P0CF5: Control Pilot Circuit Low
What to do
As P0CF3 — try one other charge point and cable to establish whether the fault is the car or the equipment, then have the pilot voltages measured.
What this code means
The Control Pilot circuit is reading below its valid range. The pilot voltage falling too far is how the car says 'ready to charge', so an unintended low reading is a circuit imitating that message — a short to earth, water bridging the inlet pins, or a switching resistor stuck in circuit. It is the direction that can make a car appear ready when it is not.
What the Control Pilot is and how the handshake works are at P0CF3.
Likely causes
Start here
- Damaged charging inlet or pins · moderate
- Water ingress into connector · easy
- Fault in the external charging equipment · easy
Less common
- Corroded or loose connector · easy
- Faulty on-board charger · specialist
Symptoms
Components involved
Information, not instruction
CarGeek is a reference, not a service manual. Its pages are written from public sources and from what other people have found, never from a manufacturer's own service information, so they can be wrong or incomplete for your particular vehicle. Some of what they describe carries real risk: high voltage, fuel under pressure, stored energy, hot and moving parts.
Have anything you intend to act on checked by a trained person against the manufacturer's own procedure for your vehicle. Nothing here replaces that procedure.
Community experience
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- The car — make, model, year and engine. The same fault behaves differently on each.
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