My Renault Zoe ZE 50. While working it was fun. When there were problems ... and [reader]

We were written by a reader who decided to buy a Renault Zoe ZE 50. I was very pleased with the car, the car was driving, everything worked properly. When a strange, seemingly banal accident happened, the problem turned out to be extremely difficult. And then it turned out that only a few service stations in the country were allowed to repair electricians.

The following text is the edited story of our Reader. For ease of reading, we do not use italics. Headings and subheadings (except one) come from the editorial board.

Renault Zoe ZE 50: owner recall with approximately 10 km mileage

This text was supposed to be about something completely different. For several months now I have been going to write what it is like to drive an electrician. At first it was supposed to be 3, then 5, 8, until I decided that I would finally share my impressions after 10 1 kilometers behind the wheel. Moreover, this course was supposed to take place during the trip from Gdansk to Krakow and further into the mountains. Only 600 kilometers!

Night departure from Gdansk. I'm looking forward to an adventure, but a little different than what happened to me ...

The trip was partly for business, so I checked out around 21,5 am to be in Krakow until eleven. Route marked in ABRP [We recommend better router planning!] Conservative, with a consumption of 100 kWh / 110 km at a speed of XNUMX km / h and planned for three tolls:

• SS Malankovo ​​-> he was busy and I had a lot of spare, so I stopped briefly at the GreenWay station in Ciechocinek,
• MOP Krzyanów (instead of MOP Malankowo),
• Orlen Czestochowa.

Modeling of our Reader's route, prepared by the editors of www.elektrowoz.pl. The Renault Zoe ZE 50 will travel on the motorway for about 240 kilometers with an estimated energy consumption, and the distance between Gdansk and the Krzyzanowska SS (the one with the Polska sign) is about 274 kilometers, that is, 34 kilometers more. Therefore, a short stop at the GreenWay charging station in Ciechocinek (marked "37 minutes") was enough for our Reader to safely reach the Krzyzanowski SS.

Loading in Krzyanów is done without problems, faster than indicated in the application. So far so good. The next stop was to be Orlen in Czestochowa. It is true that Zoya bites with Orlen CCS chargers.But what the hell: who does not risk, does not drink champagne.

Loading on SS Kshizhanov. The last one that passed without problems

In Czestochowa, the charging port cover refused to cooperate

Czestochowa on time, great, the car will be charging and I will have a scheduled conference call. And here is the rasp. I press the button that opens the charger cover (the one with the Renault logo), but the cover does not respond. I press again, flip unchanged. I turn on / off the car, lock it, open it, leave it on for a few minutes to fall asleep, spit over my left shoulder, nothing, no effect.

Internet in hand, Google, Youtube, after all, there MUST be a mechanism that mechanically opens the lid when other methods don't work. I underestimated the Renault engineers the cover on the Renault Zoe does not have an emergency opening mechanism... So I call Renault Assistance. No, no, this is not Tesla, they will not help me remotely, they can find a service for me, dear gentleman confirms my independent finding: there is a Renault dealership in Czestochowa.

The car was accepted into the service promptly, they treated me very carefully, after 40 minutes I managed to unlock the damper. The shop staff took great initiative because the plant is not certified for electric vehicles. Time to recharge: Orlene Zoe has traditionally refused to cooperate, but at GreenWay station everything went smoothly. I arrive in Krakow about two hours late.

The blocked shutter was just a prelude to disaster.

The day after business meetings, I have two tasks: fully charge the car and pick my wife off the train so we can start our extended weekend. I'll start with free charges. One does not work, the first Orlen is taken, the second does not accept CCS or Type2. The battery is slowly draining, so I'm going to pay. I put 20 zlotys into the mobile application for the test, the download starts, phew! ...

End of charging after PLN 10, yellow text on the indicator screen The battery does not charge and service key. A bad sign, with a little soul on my shoulder, I disconnect from the charger and restart the car. "Control systems. OK". If “OK” is in order, I will go looking for another charging station as a preventive measure:

• Eagle # 1: CCS does not start, Type 2 is taken.
• Orlen # 2: Neither CCS nor Typ 2 will start.
• Orlen number 3 - the same situation.

I don't laugh anymore. I pick up my wife at the train station, and instead of an evening stroll through the old city, we go to GreenWay. GreenWay has always worked, at least until then ... Now the car reacts at best with a red charging error light. End for today, we go to bed, Zoya is resting. Tomorrow is also day.

