Charging plug not locking in on car

Ken R · December 21, 2023

Has anybody experienced the charging plug not "locking in" when inserted into the charging port on the car?

I have had this issue today and therefore unable to charge the car.

If you have had this problem and have a remedy I would be pleased to hear from you!

Hayzee · December 21, 2023

Yes Ken I have had that happen (not really sure why) but I disconnected the cable from the car, disconnected it from the wall box then reconnected (wall box first) and it resolved my issue. Don't know if your problem is the same.

Ken R · December 21, 2023

Thanks Colin. Will give it a try later but think I already went through that scenario without success.

Alan Thompson · December 21, 2023

Do you have another cable Ken or just the one supplied with the car?

Do you have a 3 pin socket close by that you could use the granny cable with? Either of these two solutions could prove whether it is the car or the cable.

The reason I ask is that sometimes one of the pins in the 'plug' part gets pushed down the hole if its not straight (not describing it very well am I )?

Ken R · December 21, 2023

Thanks for your responses Colin and Alan. Have tried both cables and neither work so fault must be with the car. This has only developed since the Link App ceased working so there is possibly a software issue???

Ken R · December 22, 2023

Bit of a mystery but left the car connected overnight with plug unlocked and have received a full charge!! Link app kept sending messages that cable was unplugged!!

Harrier Man · December 22, 2023

I have had this randomly 2 or 3 times Ken but in each case the solution suggested by Colin (Hayzee) has worked for me.

Alan Thompson · December 22, 2023

My thoughts were that you should (if you haven't already done so) remove the scheduled charge details from the app and make sure they'd also been removed from the car settings screen.

Plug it in and see if it works, then reset the timing schedule?

RXtoNX · December 22, 2023

Ken, the charging cable on ours used to lock on to the car moments after attaching it but stopped doing so for some reason very early in the year.
I never thought anything about it until your post because it always charged ok and I only ever charge the car when it is in the garage.

I also discovered that as soon as the car called for charging to start to cable then locked on. If you plug it in and then select charge now you should hear it lock on.

You’ve now got me wondering what may have caused it in the first place🤔

Tom, · December 22, 2023

16 hours ago, Ken R said:

Has anybody experienced the charging plug not "locking in" when inserted into the charging port on the car?

I have had this issue today and therefore unable to charge the car.

If you have had this problem and have a remedy I would be pleased to hear from you!

Mine locks and unlocks with the door locks. I have noticed though, that sometimes if the car is already unlocked, I have to lock it then unlock it in order to release the plug.

Ken R · December 22, 2023

2 hours ago, RXtoNX said:

Ken, the charging cable on ours used to lock on to the car moments after attaching it but stopped doing so for some reason very early in the year.
I never thought anything about it until your post because it always charged ok and I only ever charge the car when it is in the garage.

I also discovered that as soon as the car called for charging to start to cable then locked on. If you plug it in and then select charge now you should hear it lock on.

You’ve now got me wondering what may have caused it in the first place🤔

Thanks Paul. Mine was locking the plug immediately on insertion until this week. Strangely it doesn't react to "charge now" any more either!!

Ken R · December 22, 2023

2 hours ago, Alan Thompson said:

My thoughts were that you should (if you haven't already done so) remove the scheduled charge details from the app and make sure they'd also been removed from the car settings screen.

Plug it in and see if it works, then reset the timing schedule?

Thanks Alan. Will give this a go!

BillSt · December 24, 2023

As far as I remember, mine locked in very quickly until last week when it started to delay several seconds. Suspect Lexus U.K. are mucking about with it again. 😞

Ken R · December 24, 2023

Mine not locking at all and even when I set 'charge now' nothing happens!

Hayzee · December 24, 2023

38 minutes ago, Ken R said:

Mine not locking at all and even when I set 'charge now' nothing happens!

Does it still charge anyway?

Ken R · December 25, 2023

19 hours ago, Hayzee said:

Does it still charge anyway?

Unfortunately not!

Serguei · December 25, 2023

Is charger working?

it have to be “charge now” on both sides.

Ken R · December 26, 2023

Yes. Charger appears to be working with the plug locking in on the unit.

Ken R · January 6

An update on this issue. Having eliminated (a) the car and (b) the cable as the problem it left the wall charger so phoned BG for assistance. After 5 call and 4 broken promises of "we will call you tomorrow" I received assistance last Thursday. After trying various combinations they did manage to get the cable to lock on and charge the car remotely however my attempts thereafter resulted in the same issue of it not locking to the car. Tried again last night and amazingly got the cable to lock on for a timed overnight charge but wall box didn't show the usual blue flashing indicator however it did indeed charge the car!

BG has promised to send an engineer but with a warning that it could take weeks! Rather disappointing but will see if last night charge was a fluke or whether something has been done remotely to solve this.

Spacewagon52 · January 6

Very frustrating Ken.

The_Doctor · January 6

Is your charger on a scheduled charge? Mine had mysteriously changed itself to a scheduled charge which was easily overridden in the Hive app. If you plug in while it is on a schedule the charger end locks but not the car and the light on the charger flashes blue.

ColinBarber · January 7

11 hours ago, The_Doctor said:

If you plug in while it is on a schedule the charger end locks but not the car and the light on the charger flashes blue.

Hopefully that is an error rather than by design. You need both ends to be locked to stop someone removing it. If the car is on a schedule then it should lock/unlock the charge port with the doors.

The_Doctor · January 7

12 hours ago, ColinBarber said:

Hopefully that is an error rather than by design. You need both ends to be locked to stop someone removing it. If the car is on a schedule then it should lock/unlock the charge port with the doors.

It doesn't seem to lock at the car end and I recall this being mentioned on a previous post some time ago. Maybe I should try the car schedule rather than the charger schedule to see if it behaves any differently ...

Harrier Man · January 8

Just a thought. I went to charge my car today, which was all frozen up. I had to pry open the charging door and then went to connect my cable. After connecting at the wall, I was going to connect to the car when I noticed the plunger was still pushed in (maybe frozen). Mindful of your issue, I should have plugged the cable into the car to see if it locked in but, as I have been having a few issues opening and closing my charge door, I automatically manually released the plunger before connecting the cable. I suspect that it wouldn't have locked in had I not done so but I missed the opportunity to experiment. My question is, is your plunger (the one in the charging door area and indicates if the door has been left open) sticking and perhaps preventing the car locking in?

Ken R · January 8

18 minutes ago, Harrier Man said:

Just a thought. I went to charge my car today, which was all frozen up. I had to pry open the charging door and then went to connect my cable. After connecting at the wall, I was going to connect to the car when I noticed the plunger was still pushed in (maybe frozen). Mindful of your issue, I should have plugged the cable into the car to see if it locked in but, as I have been having a few issues opening and closing my charge door, I automatically manually released the plunger before connecting the cable. I suspect that it wouldn't have locked in had I not done so but I missed the opportunity to experiment. My question is, is your plunger (the one in the charging door area and indicates if the door has been left open) sticking and perhaps preventing the car locking in?

Thanks for this but unfortunately that has been eliminated and isn't the problem.

Awaiting the BG planning team giving me a date for an engineers visit however the cable locked in again last night but the indicator light on the wallbox now goes from green (when the cable plugs in) to showing nothing. Previously the light would flash blue (when waiting for the scheduled charging time) to constant blue when charging.