Can charge but cannot supercharge

[Olle]

That started in this thread, approximately in this comment by @Yanquetino .

Power Conversion System (PCS) failure

Well, you should see the core charge on the estimate when they ask you to pay. If it's not there, or if it's small enough, definitely ask to take the parts. They assume you aren't keeping it and don't put the core charge on until you ask to keep the old parts. (At least that is how I have seen it.)

teslamotorsclub.com

You can follow a lot of the progress in his comments throughout that thread, and he linked to a personal web page narrating the saga here too:

Casteyanqui.com | Electric Vehicles | My Battery Warranty Dispute with Tesla

And the topic of the arbitration process itself did get split off into its own dedicated forum thread here:

Arbitration decision of my PCS dispute

I know that many forum members in this thread have been waiting to hear the outcome of my arbitration dispute with Tesla over our PCS breakdowns. I can report that yesterday I finally received notification that the arbitrator decided for Tesla —not for me. More specifically, the arbitrator...

teslamotorsclub.com

Interesting, but also different from my case which involved the Pack HV contactors in a legacy Model S

@Yanquetino 's case involves the PCS, which is essentially analogous to the charger in a legacy S, which is not covered under 8 year battery warranty.
Although it is a stretch to call the PCS external to the 3Y battery in its penthouse, it would be beyond a stretch to call the S HV contactors external.


They are not in the penthouse, but inside the main pack and require seal breach and pack deformation of main case to access. Therefore I don't believe that the arbitration has any bearing on the S HV contactor but is merely a misunderstanding by my service advisor. It was obvious that he didn't know the difference between 3 and S as he stated the contractors are in the penthouse which is a battery attachment and not part of battery. If this turns out to be their official opinion I will have to sue for breach of contract. It would likely be a net loss for me but I feel its my responsibility as a shareholder to help stop Tesla from shitting on even the most loyal customers. The warranty is crystal clear.

With all due respect I have to admit that my SA was totally unprofessional. He suggested a couple of different repairs including said contactors. Once I pushed back on the customer pay vs warranty he just said no repair needed, vehicle now works as designed. I asked to see the test log but he claimed its proprietary. So essentially paid over $500 diagnostic fees for nothing. When I came to pick the car up this guy was sitting by the window. I knocked but he pretended to stare down on his desk and refused to open the door. Luckily the car was accessible so I paid through the app and drove it home. Still with intermittent charging probably...
Oh and one more thing: They texted and threatened me with a storage fee if I didn't pick the car up within 24 hours of notification of completion.

 

[mongo]

Interesting, but also different from my case which involved the Pack HV contactors in a legacy Model S

@Yanquetino 's case involves the PCS, which is essentially analogous to the charger in a legacy S, which is not covered under 8 year battery warranty.
Although it is a stretch to call the PCS external to the 3Y battery in its penthouse, it would be beyond a stretch to call the S HV contactors external.


They are not in the penthouse, but inside the main pack and require seal breach and pack deformation of main case to access. Therefore I don't believe that the arbitration has any bearing on the S HV contactor but is merely a misunderstanding by my service advisor. It was obvious that he didn't know the difference between 3 and S as he stated the contractors are in the penthouse which is a battery attachment and not part of battery. If this turns out to be their official opinion I will have to sue for breach of contract. It would likely be a net loss for me but I feel its my responsibility as a shareholder to help stop Tesla from shitting on even the most loyal customers. The warranty is crystal clear.

With all due respect I have to admit that my SA was totally unprofessional. He suggested a couple of different repairs including said contactors. Once I pushed back on the customer pay vs warranty he just said no repair needed, vehicle now works as designed. I asked to see the test log but he claimed its proprietary. So essentially paid over $500 diagnostic fees for nothing. When I came to pick the car up this guy was sitting by the window. I knocked but he pretended to stare down on his desk and refused to open the door. Luckily the car was accessible so I paid through the app and drove it home. Still with intermittent charging probably...

Maybe I missed it, but what are the vehicle's symptoms?
Main pack contactors would cause more issues than lack of DC fast charging and the 2016 DC charging contactors are outside the main pack structure as far as I can tell.

