Looking for advice and recommendations in Bay Area for eGolf repair

[absolsp]

I have a 2016 VW eGOLF SE model that has 30K miles on it. The car has been working with no issues until this week. The car stopped charging on my Level 1 charger. I have used this car for more than 6 1/2 years and pretty much used the Level 1 charger at home. This week, when I plug-in the charger cable, the light near the charger port stays Yellow. It does not turn green or red. There is no other diagnostic message I get and the car does not charge. I took it to EvGo charging station near my house and the DC charger (50 Kw) would connect to my car for couple of seconds then show an error message saying unable to communicated with the car. So no luck with Level 1 or DC charging.

I made sure it not the cable as I could charge a neighbor's car (which is also 2016 eGOLF SE model, we purchased the cars within days of each other) and it worked when I connected my charger cable to his car. I can rule out any issues with the socket outlet, cable that I use for charging the car. Only thing left was to take it to the dealer.

Took it to a South Bay (Norther California)VW dealer, they charged me $250+ run a diagnostic test and came back with the bad news. They have to replace the internal charging mechanism, here is the diagnostic message that I got from them regarding the issue.

CONNECTED ODIS SCAN TOOL, PERFORMED GFF SCAN OF VEHICLE,
FOUND FAULT P31C700: Charging socket A AC mains supply Open

    circuit. CHECKED FOR ANY RELATED TSBS NONE FOUND. ATTEMPTED
     TO PERFORM TEST PLAN FOR GENERATED FAULT, TEST PLAN
 RECOMMEND TO REPLACE COMPONENTS THAT HAVE FAILED.

They want to charge $3200 for labor & parts to fix this issue. My gut says that this is a rip-off but don't have enough data to see if that is the normal cost.

I would like to know if there are 3rd party shops that can do this kind of repair work or if I am stuck with VW dealerships in South Bay.

Any help in recommendations as to what I should do or recommendations for other service shops that could do this work would be very much appreciated. If there is any info missing in my post, I can follow up with additional details. Thanks!

PS: I posted this on reddit too, , if it violates any guidelines, please let me know, I will delete the post.

 

[f1geek]

Sorry to hear. Sounds like they want to replace charging inlet? What do they plan to do for $3200?

Have you taken a close look at all the pins on the charge inlet (using a strong flashlight). Does everything look normal? "AC Mains Supply Open" sounds like the L1 pin may be having issues (if 120 V charging doesn't work, as I believe L1 is the only live pin for 120 V). Still, if your car won't DCFC either, that suggests it is a communication problem as DCFC bypasses the AC pins. Maybe good to have a close look at all the pins.

 

[cctop]

Have you liberally sprayed the locking pin with silicone lubricant both with and without the charger plugged in, as described elsewhere on this board?

The charging light remaining yellow is a symptom of the locking pin sticking. It’s such a common problem with the eGolf, though, that I’d be surprised if you haven’t encountered it yet.

(My 2016 SE didn’t have a locking pin, but apparently your car has the DC charging package which was optional on that model so you should have one.)

 

[VWKaster]

I second the suggestion on the locking pin. Make sure it’s activating.

 

[PriusAndTeslaServiceCntr]

I have a 2016 VW eGOLF SE model that has 30K miles on it. The car has been working with no issues until this week. The car stopped charging on my Level 1 charger. I have used this car for more than 6 1/2 years and pretty much used the Level 1 charger at home. This week, when I plug-in the charger cable, the light near the charger port stays Yellow. It does not turn green or red. There is no other diagnostic message I get and the car does not charge. I took it to EvGo charging station near my house and the DC charger (50 Kw) would connect to my car for couple of seconds then show an error message saying unable to communicated with the car. So no luck with Level 1 or DC charging.

I made sure it not the cable as I could charge a neighbor's car (which is also 2016 eGOLF SE model, we purchased the cars within days of each other) and it worked when I connected my charger cable to his car. I can rule out any issues with the socket outlet, cable that I use for charging the car. Only thing left was to take it to the dealer.

Took it to a South Bay (Norther California)VW dealer, they charged me $250+ run a diagnostic test and came back with the bad news. They have to replace the internal charging mechanism, here is the diagnostic message that I got from them regarding the issue.

CONNECTED ODIS SCAN TOOL, PERFORMED GFF SCAN OF VEHICLE,
FOUND FAULT P31C700: Charging socket A AC mains supply Open

    circuit. CHECKED FOR ANY RELATED TSBS NONE FOUND. ATTEMPTED
     TO PERFORM TEST PLAN FOR GENERATED FAULT, TEST PLAN
 RECOMMEND TO REPLACE COMPONENTS THAT HAVE FAILED.

