way to know for sure what's going on is to connect a Techstream laptop to the Tesla OBD in the back of the car with the special cable. There is a chance that a Techstream connected to the Toyota OBD would give a useful code, but I wouldn't count on it. The only bright side is that the On-Board Charger is covered by the Powertrain Warranty.

Edit: I think your situation is similar to madcow as described in this thread. He is in Hawaii and was able to get the problem resolved after much back and forth with Toyota Customer Support. It turned out that he needed a coolant pump to be replaced. That is why it would charge for a little while and then stop. Presumably the charger was overheating due to lack of coolant flow.

Good Luck.

 

[Larry_in_Seattle]

Thanks Miimura,

Hawaii and Seattle have quite different weather and my charger had issues at night when the outdoor air temps were around 55F..maybe a few degrees more.

Sure wish someone with access to the cable and laptop from an authorized EV shop would consider a trip to Seattle and check out the dozen or so RAV4's here. Better yet, I wish Toyota would allow those WA dealers who will cover the expense to send their techs to be trained on the RAV4 EV and to buy the diagnostic equipment. Guess that's a pipe-dream at this point, but maybe some day....

 

[miimura]

Hawaii and Seattle have quite different weather and my charger had issues at night when the outdoor air temps were around 55F..maybe a few degrees more.

Without any coolant flowing, I doubt the ambient temperature has any bearing on whether the charger will overheat or not. It is a small unit that generates concentrated heat. If the coolant is not flowing, it will certainly overheat to the point of shutdown within a short time.

 

[TonyWilliams]

Hawaii and Seattle have quite different weather and my charger had issues at night when the outdoor air temps were around 55F..maybe a few degrees more.

Without any coolant flowing, I doubt the ambient temperature has any bearing on whether the charger will overheat or not. It is a small unit that generates concentrated heat. If the coolant is not flowing, it will certainly overheat to the point of shutdown within a short time.

Exactly. Ambient temperature has very little to do with it.