 

[Olle]

Maybe I missed it, but what are the vehicle's symptoms?
Main pack contactors would cause more issues than lack of DC fast charging and the 2016 DC charging contactors are outside the main pack structure as far as I can tell.

You are correct, failed pack contactors should cause more issues (such as inability to drive).
The reason for the discussion is that Tesla wanted customer pay when they initially thought that pack contactors were the issue.

Vehicle Symptoms at four consecutive DC and three AC chargers were the following:

If I recall, Service mode showed "state change denied" hundreds of times in a list, during the AC charge attempt.

service center wrote:
"Concern: Customer states: Charging - Will not accept charge. Says “state change refused” was the error message. We tried 4 different super chargers & 3 different destinations chargers
Repair Notes: Got the vehicle inside the shop and to verified customer concern plug it in the shop SC and couldn’t replicate customer concern, vehicle was supercharging properly.
Found customer concern was related to a possible power grid problem on the first attempt on the first supercharger, this affected the charger voltage calibration making the customer concern alert ''state change refused''. This concern was no longer present after the customer successfully AC charge for a short while to calibrate the Charger or let the vehicle do a sleep cycle to clear the voltage calibration. Proactively check wiring and connections from charge port to charger and no problems found. Test the vehicle again after this findings and customer vehicle successfully supercharging and AC charging on factory recommendation. Verified with regional engineering that all charging components are operating as designed, and verified identical operation using known- good parts as well. Vehicle is releasable and fully inspected."

Btw others charged at the SC with the alleged grid issue, including another legacy S.

 

[mongo]

You are correct, failed pack contactors should cause more issues (such as inability to drive).
The reason for the discussion is that Tesla wanted customer pay when they initially thought that pack contactors were the issue.

Vehicle Symptoms at four consecutive DC and three AC chargers were the following:
View attachment 1035474
View attachment 1035473
If I recall, Service mode showed "state change denied" hundreds of times in a list, during the AC charge attempt.

service center wrote:
"Concern: Customer states: Charging - Will not accept charge. Says “state change refused” was the error message. We tried 4 different super chargers & 3 different destinations chargers
Repair Notes: Got the vehicle inside the shop and to verified customer concern plug it in the shop SC and couldn’t replicate customer concern, vehicle was supercharging properly.
Found customer concern was related to a possible power grid problem on the first attempt on the first supercharger, this affected the charger voltage calibration making the customer concern alert ''state change refused''. This concern was no longer present after the customer successfully AC charge for a short while to calibrate the Charger or let the vehicle do a sleep cycle to clear the voltage calibration. Proactively check wiring and connections from charge port to charger and no problems found. Test the vehicle again after this findings and customer vehicle successfully supercharging and AC charging on factory recommendation. Verified with regional engineering that all charging components are operating as designed, and verified identical operation using known- good parts as well. Vehicle is releasable and fully inspected."

Btw others charged at the SC with the alleged grid issue, including another legacy S.

Oh, so there is no repair happening with your vehicle. That's a plus!

 

[Olle]

Oh, so there is no repair happening with your vehicle. That's a plus!

Yes, if it works. I have low confidence since they can't explain how to avoid this issue in the future and don't want to show diagnostic logs

 

[J-a-x]

It’s interesting to know that the issue that I had could be resolvable by AC charging for a while then going back to a supercharger. That is exactly what I tried when I had my issue actually, not having known it was a fix but instead trying to prove it was not the supercharger causing the issue. The first charge bay I tried was defective, and the 2nd one didn’t fully charge my car, and the 3rd one I tried had a car charging on it moments before and also didn’t charge for me, so I was pretty sure it was not just the original faulting supercharger stall causing the issue. Tesla still initially tried to claim that it was only that I had been using a faulty supercharger. I then L2 charged for a few hours so I could get back home and then again tried two more superchargers (different locations) before going in for service to prove to them that it was not simply due to a faulty supercharger.

