We have our car back, having got a fix after three attempts by Peugeot and the dealership! The red Traction Fault alerts were due to undervoltage on the 12V bus - the 12V battery was not being charged properly. The traction ECUs draw their power from the 12V bus and if its too low they shut down. The cure (we hope!) has been the replacement of the inverter module (which charges the 12V battery from the 400V traction battery) and the 12V battery protection switch. Three things other owners might want to bear in mind:-
1. Our Traction Fault incidents occurred at approx. 1000 mile intervals (the first two were 50 miles apart with ~1000 miles on the clock, and the third was ~1000 miles later). Suggests that 1000 miles is as far as the car can go on a full 12V battery charge before the ECUs complain.
2. Our car gave consistently optimistic range predictions compared to the loan car we were given (which had done a similar overall mileage). Ours always suggested >200 mile range capability versus about 180 miles on the loan car. Since we've had our car back the range prediction is more like 190 miles. Perhaps the non-charging of the 12V system resulted in more range - if so, beware optimistic predictions! Mind you, our car seems to have had new software loaded so it may be that the range prediction algorithm has been modified.
3. Our car occasionally used to immediately re-enable the charge cycle when trying to unplug after a full charge at home so the the plug remained locked. Even though the traction battery was at 100% the car would carry on charging for another 15 minutes. Perhaps the car was recognising that the 12V battery was still not charged. The car has not done this at all since we had it back with the new modules.
We're hopeful that we can relax and enjoy the car now, but we won't be 100% sure until we've racked up another couple of thousand miles.
