Hello all,

My mom has a 2019 Countryman PHEV that she loves. However, she has normally just been charging it at work and out at charging stations. We tried charging it at her house for the first time today, and have hit a snag. The charger (standard one, not the fast charger) appears to not be functioning. We verified the outlets and cords match and are all correct, and there are no fault messages in the car. The charger's fault light comes on when it is plugged in to the wall, regardless of whether it is attached to the car or not. We have tried multiple outlets to be sure it is not on our end, but they function fine with anything else. I know the 2018's were recalled for a charger issue, but to my knowledge this was resolved before 2019 production.

I am the Product Specialist for a MINI dealership, so in theory I should know the answer to this, but I have yet to come across this problem. The customers who have purchased PHEV's from us appear to all be very pleased and have not been back with any issues, so I am really not sure what this could be. Any ideas?

Thank you!

 

I would bring it in for a warranty repair. Probably can just bring the charger in & try it on another car 1st.

 

I'm starting to see this more frequently, too. I pull the plug for a count of 10, plug it back in and it resets.

I had the car set to the medium charging setting and thought that was the issue. I set it to the lowest setting and am still seeing the fault. I can check it while charging and all is fine. I go back out 30 min later and the fault light is on. Will take it in at the next car check unless it gets worse. Will give the dealer a call on Monday to see if this is a known issue.

Found this on a quick search: https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/b...arging-cables/

2018 Recall on SEs due to charging cable.

 

Check that the Charging level is at LOW in the Plan Charging setting in the screen. For all Mini PHEV owners: the car will decide how to charge itself based on the current coming in. Do not change the setting off of LOW, I dont know why there is even a setting. If you have it set to MAX or even REDUCED, and you are using the OUC, it will fault and not charge the vehicle.

 

Not sure this is what is happening to me....I've charged the car for almost a year using the REDUCED setting and started getting the OE charger fault error off and on for the last month or two. A few weeks ago I switched to the LOW setting and have still been getting faults. Around the same time I began tracking when and what conditions the fault occurred. I began to notice, at least half a dozen times, that the car would charge properly, I would disconnect the car and hang up the plug - green light. I go to work and come home and fault is flashing. I could leave it untouched and unplugged from the car for 30 minutes and go look at it and fault is flashing. Just now, I had a fault and unplugged it, countedto 10, plugged and it came back up faulting. In the past, this was sufficient to reset it. I did this 4-5 times. Then, I unplugged and let it sit for 15 minutes, plugged in and all as normal. Plugged in the car and charging normally (LOW setting).

I don't think it is a LOW vs. REDUCED setting issue. I plan to take it by the dealer and have them check it out.

 

That is not how it works.
The car reads capabilities from the EVSE (the “charger”), and the car draws the maximum possible based on what the charger can support. If you set the car to draw less, it will... but it’s not necessary to do this.

 

For me, the charger fault occurs whether the charger is plugged into the car or not. It faults without having touched the car. This is the OE charger that came with the car.

I just came back from the Mini dealer. Service didn't admit they'd ever heard of this, only said they recommend not leaving the charger plugged in to the wall all of the time, to unplug it when not in use. I asked what was the sense of even providing one and got the palms up, shrugged shoulder reply. He said if it fails I should bring it back. Asked if covered under warranty, said didn't think so.

So, I'm repurposing one of my surge protection power strips with an On/Offf switch to plug in the charger and flip the switch on when I need to use it, flip off when I unplug the car. The next and least desirable option is to purchase a L2 home station wall charger ~$450.

 

The setting does seem to change things. If set to LOW, I can plug it in at night and it is still charging in the morning, 8-hr later. Setting to REDUCED and it charges overnight.