CaptainABCD
Member
- Joined
- May 25, 2017
- Messages
- 19
So I haven't owned a car in over 7 years and my i3 bought in May 2017 was my first car in that time. This is my first Chicago winter driving in over 7 years.
Car with all season tires has been amazing -- I definitely will do winter wheels and tires next season.
Today I woke up to my car at 100% as expected, parked out in my driveway, covered in maybe 4" of snow. No big deal, preheating/preconditioning for departure time loosened snow up on the windows so it was all of 60 seconds to brush the snow off.
But...had about 4" of snow on top of the charger plug and all shoved into the charger port crevices. I brushed it off well enough, closed the port, drove off.
At my destination, I couldn't open the port cover at all. No amount of pressing or punching. Eventually found a plastic knife at my destination (fast food knife) and pried it in to try to get more snow out -- obviously it was pretty deep. At some point I must have gotten snow out enough to push it in and it popped out (and made the electric tiny motor sound).
Plugged it in to top it off and 3 hours later drove home. At home, same issue. Thankfully I had the plastic knife so it was only 30 seconds of prying it in and pulling even more snow out.
I prefer to park my car outside the garage for many reasons and know this will haunt me in the future.
Spent maybe an hour or two on various EV forums trying to find a solution for this. A silicone "shroud" that sits and clips onto the charger would be fantastic, but I don't see any solutions. Maybe I'm searching for the wrong thing and this exists, but I just don't see it anywhere.
If it doesn't exist, I'll rapid prototype a silicone shroud myself, but I'd hate to put 8 hours into something I could possibly buy for $20.
Any thoughts?
Car with all season tires has been amazing -- I definitely will do winter wheels and tires next season.
Today I woke up to my car at 100% as expected, parked out in my driveway, covered in maybe 4" of snow. No big deal, preheating/preconditioning for departure time loosened snow up on the windows so it was all of 60 seconds to brush the snow off.
But...had about 4" of snow on top of the charger plug and all shoved into the charger port crevices. I brushed it off well enough, closed the port, drove off.
At my destination, I couldn't open the port cover at all. No amount of pressing or punching. Eventually found a plastic knife at my destination (fast food knife) and pried it in to try to get more snow out -- obviously it was pretty deep. At some point I must have gotten snow out enough to push it in and it popped out (and made the electric tiny motor sound).
Plugged it in to top it off and 3 hours later drove home. At home, same issue. Thankfully I had the plastic knife so it was only 30 seconds of prying it in and pulling even more snow out.
I prefer to park my car outside the garage for many reasons and know this will haunt me in the future.
Spent maybe an hour or two on various EV forums trying to find a solution for this. A silicone "shroud" that sits and clips onto the charger would be fantastic, but I don't see any solutions. Maybe I'm searching for the wrong thing and this exists, but I just don't see it anywhere.
If it doesn't exist, I'll rapid prototype a silicone shroud myself, but I'd hate to put 8 hours into something I could possibly buy for $20.
Any thoughts?
