Preconditioning cannot be started with My Renault app

It's winter here in Finland, even in Southern Finland it has been -10°C .. -25°C these weeks. It would be nice to start the preconditioning before jumping to my Scenic E-Tech!

Unfortunately, since last fall, My Renault has performed very poorly when trying to start the preconditioning (cabin heating, that is).

Update on 2026-02-24:

The My Renault app remote functions have now worked four days here for me. I have heard similar comments from other Renault E-Tech electric drivers as well. In short: it all looks very good right now! Let's hope this really is now the end of the problems.

The original post follows:

The errors 

There are two usual failure modes after clicking the Preconditioning button (that's "Ilmastointi" here in Finland) in the app:

1. The app waits for one minute and then gives the error message: 

 

In English version that is:

"No vehicle response

Your request has been sent correctly. However, the response time does not allow us to confirm its success."

2. The app immediately shows the error message:

 

In English version:

"An error has occurred. Please try again

Sorry, we are having technical difficulties. Try again or contact customer support if the problem persists."

Now, to be clear, previous winter season (2024-2025) the first message was not uncommon. In that case the car would usually still start the heating though, the "OK" signal did just not get through to the app. Not optimal but somewhat acceptable.

This winter season (2025-2026) is totally different. It is extremely rare to get the heating starting by just using the My Renault app.

My Scenic has been in the workshop for this problem, the Renault representatives have told that for some cars the firmware upgrades have helped, but in my 2024 Scenic nothing has helped yet.

Potential workaround

If your car is within the reach of the keyfob, you can try to "activate" the car by opening+closing the door locks or by switching the lights on+off with the keyfob. If you then wait for a moment (like 30-60 seconds) and refresh the My Renault app screen, you might see that the "last update" time of the car has been updated in the app. If you then try to start the preconditioning/heating again, it may work this time.

Note that this is not a 100% workaround, it can still fail, especially if you have already reached the "failure mode 2" ("it's not you, it's us") error above. In that case you may need to wait for a longer time (like 15 minutes or longer) and then try the workaround again.

Obviously, if your car is not within the keyfob reach, the workaround is not suitable. Be also careful if opening+closing the locks if the keyfob connectivity is not stable, you may end up having the doors unlocked in the parking lot.

Firmware versions on this car

I'm listing these if they help someone to get better picture about the problem at hand. 

Currently installed updates in the car menu (translations from Finnish to English maybe not exact word-by-word):

• ELECTRIC MOTOR 3.1.1 (12 October 2025) 
• MULTIMEDIA 3.5 USB (29 September 2025)
• CONNECTIVITY 3.3 USB (29 September 2025), shown as failed
• OPENR LINK 3.2.0 (07 May 2025)
• TECHNICAL SERVICE 1.1.0 (22 March 2025)
• Service update (01 October 2024)

The full SW version shown: 283C39758R_DOM.18.73.31.12S_prd.user

My Renault app has shown the announcement about upcoming OpenR Link 3.5.0 for several times since October 2025, but it has not been offered yet (in the car or in the workshop the car visited in December).

My Renault app also still occasionally shows an announcement about the electric motor 3.1.1 update, but as you can see from the list above, it has already been installed a few months ago.

Discussion

Since this is not a single-car problem, the Renault brand or model-specific discussion forums have been quite active around this topic. This is not Scenic-specific problem either, it also affects other full electric cars (that are the most obvious users of My Renault app), not sure about hybrids that use the same app.

It has been speculated that the increasing number of full electric Renault cars on the roads have caused the Renault servers to be constantly overloaded and thus the servers are not working correctly.

I don't know about that, because the workaround above lets me understand that the state of the car is somehow related to the problem. Also, the problem easily occurs on early Sunday mornings Finnish time as well when the most of the Renault drivers is still aleep in the Central Europe.

Whenever I am in the car (usually parked within 200 meters of the nearest cell tower), the network indicators in the car show good connectivity both to the cell network and to the cloud service. The problem is also not location-dependent: same problem is presented everywhere I've tried in the Southern Finland. Google Maps and other apps in the car work normally with no network errors.

The current fact is that the problems have started to increase since last fall (maybe even earlier), and Renault as an organization has not been able to address the problem properly yet.

The customers have not been informed unless they have been in the workshop, and whatever is being told by the local Renault representatives, does not seem to be very exact. For example, my car has been in firmware upgrades in the workshops twice, and the results are that the Connectivity update is still in faulty state, and then the next workshop said everything is fine nevertheless. Firmware upgrades have been told to have been executed, but not a single version number in the car screens have changed.

There are also third party apps that use the same Renault servers for accessing and configuring the car, they seem to fail just like My Renault. 

The advertised feature (remote control of the cabin heating) is not currently working.

Renault, do better.