Error at GreenWay Last Chance Station in Krakow

Fastest Charge Zoe? On a tow truck 🙁

The next day, another download attempt and the decision to go to the site. Object in the north of Krakow (Andorra), a new large building, several electricians for sale in the parking lot, I think: "Good address". The service consultant disappears for a moment, then states that "They are not dealing with electricians and will not help us." At the end, he also gives us some helpful advice: "Better to go to another repair shop that has more experience with electricians."

I draw your attention to the fact that Renault Assistance will probably send us to them anyway, since we are already standing in their parking lot, we learned that even if he "The car will not start until the middle of next week"... We give up, we don't roll anything here, we go to the specialists. In the meantime, we are asking for help and we know that the service has no right to send us a receipt, and having a consultant in touch, we feel like winners.

The second service is much smaller, but the reaction to Zoe is the same: "We don't do electricity."... A shocked assistance consultant, a service team leader, intervenes in determining which garage Zoya is entitled to. After about 30 minutes, success was discovered, the nearest service ZE is located ... in Zabrze, more than 100 km from Krakow. Zośka will cover this distance on a trailer.

[A list of Renault ZE services with a repair permit, including, you can find the Renault Zoe HERE. It is dedicated italics - red. www.elektrowoz.pl]

We are in Zabrze after 16: XNUMX, electrician technician already fouls, will be on Monday... We take out a replacement car and drive to the mountains. We'll be back on Monday.

After the weekend Renault Assistance also found a service for us. Forward!

Renault Assistance calls on Monday morning: "We have established which service will repair your car." Bravo, it's a shame the car has been in it since Friday. Diagnosis: software failure, modules are reprogrammed, it is possible that the car will be picked up on the same day... Unfortunately, one module is stable, the machine does not accept files, consultation with Renault is required. How much time will it take? Unknown. We take a replacement car and go home.

We pick up the car on Saturday. The road goes smoothly, we load again on Lotus in Krzyzhanuv, but on the other side. Iga Sviontek wins Roland Garros, the mood is excellent. We arrive for loading on SS Otlocin. The charging flap does not open ... This time a tow truck will take Zoya to Gdansk, where, fortunately, we have one of five Renault ZE services in Poland, which is authorized to repair electricians. At least not far from home.

Second transport in a tow truck, this time from the SS in Otlochin. Same problem again: charging cover won't open

Service diagnostics: the computer has locked the charger cover because it detected the connection of a non-original charger... I wonder where is the nearest original Renault DC charger?

My reflections

It's not hard to put an electric car in a hundred showrooms and brag about being a leader in the field of electric mobility. The trick is to provide the customer with the right level of support when something happens to the car. By "support" I do not mean 300 kilometers spent on a tow truck, and 650 kilometers to pick up the car.

The attitude of an authorized service center to the client as an intruder is a bad sign for the brand and the dealer. Moreover, this buyer paid a lot of money for the car and got into trouble. It seems that in the production model used by Tesla, such a lack of identification of the website with the brand could not be.

It would also be good if, with the assistance of the manufacturer, it was known that this vehicle requires service with a certain qualification.

Finally, I cannot believe that it is possible to design a car in such a way that the prosaic operation of opening the lid in an emergency requires a visit to a service center and even transporting the car on a trailer. If ... the error was fatal?

In this case: since the charger is a “secondary” one and after the filling process is completed, the shutter will be blocked, wouldn't it be easier to report the error and block the charging? The driver does not know about the accident, he does not know that after a few hundred kilometers he will have a BIG problem.

A customization panel for one of the hapless chargers. They perform at MOP Krzyanów

What the hell, when Zoya already knows it's broken, does she tell the user that everything is fine? After the adventure with the charger in Krakow, the car did not report a problem that I would not be able to charge it - and after connecting the diagnostic computer in the service, it lit up with errors. What's going on here?

It is as if the computer on the plane detected a brake failure in the landing gear before takeoff and allowed it to take off. In general, on takeoff and in flight, brakes are not needed ...

Editorial note www.elektrowoz.pl: so far we have only one report of a strange problem with a “non-original charger” blocking the charging shutter. So, we understand that this is a random error, although sometimes we hear about CCS errors. But after reading all this, we remembered the words of another Reader., Nissan Leaf owner: "If Tesla has three services in Poland, nobody will buy Nissan."

With such an approach to the buyer and such a number of services, in a few years it may look like a Renault Zoe ...

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