They want to charge $3200 for labor & parts to fix this issue. My gut says that this is a rip-off but don't have enough data to see if that is the normal cost.

I would like to know if there are 3rd party shops that can do this kind of repair work or if I am stuck with VW dealerships in South Bay.

Any help in recommendations as to what I should do or recommendations for other service shops that could do this work would be very much appreciated. If there is any info missing in my post, I can follow up with additional details. Thanks!

PS: I posted this on reddit too, , if it violates any guidelines, please let me know, I will delete the post.

Hi there,

It's not very clear from the portion of the tech notes what the issue is exactly. You probably got the car taken care of by now , but we would do more testing before we can quote you on a repair.
We work only on hybrid and electric vehicles in Santa Clara, California and we mainly use dealer parts on most of our repairs.

This could range from a charge inlet costing around $1825 for a new dealer part and labor, or the internal charging unit for $2595 with new dealer parts and labor.

I wish I could have been of better help, but we do provide a complimentary inspection for issues like this.
~Adam from Prius and Tesla Service Center
www.PriusAndTesla.com

 

[f1geek]

Hi there,

It's not very clear from the portion of the tech notes what the issue is exactly. You probably got the car taken care of by now , but we would do more testing before we can quote you on a repair.
We work only on hybrid and electric vehicles in Santa Clara, California and we mainly use dealer parts on most of our repairs.

This could range from a charge inlet costing around $1825 for a new dealer part and labor, or the internal charging unit for $2595 with new dealer parts and labor.

I wish I could have been of better help, but we do provide a complimentary inspection for issues like this.
~Adam from Prius and Tesla Service Center
www.PriusAndTesla.com

Typically people should not advertising services here, but if you really fix cars, please answer this:

Would prefer if you offered to repair problem as opposed to just replacing entire (expensive assembly). Why not just fix pin mechanism and leave the rest in place?

 

[PriusAndTeslaServiceCntr]

Typically people should not advertising services here, but if you really fix cars, please answer this:

Would prefer if you offered to repair problem as opposed to just replacing entire (expensive assembly). Why not just fix pin mechanism and leave the rest in place?

Sorry about that, the poster was specifically looking for independent shops in the area which is not something that is easily found.

Good question, and that's exactly why I mentioned "we would do more testing before we can quote you on a repair", but I was setting expectations assuming the dealer's recommendation is accurate.

You are spot on, it just depends on what is found, and I didn't see any response to the comments suggesting to check the pins.
I can't really speculate of what the car's condition is.

We have done that before on a Nissan Leaf, where a pin was pushed out of place and the dealer recommended to replace the Power Distribution Unit (which includes the onboard charger components).
In this case after mounting the pins in place, we made sure there was absolutely no movement assuming the charging station was at fault.
We just recommended if it happens again to replace the plug's mount that holds the pins as it was a replaceable part from Nissan. We never heard back from the car.

There are other examples of other cars where a clip of a harness is broken and it's not available to replace, so the decision made was to buy a used harness and carefully remove the connector and install in the car.

Therefore the short answer is, we would replace what is really necessary and availability and give the final decision to the owner. We are a dealer alternative and follow manufacturer guidelines, so we would not be performing any modifications or adhesive/rewiring...etc to resolve an issue like this though.

 

[f1geek]

Sorry about that, the poster was specifically looking for independent shops in the area which is not something that is easily found.

Good question, and that's exactly why I mentioned "we would do more testing before we can quote you on a repair", but I was setting expectations assuming the dealer's recommendation is accurate.

You are spot on, it just depends on what is found, and I didn't see any response to the comments suggesting to check the pins.
I can't really speculate of what the car's condition is.

We have done that before on a Nissan Leaf, where a pin was pushed out of place and the dealer recommended to replace the Power Distribution Unit (which includes the onboard charger components).
In this case after mounting the pins in place, we made sure there was absolutely no movement assuming the charging station was at fault.
We just recommended if it happens again to replace the plug's mount that holds the pins as it was a replaceable part from Nissan. We never heard back from the car.

There are other examples of other cars where a clip of a harness is broken and it's not available to replace, so the decision made was to buy a used harness and carefully remove the connector and install in the car.

Therefore the short answer is, we would replace what is really necessary and availability and give the final decision to the owner. We are a dealer alternative and follow manufacturer guidelines, so we would not be performing any modifications or adhesive/rewiring...etc to resolve an issue like this though.

I am talking about the connector locking pin, not conductors in the inlet. Would you perform that repair and what is a ball park estimate?