Warning regarding Grizzl-E charger issue

[Pmullin7]

I ran into an issue with my Grizzl-E charger that I thought other owners should know about.

Briefly, the charger worked just fine for the first year. After that I would come back to my car periodically when it was plugged in, to find it had a "charger error" message in the car. Usually, but not always, the charge had completed.

This was rare at first, but became more and more frequent. Last November I set the charger to minimum amperage to see if it might be a heat problem. That didn't help, and the error message became very frequent. As in, almost every day.

I was advised that plugging in a charger that produced error messages in my car was not a good idea, so I contacted the EVSE manufacturer for support.

Over the past 6 weeks, we have had an ongoing dialogue, starting with me telling them that I had turned down the amperage via the dip switches. They asked for videos, pictures of the error message, pictures of serial numbers, made suggestions to disable the Wi-Fi in the unit, and then eventually circled back to tell me that they thought it was the car not able to handle the amperage and that I should turn it down.

Their other idea was that it was the fault of the charger port in the car. Now I had told them that this car has been using other chargers, including the Ford mobile, and has never had an issue on level one, two or three. But apparently they simply didn't want to send me a new unit and wanted to have me run around and deal with an endless stream of support e-mails.

After 6 weeks they finally offered to replace the unit. All I had to do was send it to them and wait for them to send me a replacement, during which time I suppose I would have no charger at all, if I didn't have another option.

Frankly, I had already become so upset with this that I installed a hardwired Tesla universal, so I'll be throwing their unit in the garbage instead.

I'm very disappointed by this experience... But I thought other Mach E owners considering which EVSE to purchase should be aware.

Sponsored

 

[RickMachE]

JuiceBox has awful support, but they take a deposit and send a new unit, then refund the deposit when the old unit is received.

 

[bellyer]

The two times that I have needed help with my two Grizzl-e chargers, their support has been awesome. One time, the adapter plugged into the 14-50 NEMA outlet had melted, due to an arcing situation with the adapter not securely plugged in. They sent me a new adapter within just a few days. I can't recall what the other issue was, but they were very responsive with it, too.

 

[Pmullin7]

Glad that was your experience, I wish I could say the same. Perhaps it's just Canada.

 

[Murse-In-Airy]

Grizzl-E has been awesome for me too.

It is very possible that your car is charging slower than the charger is trying to push. Last year, my wife’s car had a charge port go bad. Since the replacement, Ford has introduced software that will slow charging down if it detects resistance/heat at the charge port.

While this never caused problems with my Grizzl-E’s, we also don’t have the kind that need WiFi. So the “smart” charger may interact completely differently.

The fact that your car will charge on the ford Mobil charger is fairly Irrelevant here as it charges at a much slower rate and would not build up the heat that may trip the failure. Level 1 will never make that kind of heat. And level 3 uses a completely different set of parameters. You are upset you could have been left without a charger “if you didn’t have another one.” But you did. By your own admission, one that worked. So that part seems like a bit of a hyperbolic tantrum.

If you want a different charger, that’s great. I encourage everyone to try to find what works best for them. But trashing a company that supports many of us, because you didn’t like their well considered answer, is a bad look.

 

[Pmullin7]

Grizzl-E has been awesome for me too.

It is very possible that your car is charging slower than the charger is trying to push. Last year, my wife’s car had a charge port go bad. Since the replacement, Ford has introduced software that will slow charging down if it detects resistance/heat at the charge port.

While this never caused problems with my Grizzl-E’s, we also don’t have the kind that need WiFi. So the “smart” charger may interact completely differently.

The fact that your car will charge on the ford Mobil charger is fairly Irrelevant here as it charges at a much slower rate and would not build up the heat that may trip the failure. Level 1 will never make that kind of heat. And level 3 uses a completely different set of parameters. You are upset you could have been left without a charger “if you didn’t have another one.” But you did. By your own admission, one that worked. So that part seems like a bit of a hyperbolic tantrum.

