Check-ins for 2023-11-25
- Richmond - Garden City Rd, BC (#2827)
- Coquitlam - United Blvd, BC (#2828) (First to check-in)
- Surrey - King George Blvd, BC (#2829)
- Surrey - 160th St, BC (#2830)
Back in 1st place!! (world)
You'd think my trip home from Surrey would have been uneventful considering I could have done it without even stopping to charge, but it was not.
The 2:30am border crossing went fine, but I figured I would do one more supercharge after crossing the border because I didn't want to do a long charge in Surrey and I figured I'd need to go to the bathroom at some point anyway. Well the only supercharger on the route with 24 hour facilities was the old supercharger in Burlington, so just after taking the world supercharger lead I ended up back at the very first supercharger I ever used which I thought was kind of funny.
I was shocked at how little traffic there was on I-5 between Bellingham and Burlington. I went 5-10 minutes a couple times without seeing another vehicle. Sure, it was the middle of the night on a holiday weekend, but this is I-5! Don't think I've ever had a stretch like that on I-5 in WA or CA, maybe in southern OR. But oddly enough, as I got off the exit, another Tesla pulled up behind me and followed me to the supercharger. The layout of this old supercharger is 1A 2A 3A 4A 1B 2B 3B 4B and I'm sure you can all guess what happened. I pull into 4A and the Model 3 full of Canadians immediately pulls into 4B. Before I can even plug in, I get back in the car and re-park at 1B.
The plug didn't immediately want to go in all the way. I should have known better, but not wanting to re-park again, I pulled it out and plugged in again, this time shoving it in a little harder. It connected and started to charge. So into the store I go for the toilet and some snacks and back out to the car I come after a 10-minute top off. Lo and behold, the plug is now stuck in my chargeport! Ugh... I've had this happen on a few occasions with this car, but not in a long time. Usually with a few attempts, it comes out, but this time it's stuck in there pretty good just like the first time it happened in Yuma in 2019 when I literally had to put my foot up on the wheel well and pull with all my might to get it out.
Seeing me struggle, the Canadians leap out of the car to assist. "You just push the button on the handle and pull it out," they said, as if I might not know that. I explained that I've tried to open the chargeport in 3 or 4 different ways and the car says it is open, but the plug won't come out. Still they offer to assist. At this point I'm thinking "sure I've been to more superchargers than anyone in the world, but the guys who don't even know about pairing are going to help me solve this issue"
I let them try a few times but they couldn't get it.
During this time I took the opportunity to call Tesla Roadside Assistance and was informed that I should call back during business hours. With as many cars as they have on the road, it is ridiculous that they don't have 24-hour support. At the very least they could forward us to the UK hotline or something.
So after the Canadians retreated back to their car and after giving up on Tesla Roadside, I decide to give it a few more tries before getting a room at the Fairfield Inn (host hotel). Somehow, on the 2nd or 3rd try, when I wasn't even pulling all that hard, the plug came free. With great relief I wrapped it around the top of the stall (I generally don't like it when people do this but getting stuck in the chargeport is fairly unforgiveable and wouldn't wish it on another driver), and drove the rest of the way home. As usual, I was somewhat nervous the next plug would get stuck in the chargeport as well but at least my next charge was at home. 2 days later and my UMC has had no issues.
I suspect one of the pins in my chargeport doesn't retract quite as much as it should and when it is combined with an old misshapen supercharger plug (perhaps from being run over or whatever), it can get stuck. And now that I think about it, I've only ever had this issue at v2 superchargers, so the fact that I'm almost always visiting new v3s these days might explain why it hasn't been an issue in so long. Anyways, I will chalk this up as one more issue I won't miss when I upgrade to a new car
