Charging BMW models at home

[-Cappo-]

Friend of mine has some fairly new-build rentals (completed 3-4 years ago) and he had car chargers installed when the houses were built. A new tenant in one has reported that he can’t charge his BMW (don’t know model, sorry) and that he called BMW techs out to investigate.

BMW Techs said:

Need to check:

Earth Loop Impedance (Ze) & Earthing Quality (apparently BMWs are more sensitive to this than any other car brand) and a Firmware update.

The charger (Rolec) has been tested against a PHEV Range Rover and charges that no problem.

A small further fly is that the previous tenant also had an electric BMW of some sort, and my mate checked back with him and he said it wouldn’t charge his car either, but he didn’t flag that during his tenancy.

There are no known issues with the rest of the electrics at the house, there’s a current certificate signing everything off (for the tenancies).

Anybody know anything about this? Is it only BMWs? And what would the remedial work need/cost? Does it “just” need an extra earth rod sunk for the charger?

[Pica-Pica]

"A small further fly is that the previous tenant also had an electric BMW of some sort, and my mate checked back with him and he said it wouldn t charge his car either, but he didn t flag that during his tenancy."

Surely the tenancy would obliged him to flag that?

[andy43]

Should just need a TT earth spike.
Tenants can be very variable - I’ve had someone ask to completely replace a built in oven because the temperature markings had worn off due to repeated cleaning, whereas another moved out leaving a shower and basin tap that had clearly been bust for ages. They must have just brushed their teeth in the bath.

[-Cappo-]

andy43 said:

Should just need a TT earth spike.
Tenants can be very variable - I ve had someone ask to completely replace a built in oven because the temperature markings had worn off due to repeated cleaning, whereas another moved out leaving a shower and basin tap that had clearly been bust for ages. They must have just brushed their teeth in the bath.

Thanks for this. The tenant is apparently being entirely reasonable about it and has said that he’s happy to pay for any alterations needed to charge his car - just a case of trying to find out what’s actually correct and what’s actually needed.

[RizzoTheRat]

A mate had similar with his home charger when he got a 1st gen Zoe, the installers came back and fitted another earth spike which fixed it.

[Gone fishing]

It’s a strange one, but for what it’s worth we’ve an iX and have not had a problem wherever we’ve charged.

We had lots of issues when we first had a charger installed (a long time before we had the iX) which turned out to be an outside light starting to fail causing an earth leak and the sum of all the small leaks together with the charger was enough to trip the house. We also had low voltage which didn’t help. We switched to each circuit having its own earth trip (I can’t remember the technical term) and found the faulty light and all good since. Sometimes the issue isn’t the obvious, it’s just the car charger is drawing such a load it seems to make any weakness more obvious.

[-Cappo-]

Interesting stuff, thanks all. He’s now waiting on a Rolec
Dealer to give a view on it and offer rectification - be nice if it was something as straightforward as an extra earth spike. I’ll try and remember to update when I hear the outcome.

[GT6k]

BMW are not in the least picky about chargers that fault is the preserve of the Zoe. In the end your tenant has reported an electrical fault and you should get an electrician to check it.

[-Cappo-]

Clarification: NOT my tenant, I only own the property which I live in, and that’s not the property referred to in my OP. I do wish people could read as well as type.