It’s interesting to know though that “fully AC charge for a short while to calibrate the Charger or let the vehicle do a sleep cycle to clear the voltage calibration” and resolve a similar issue…

Also its worth noting that when my failure happened it was mid way through a charge, and at first I was able to unplug and replug the charge cable and make it resume, then it charged for 5 min and faulted again, and then I think I got it to charge for 1 minute then it faulted again, and then 30 seconds, faulted again, and after that never again. So maybe the pattern of failure says something about the cause…

 

[BizBloom]

Hi. Started looking around to try and do some diligence first before posting but there's a number of ways to slice this and I finally just decided that this thread seems new enough to see if I could chime in with my own info as well as my own issue. If I should spin off a new thread just say the word. Quick info on my situation. We have 2013 MS 60 RWD. Purchased used in early 2018, we are second owner. We have had the car 6 years. Have had a number of issues to deal with but by and far things have been ok. However, latest set of issues is trying my pocket book from lack of right-to-repair. I've done the brakes, changed the sway bar links, but pretty much paid for all other work - such as MCU2 upgrade, front suspension, door handles, etc. However, in Feb we got the warning that the HV Fuse need replaced. $994 later... good grief. That's fine, as a supporter of early adoption early engineering is going to have its faults - I'm fine with that. But, then we take a trip three weeks later and find out we can't supercharge. Level 2 at home or out-an-about is fine. Supercharger screen fault 'Unable to charge, Disconnect cable and retry'. Charge port goes red each time. We then had the 12v replaced due to warning and thought maybe, just maybe, that was related. Nope. They tried at the SC and no-go. Tech said to double check we still have free supercharging on our account, done. Estimate quote by SC is $2900 with $2400 for the part. I rebut that we had supercharging before the HV Fuse was replaced and now we don't have it. SC doesn't care to even entertain the idea that maybe they are connected. I've asked for the diagnostics and for an estimate of just the fuse replacements only (if that's it). Still waiting on response. So, here I am, checking out how to troubleshoot an onboard charger. From the video's out there (thanks to all those that post) this seems like a job I can tackle mechanically. However, the coolant purge using the Toolbox software is still a concern so I'm starting that research. Finally, what I haven't been able to find yet is info on the two fuses in the OBC to tell if they could indeed be part of the circuitry to where maybe one blew (DC?) and the other is good (AC?) - just a total guess at their purpose right now. So, with that I'm curious to if anyone knows more details, or recalls another post that might, on the OBC fuses and then anyone done a coolant air purge without the Toolbox?

 

[mongo]

Hi. Started looking around to try and do some diligence first before posting but there's a number of ways to slice this and I finally just decided that this thread seems new enough to see if I could chime in with my own info as well as my own issue. If I should spin off a new thread just say the word. Quick info on my situation. We have 2013 MS 60 RWD. Purchased used in early 2018, we are second owner. We have had the car 6 years. Have had a number of issues to deal with but by and far things have been ok. However, latest set of issues is trying my pocket book from lack of right-to-repair. I've done the brakes, changed the sway bar links, but pretty much paid for all other work - such as MCU2 upgrade, front suspension, door handles, etc. However, in Feb we got the warning that the HV Fuse need replaced. $994 later... good grief. That's fine, as a supporter of early adoption early engineering is going to have its faults - I'm fine with that. But, then we take a trip three weeks later and find out we can't supercharge. Level 2 at home or out-an-about is fine. Supercharger screen fault 'Unable to charge, Disconnect cable and retry'. Charge port goes red each time. We then had the 12v replaced due to warning and thought maybe, just maybe, that was related. Nope. They tried at the SC and no-go. Tech said to double check we still have free supercharging on our account, done. Estimate quote by SC is $2900 with $2400 for the part. I rebut that we had supercharging before the HV Fuse was replaced and now we don't have it. SC doesn't care to even entertain the idea that maybe they are connected. I've asked for the diagnostics and for an estimate of just the fuse replacements only (if that's it). Still waiting on response. So, here I am, checking out how to troubleshoot an onboard charger. From the video's out there (thanks to all those that post) this seems like a job I can tackle mechanically. However, the coolant purge using the Toolbox software is still a concern so I'm starting that research. Finally, what I haven't been able to find yet is info on the two fuses in the OBC to tell if they could indeed be part of the circuitry to where maybe one blew (DC?) and the other is good (AC?) - just a total guess at their purpose right now. So, with that I'm curious to if anyone knows more details, or recalls another post that might, on the OBC fuses and then anyone done a coolant air purge without the Toolbox?

