Model S 2016 85D - Can charge : Won't Charge

[johntown]

For the past couple of months, for most of the time, my Model S has displayed the messages 'Vehicle Systems Over Temperature' and 'Charging Unavailable'. By rebooting and power downs, sometimes multiple times, and repeatedly pressing 'Open Charge Port' I am sometimes able to trick the car into opening the charge port. If this opens I am then able to get the car to charge without problem at home or at superchargers.

On the only occasion I have manually opened the charge port (not through software) it has showed a red light and will not charge. Sometimes I have failed to get the car to open the port and charge, only to come back the next morning or even several days later and find it will charge.

The car has spent the last 5 days at the Tesla Service Centre in Leeds, where a failure in the 12V supply to the HV Junction Box, leading to the temperature sensor reporting a default reading of 150 degrees, was diagnosed, together with a fault on one of the boards which prevented them loading firmware. They replaced the HVJB and managed to reformat the problem chip.

The car was fine on the drive home from Tesla but the next morning was back to the same error messages and refusing to charge without 25 minutes of rebooting and power downs. Any ideas for ending my nightmare ?

 

[DerbyDave]

Maybe the battery chiller and/or the cooling system for the battery is malfunctioning. If the battery is truly hot, it will not charge. You'd think there would be an error either reported to you, or in the vehicle logs at Tesla.

 

[johntown]

That's interesting. The error often comes up first thing in the morning, often after a cold night, so it would be unusual to see high temperatures developing under those conditions. Once I get the charge door to unlock via the touch screen, charging proceeds normally and with no further error messages or interruptions. As you say, if the battery is truly hot then you would expect further error messages and battery sensors downstream to perhaps terminate the charging process. Nothing in the logs reported back to me.

 

[DerbyDave]

Yes, after rereading your post, the battery should not be too hot.

 

[johntown]

Update - As noted above, after packing the car for a 400 mile journey to the north of Scotland, I got in to be confronted with the same error messages which I and Tesla in Leeds thought had just been fixed. I rebooted the car twice and did a power down before, after 25 minutes of work, the car finally responded to a touch screen command to open the charge port.

Charging proceeded normally and the error alerts disappeared. Too much of a gamble to go to Scotland - nearest Tesla Service would be 4 hours hard drive away....

Early on Monday morning I got in the car to drive it back to Tesla in Leeds and the error messages appeared immediately. Shortly after I parked the car at Tesla, put on the radio and the heating, they disappeared again. Tesla now have the car and have escalated the problem to the Regional level to try and find out what is wrong. Keep tuned for more updates.

 

[johntown]

Final Update - Tesla recommend replacement of charger. Carried out free of charge, after I had earlier paid £2,100 for replacement of HVJB. Thank you Tesla Leeds.

Problem solved, finally. What a relief.