If you want a different charger, that’s great. I encourage everyone to try to find what works best for them. But trashing a company that supports many of us, because you didn’t like their well considered answer, is a bad look.

My report to them started with the fact that I had set the Grizzl-E to minimum amperage, thats 16. The Ford mobile is not irrelevant, it draws 32. Double. I now charge at 48. No problem. Doesn't scream heat problem to me anyway.

Their answer changed every few days, and was not well considered, in my opinion. Asking me for more information every few days for 6 weeks rather than offering a solution, that makes no sense to me.

 

[Murse-In-Airy]

My report to them started with the fact that I had set the Grizzl-E to minimum amperage, thats 16. The Ford mobile is not irrelevant, it draws 32. Double. I now charge at 48. No problem. Doesn't scream heat problem to me anyway.

Their answer changed every few days, and was not well considered, in my opinion. Asking me for more information every few days for 6 weeks rather than offering a solution, that makes no sense to me.

With the extra details, I now understand the concern. Best of luck on the new charger.

If you are interested, rather than throwing the Grizz away, I’d be curious to test it on one of my cars to see if it does the same. Dont know what postage would cost but I could cover it.

 

[Shayne]

I ran into an issue with my Grizzl-E charger that I thought other owners should know about.

Briefly, the charger worked just fine for the first year. After that I would come back to my car periodically when it was plugged in, to find it had a "charger error" message in the car. Usually, but not always, the charge had completed.

This was rare at first, but became more and more frequent. Last November I set the charger to minimum amperage to see if it might be a heat problem. That didn't help, and the error message became very frequent. As in, almost every day.

I was advised that plugging in a charger that produced error messages in my car was not a good idea, so I contacted the EVSE manufacturer for support.

Over the past 6 weeks, we have had an ongoing dialogue, starting with me telling them that I had turned down the amperage via the dip switches. They asked for videos, pictures of the error message, pictures of serial numbers, made suggestions to disable the Wi-Fi in the unit, and then eventually circled back to tell me that they thought it was the car not able to handle the amperage and that I should turn it down.

Their other idea was that it was the fault of the charger port in the car. Now I had told them that this car has been using other chargers, including the Ford mobile, and has never had an issue on level one, two or three. But apparently they simply didn't want to send me a new unit and wanted to have me run around and deal with an endless stream of support e-mails.

After 6 weeks they finally offered to replace the unit. All I had to do was send it to them and wait for them to send me a replacement, during which time I suppose I would have no charger at all, if I didn't have another option.

Frankly, I had already become so upset with this that I installed a hardwired Tesla universal, so I'll be throwing their unit in the garbage instead.

I'm very disappointed by this experience... But I thought other Mach E owners considering which EVSE to purchase should be aware.

You appear to have determine it is the charger not the car. How was that determined? I know my car does not charge to spec anymore but that was a car update not the charger.

I guess when you get another one you can verify if it was the charger or the car but wonder how it was determined that it is the chargers fault if it is the car spitting out the message. .

 

[kltye]

My report to them started with the fact that I had set the Grizzl-E to minimum amperage, thats 16. The Ford mobile is not irrelevant, it draws 32. Double. I now charge at 48. No problem. Doesn't scream heat problem to me anyway.

Their answer changed every few days, and was not well considered, in my opinion. Asking me for more information every few days for 6 weeks rather than offering a solution, that makes no sense to me.

I'll never understand people who don't properly read a well-detailed post about steps already taken before calling tech support. It seems that no one here caught that you've already tried the DIP switches to rule out the charge port.

I work in IT, and I deal with people on both sides: tech support and regular users. My dying wish would be for people to read emails/posts carefully before tapping out a response that wastes time and energy for everyone.

 

[Maquis]

You appear to have determine it is the charger not the car. How was that determined? I know my car does not charge to spec anymore but that was a car update not the charger.

I guess when you get another one you can verify if it was the charger or the car but wonder how it was determined that it is the chargers fault if it is the car spitting out the message. .

He says it charges fine with his FMC and his new Tesla.