What part is the service center quoting?
The pack pyro fuse would not cause lack of Supercharging, nor should have the process to replace it.
Does the car still have the original pack?

 

[MP3Mike]

Finally, what I haven't been able to find yet is info on the two fuses in the OBC to tell if they could indeed be part of the circuitry to where maybe one blew (DC?) and the other is good (AC?) - just a total guess at their purpose right now.

Nope, the two fuses are both for AC charging, one for each leg of the split phase.

 

[BizBloom]

Nope, the two fuses are both for AC charging, one for each leg of the split phase.

Thanks. Ok. Only AC in the OBC.

 

[BizBloom]

What part is the service center quoting?
The pack pyro fuse would not cause lack of Supercharging, nor should have the process to replace it.
Does the car still have the original pack?

Per the Service Estimate:
CHARGER ASSEMBLY REMANUFACTURED - 10KW(6009278-84-F)

Just now getting around to understanding the HVJB and that seems logically to be more likely. And I see it also has some fuses in it. Hmmm. BTW, we had a B pack put in just after getting the car in 2018. It had an A originally.

 

[mongo]

Per the Service Estimate:
CHARGER ASSEMBLY REMANUFACTURED - 10KW(6009278-84-F)

Just now getting around to understanding the HVJB and that seems logically to be more likely. And I see it also has some fuses in it. Hmmm. BTW, we had a B pack put in just after getting the car in 2018. It had an A originally.

Gotcha, hard to say without more information if the issue is the Supercharging contactors in the HVJB or the main charger assembly that controls and monitors them.

 

[BizBloom]

Update on progress, if only for reference to my own open questions. A bit more YouTubing and discovered the Service Mode aspect from the console. Hadn't seen that come out. Looks like maybe two years ago it became available. But, tried in on my S and I can get access to it and it has the Coolant Air Purge ability which is exciting as that was really all I was thinking I needed Toolbox for. As well, it looks like you can do Firmware updates from there too - which made me wonder if anyone has done that before? If I do both a OBC and HVJB swap or any combo of both I wonder if I need/should do this with new boxes installed. A bit more research to do there too. Another question from the above discussion is if anyone has had any experience with that High Voltage Junction Box at all? If that fuse blows does the whole car just die?

 

[BizBloom]

More sharing of information: I continue to review past reports to see if there is any kind of matrix I can come up with for what symptoms are vs what was the final resolution/fix. One of the things that stands out is that the OBC seems to be the culprit the most. HVJB comes in second. I've seen ECU Charge Ports and then High Charge Contactor but a few of those seem to be incorrect diagnosis and fall back on OBC or HVJB. Not absolute, but enough of a probability to keep me on track with OBC and maybe HVJB.

Level 2 Charging Amps: One thing that also caught my eye was a report that Level 2 charging Amps had dropped for one owner. So, instead of 30Amps from the EVSE they got 24. This was interesting in that I had noticed that my home level 2 charger was reporting only being able to select up to 38Amps and not 40Amps. This happened a few weeks back andI don't think we had tried Level 3 since that had occurred. What I'm getting at is that this seems like maybe a symptom that could be used for diagnosis. I'm going to verify tonight that we're still only allowed to go up to 38Amps. And after a repair it will be interesting to see if this returns to 40.

Ring Color: I've also been trying to decipher any connection between the failed charging and the charging ring color. In my case it goes red when Supercharging but I noticed not everyone gets red and instead it stays blue. Still trying to see if there's any pattern in what's been reported. I need to also spend some more time with the Service Mode and poke around at the error codes showing - just haven't had time yet.

Coolant: So, tried to find the Tesla G-48 1 Gal coolant for topping off if needed. Ended up calling Tesla SC and gave them the part number from the online service manual (1029320-00-A). They claim it's an old number and you can't order the 1 gal anymore. Only the 55 gallon. They did suggest an after market non Tesla brand G-48 by Zerex(Valvoline). Interesting. I mentioned that the service manual states you have to use Tesla brand or it voids warranty... not that it matters in my case but it's another detail with right-to-repair if they state you have to used a certain part but provide no option to get it...hmmm. Anyhow, I'll end up using the Zerex at this point.

I'm still looking for parts and still leaning towards a DIY on it.