Plug Bug: Burnt plugs
I have nearly 15,000 miles on my little electric car. I haven’t had to do much maintenance lately; the car has been running pretty well. I did a check on the front brake pads; the original set wore out really fast (like 7 or 8k miles), and I’m happy to see that the new ceramic pads are wearing away a lot slower than the original ones.
I did have some trouble recently at about 14,600 miles. The inlet plug seems to have had some extra resistance and was melting! The LS-30 inlet isn’t all that secure, and I think the loose locking connection would sometimes arc when I turn off the power with my wall timer.
Luckily I caught it before it caught on fire, but it is pretty concerning that it was melting to this point. I also realized all my other plugs had some melting signs, so I had to replace them all (about $110!). I’m looking into not using the LS-30 anymore and instead use the J1772 plug, and modify my adapter box to turn quickly the charger off when the thing is unplugged to prevent arcing.
