Frustrating experience dealing with VW Car-Net

[maheshn]

I leased an eGolf on Dec 20th and have been trying to setup and activate my Car-Net account for the past two weeks and VW Car-Net customer service has messed up so badly I am not able to login into to my account to manage the eGolf charging.

Even after daily pursuit to get a response they have been so bad in getting back a response or a resolution timeline.

Any related experiences similar to mine or tips in getting hep to resolve the issue.

I have tried many escalations to VW Car-Net support but of no use.

:?: :!: :twisted: :twisted:

 

[cove3]

I haven't had that problem. They've been very helpful, although there was a day where I could log in, but not get to the menu to charge or condition.

For me at least, not having a time of use meter to get lower rates or even if I did having enough 12-8 power uses to justify it, I'm not finding car-net functions all that useful

Ron

 

[GadgetGav]

When I picked my car up, the CarNet wasn't activated and the sales guy couldn't work through it with tech support. I had to leave it back at the dealership when one of the two service techs who'd been trained on it were there. When I collected it, the CarNet was working but the iPhone app come up as if I was driving a Passat. The web site shows eGolf, so I'll have to contact them again to try to straighten out the app. Luckily I don't have variable rate electricity, so I don't need features like delayed charging, but being able to pre-warm the car would be nice.

 

[cynandvinecar]

We have had many issues with the Car-net app, both iphone version and online. The iphone has limited functionality and the online version has problems, it's flaky at best and just doesn't work most of the time. Never mind that the time online is est but the iphone app is pst and the estimated distance online is in Km's not miles.

We leased the car in mid Nov and have spent hours on the phone with Car-Net support, most of the time feeling like we were training them, not the other way around. We absolutely need the delayed charge option and it doesn't work.

I did some research through Linkedin and found a Mr. Charles Kim, General Manager, Sales Operations, Pacific Region, VW of America. He has promised to help us out getting the issues with Car_net sorted, time will tell but at least he has been very responsive over the holiday period. Fingers crossed!

 

[eGolf2015]

I've been pretty frustrated with Carnet as well. It doesn't seem like they did adequate testing before rolling it out, especially for the eGolf functions.

Aside from the obvious missing iPhone app features (remote lock, schedule charging start time, % battery charge instead of just range), the data that it displays is really buggy, both on the iPhone and the website. There are multiple issues with time/date, most bizarrely when one entry says "Today, January 4" and the previous says "Yesterday, January 4". I think the software is not only inconsistent with respect to EST and PST, but it may also be referencing EU times as well. "Driving Data" would be a really helpful feature if it showed reliable data. Instead, I get multiple (as many as 6) entries for an individual trip, showing different start and end times, but always overlapping with the previous entries. In some cases, multiple trips are lumped together and in others "mystery" trips that we didn't make are showing up.

A couple of quirks of little (actually no) consequence that I've noticed are that the red arrow rarely points in the correct direction when I check "Parking Position" - it is supposed to point in the direction the car is facing. I've also found that when I go to "Destinations" and press the arrow button in the top right, it centers and zooms the map at 0 lat, 0 long, which is in the South Atlantic off the coast of Ghana.

After hours spent on the phone with Carnet support, I think they finally understand some of the issues, but I'm not 100% sure about that. I was about 20 minutes into a call with one of the reps before we realized that they don't even have screenshots of what eGolf owners see (vs other models), let alone access to pull it up on their screens. Out of 3 occasions when a rep told me they would call back after looking into something further, only once did I get a call back & that was 2 days later than promised.

The eGolf itself is great, but I'm very unimpressed with the Carnet service so far. Unless they make some major improvements, can't see any reason to pay for it once the free trial period runs out.

 

[SfEvR]

Similar to others experience here, I've found the car-net app to be virtually useless at best, and harmful at worst. I say harmful, because early on (I got my car mid-November), I tried using the delay charge feature several times and it would work some days and then not charge at all on others. That is harmful to have an EV driver not have his car charged when he needs it and has no reason to think it wouldn't be charged in the morning. I spent a lot of time on the phone with car-net folks in those first few weeks. Ultimately, I determined they didn't know what they were talking about or how to fix any of the issues I was experiencing. The one feature that has seemed to work reliably, is start charging from the phone. So, I continue to plug in when I get home, and then hit start charging from my phone at 11pm when off-peak rates start. Sometimes I get the red error message and have to go out to the car and start charging, but I have never had the app it tell me that the start charging worked, only to find out that it didn't in the morning. So, since that feature is reliable, I still use it. Other than that, i now basically ignore car-net. It is a pain to have to remember to start charging at 11pm every night (or start charging a bit before then if I want to go to bed early). VW needs to get its act together on the delay charging feature. Delay charging is one of the most important features for folks who have time of use rates. Otherwise, it is much more expensive for us to charge our cars or we have to deal with personal inconvenience of remembering to start charging manually at a particular time. To sum up, car-net sucks right now!