 

[Pmullin7]

Process of elimination. The error message from the car is stating the the charger has faulted. I charged the car with 4 other private level twos, the mobile, a tesla, a charge point and another grizzl-e. All were fine. I've also used public level 2 units, also no problem.

This one charger produces the error. It seems unlikely to me that the car is the issue based on that. But of course, if my car starts throwing errors on the Tesla charger (or others) I'll post that and apologize. But the last month and half (almost two), suggests that's unlikely.

 

[Murse-In-Airy]

I'll never understand people who don't properly read a well-detailed post about steps already taken before calling tech support. It seems that no one here caught that you've already tried the DIP switches to rule out the charge port.

I work in IT, and I deal with people on both sides: tech support and regular users. My dying wish would be for people to read emails/posts carefully before tapping out a response that wastes time and energy for everyone.

OP said they changed the Dip switches. But not from what amperage and to what amperage. Could have downgraded from 48 to 40 for all we know. While they said “minimum” we don’t know if they consider 40amps to the minimum they are satisfied with. I have a small background in technical writing,
My dying wish would be for people to write detailed posts with all the required information carefully so others don’t tap out a response that wastes time and energy for everyone.

 

[Shayne]

He says it charges fine with his FMC and his new Tesla.

Still the car has the error not the charger? There was just a compatibility update for DCFC. There appears to be a really big L2 charging problems with this car as there was just an update to keep the charging port from melting and burnt smells that crippled the charging speed on some of our cars. This update may also be causing his error.

 

[Phil-Springs]

My support experience with Grizzl-e awesome. I sent them a picture and video of the over temp error. They sent me a new charger the next day with a return shipping label for the old one. New charger was installed the next week. Other than not having the error in the first place, no way the service could have been better.

 

[Mach-Lee]

I ran into an issue with my Grizzl-E charger that I thought other owners should know about.

Briefly, the charger worked just fine for the first year. After that I would come back to my car periodically when it was plugged in, to find it had a "charger error" message in the car. Usually, but not always, the charge had completed.

This was rare at first, but became more and more frequent. Last November I set the charger to minimum amperage to see if it might be a heat problem. That didn't help, and the error message became very frequent. As in, almost every day.

I was advised that plugging in a charger that produced error messages in my car was not a good idea, so I contacted the EVSE manufacturer for support.

Over the past 6 weeks, we have had an ongoing dialogue, starting with me telling them that I had turned down the amperage via the dip switches. They asked for videos, pictures of the error message, pictures of serial numbers, made suggestions to disable the Wi-Fi in the unit, and then eventually circled back to tell me that they thought it was the car not able to handle the amperage and that I should turn it down.

Their other idea was that it was the fault of the charger port in the car. Now I had told them that this car has been using other chargers, including the Ford mobile, and has never had an issue on level one, two or three. But apparently they simply didn't want to send me a new unit and wanted to have me run around and deal with an endless stream of support e-mails.

After 6 weeks they finally offered to replace the unit. All I had to do was send it to them and wait for them to send me a replacement, during which time I suppose I would have no charger at all, if I didn't have another option.

Frankly, I had already become so upset with this that I installed a hardwired Tesla universal, so I'll be throwing their unit in the garbage instead.

I'm very disappointed by this experience... But I thought other Mach E owners considering which EVSE to purchase should be aware.

So using a different brand of charger (Tesla) fixed the charging issues.

For some reason there is something non-standard about certain Grizzl-E units that causes problems with the Mach-E. Could be something like the relay contacts getting worn and causing a higher voltage drop, or the J1772 pilot voltage or signal is out of specification in some way.

If you have ongoing charging issues with a Grizzl-E, but other EVSEs work just fine at 40A, I’d also recommend replacing the unit.

There are a bunch of people that will argue “It can’t possibly be the Grizzl-E because it worked fine before”. Well, things degrade over time and can start to have issues. The latest software may be detecting additional issues with the charger installation. You can’t assume that your charger is 100% okay. If other chargers work fine but the Grizzl-E doesn’t, then it’s the charger folks.

Sponsored