 

[cynandvinecar]

Similar to others experience here, I've found the car-net app to be virtually useless at best, and harmful at worst. I say harmful, because early on (I got my car mid-November), I tried using the delay charge feature several times and it would work some days and then not charge at all on others. That is harmful to have an EV driver not have his car charged when he needs it and has no reason to think it wouldn't be charged in the morning. I spent a lot of time on the phone with car-net folks in those first few weeks. Ultimately, I determined they didn't know what they were talking about or how to fix any of the issues I was experiencing. The one feature that has seemed to work reliably, is start charging from the phone. So, I continue to plug in when I get home, and then hit start charging from my phone at 11pm when off-peak rates start. Sometimes I get the red error message and have to go out to the car and start charging, but I have never had the app it tell me that the start charging worked, only to find out that it didn't in the morning. So, since that feature is reliable, I still use it. Other than that, i now basically ignore car-net. It is a pain to have to remember to start charging at 11pm every night (or start charging a bit before then if I want to go to bed early). VW needs to get its act together on the delay charging feature. Delay charging is one of the most important features for folks who have time of use rates. Otherwise, it is much more expensive for us to charge our cars or we have to deal with personal inconvenience of remembering to start charging manually at a particular time. To sum up, car-net sucks right now!

I wonder how many of these messages will get posted before someone at VW wakes up and understands this is not a user programming issue but a real problem with their choice of the third party vendor, Carnet. The BMW i3 was one of our other choices, I'm beginning to wonder if we made the right one.

 

[eGolf2015]

After several more calls with Car-net, it looks like the duplicate trip problem might be fixed, though the trip times are still screwy.

While talking to the rep today I noticed that the web portal shows us averaging 17+ mpkWh vs the more realistic 4.5-ish in the iPhone app. I've come to the conclusion that I can't trust any of the data that Car-net is providing. I just hope that the battery charge and predicted range are somewhat accurate.

 

[svienb]

I too have had similar issues with the delay charging feature, I came down this morning to find my car has stopped charging, so did not have enough charge to get to work. Lucky for me I haven't sold my prius yet.
I have found that the times on the departure time keep getting randomly set to different times. The climate function has yet to work.

I have also had issues with when calling car-net, they do not seem knowledgeable and have yet to get back to me on two separate calls I have made.

 

[eGolf2015]

I too have had similar issues with the delay charging feature, I came down this morning to find my car has stopped charging, so did not have enough charge to get to work. Lucky for me I haven't sold my prius yet.
I have found that the times on the departure time keep getting randomly set to different times. The climate function has yet to work.

I have also had issues with when calling car-net, they do not seem knowledgeable and have yet to get back to me on two separate calls I have made.

I tried using the departure time feature for all of last week and then turned it off. The car only charged as scheduled on the first night, though Car-net showed that departure time charging was set to "On" the whole week. Fortunately I expected issues and kept an eye on the status overnight so I could start charging manually when it was clear that it wasn't going to happen automatically.

I also noticed that the set departure time changed by a minute or two each day for no apparent reason, and despite what Car-net shows, setting the preferred interior temp in Car-net to 70 instead of 72 has had no effect on the actual settings/function in the car.

 

[eGolf2015]

And my trip data was completely jacked up again today.

According to Car-net I drove 130+ miles on a single charge with almost 20 more miles of range remaining. If only that were true!

 

[JoulesThief]

Pulling this thread out of the grave, it's Oct 10th 2015 now, has Car-Net resolved a host of bugs?

What VW reflash updates do I need first to do at the dealership before activating Car-Net?

What is still buggy on Car-Net?

Is it pretty well debugged with Android 5.0.1

My Golf SEL was a May 2015 build.

 

[PMC2015]

A few weeks ago my car net experience improved dramatically. It updates smoothly with accurate data and delayed charging started working. Also a May 2015 build.

It seemed to me they must have significantly improved the backend because the iPhone app itself was not updated.

 

[miimura]

Pulling this thread out of the grave, it's Oct 10th 2015 now, has Car-Net resolved a host of bugs?

What VW reflash updates do I need first to do at the dealership before activating Car-Net?

There is nothing to do before activating Car-Net. The dealership should have started the process for you. After that you can do it all online yourself by following the instructions in the email that they send you. If you haven't received an e-mail about Car-Net, just get in the car and press the "i" button overhead. The operator should be able to help you.

It seems to me that one of the fundamental problems with the e-Golf Car-Net system is that they cannot verify that the communications system is working until it is activated by the customer. This prevents them from doing any meaningful QC in the factory, at the port, or at the dealership prior to delivery.

 

[JoulesThief]

Pulling this thread out of the grave, it's Oct 10th 2015 now, has Car-Net resolved a host of bugs?

What VW reflash updates do I need first to do at the dealership before activating Car-Net?

There is nothing to do before activating Car-Net. The dealership should have started the process for you. After that you can do it all online yourself by following the instructions in the email that they send you. If you haven't received an e-mail about Car-Net, just get in the car and press the "i" button overhead. The operator should be able to help you.

It seems to me that one of the fundamental problems with the e-Golf Car-Net system is that they cannot verify that the communications system is working until it is activated by the customer. This prevents them from doing any meaningful QC in the factory, at the port, or at the dealership prior to delivery.

Having bought a 2014 Passat TDI SE with Car-Net, I do vaguely remember the rep pushing the button and sending me on my way, late, BTW, after getting up at 3:30 am to fly in to Denver to buy the car. It was 4 pm after an 11 am arrival that I was sent on my way. No food since breakfast at around 4 am. So, my memory may have been a little bit fuzzy, but I did set it up today.

The VW dealership I bought from didn't even prep this car, or wash or detail it, let alone activate the Car Net by pushing the button so I could speak to a rep, before I left the dealership. Also stunned and surprised that the rear license plate screws with wood screws into a plastic bumper, not 6mm machine screws like on my passat or Touaregs.

 

[miimura]

The VW dealership I bought from didn't even prep this car, or wash or detail it, let alone activate the Car Net by pushing the button so I could speak to a rep, before I left the dealership. Also stunned and surprised that the rear license plate screws with wood screws into a plastic bumper, not 6mm machine screws like on my passat or Touaregs.

If they didn't prep it properly, they probably didn't put on the front license plate bracket either. It also screws into the bumper cover with self-tapping screws. I had to take mine back to the dealership for them to install it since it is required by CA law. If they had included it and thrown it in the back of the car, I would have done it myself, but they did not provide the bracket at all, hence the return trip.

 

[JoulesThief]

The VW dealership I bought from didn't even prep this car, or wash or detail it, let alone activate the Car Net by pushing the button so I could speak to a rep, before I left the dealership. Also stunned and surprised that the rear license plate screws with wood screws into a plastic bumper, not 6mm machine screws like on my passat or Touaregs.

If they didn't prep it properly, they probably didn't put on the front license plate bracket either. It also screws into the bumper cover with self-tapping screws. I had to take mine back to the dealership for them to install it since it is required by CA law. If they had included it and thrown it in the back of the car, I would have done it myself, but they did not provide the bracket at all, hence the return trip.

Actually, they did put on the front license plate bracket. I think I prefer the plate, and the lighting, on the trunk lid, not on the bumper, myself. For a $36k MSRP, it sure looks and feels chintzy, value wise. Once the Govt and State subsidies are gone, we'll see what the market will truly bear, I think bleeding edge early adopters and greenies with a lot of money were the first guinea pigs that got fleeced by VW.

How many days does it take for Car-Net to activate and accept my PIN number on my smart phone? I keep getting "User name or PIN incorrect" ??? The gal there had a hard time getting my name right on my email address, with the spelling, despite me have her read it back to me 3 or 4 times.

 

[mfennell]

It took a couple phone calls for me to get car-net working properly. When I called, they gave me the user ID and I set a PIN for the account the dealer had set up, but randomly configured a NEW account at some point, shutting off the old one. The app would say car-net was "locked" for my account and I was convinced that was because it was "updating". The original phone rep claimed it took 28-48 business hours for the account to "activate", which sounded like nonsense to me, but what do I know?

Eventually I called back and the phone rep noticed the two accounts. Now it works. Not as nicely as On-Star did for the Volt but a little better than expected, I guess.

 

[JoulesThief]

It took a couple phone calls for me to get car-net working properly. When I called, they gave me the user ID and I set a PIN for the account the dealer had set up, but randomly configured a NEW account at some point, shutting off the old one. The app would say car-net was "locked" for my account and I was convinced that was because it was "updating". The original phone rep claimed it took 28-48 business hours for the account to "activate", which sounded like nonsense to me, but what do I know?

Eventually I called back and the phone rep noticed the two accounts. Now it works. Not as nicely as On-Star did for the Volt but a little better than expected, I guess.

I got the same results, 2 account numbers, I could never log in with the first account number, called Car-Net up again from inside the car, got a new account number that they assigned just then, and in a couple of hours, it worked just fine. But in the mean time, I wasted a lot of time trying to log in and get the first, bogus account number to work, which never did, in it's short existence of time.

By calling Car-net back, I mean pressing the "i" button that's by the light console where a sunroof switch would normally be located, if an e-golf wasn't so portly and could afford the additional weight of a sunroof.