Outlander PHEV suddenly disabled

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rhills
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Outlander PHEV suddenly disabled

Post by rhills »

Hi all,
Here we are sitting in our PHEV in Myaree, disabled. We were pulling up to the lights, decelerating slowly when suddenly the info display burst out with error messages: "EV system service required", "ACC service required" etc. Lights turned green and we crawled in "turtle mode" (does the PHEV even have this?) To a carpark across the road and pulled up. Switched on and off a few times (with foot on the brake out of habit). First Time, it turned off OK, turned on again and up came all the error messages. Couldn't put the car into reverse or forward gear. We were literally half a km from a Mitsubishi dealer so I'd thought to "crawl" there via the back Street as we still had 5 km EV range.
Called Mitsubishi roadside assist and arranged a tow. Meanwhile, alarms and error messages are going off episodically as I can't seem to turn the car off. Then I tried with foot off the brake and suddenly everything is off at last. All behaving quite strangely!
About 5 mins later, I switched on again (to check the odo) and it all lights up normally. Tentatively engage reverse and it all just works, no alarms or warnings, as if nothing had happened! Rang and cancelled the tow and crawled via the back Street to the Mitsubishi dealer and left it there.
I wouldn't be surprised if they find nothing wrong, just one of those M$ Windows-style "no idea what went wrong but ctrl-alt-del fixed it" things. We'll see!
Last edited by rhills on Wed, 12 Jul 2017, 07:26, edited 1 time in total.
Rob Hills
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jonescg
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Outlander PHEV suddenly disabled

Post by jonescg »

Wow, definitely sounds like turning it off and on again might actually work... Glad nothing crazy happened while you were moving!
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4Springs
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Outlander PHEV suddenly disabled

Post by 4Springs »

I wonder if this is what the on-again-off-again recall is supposed to fix?
http://www.caradvice.com.au/555662/2013 ... ngine-fix/
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Outlander PHEV suddenly disabled

Post by mikedufty »

My parents' iMiEV died in a similar fashion within 5km of a Mitsubishi dealer, maybe they have some kind of EV disabling transmitter to bring in business.
rhills
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Outlander PHEV suddenly disabled

Post by rhills »

4Springs wrote: I wonder if this is what the on-again-off-again recall is supposed to fix?
http://www.caradvice.com.au/555662/2013 ... ngine-fix/
I'd wondered about that recall, we'd not got that attended to yet. Melville Mitsubishi said they will do it "if they can". That said, the motor hadn't yet fired up and the article suggests the issue affects the motor's ability to run and charge. However we were down to 5km range on electric at the time, so based on past experience, the motor may have been about to fire up. From my reading of the recall article you linked to, this seems like a software issue, so maybe the EMU called for the motor to start up and the motor (due to the bug) said "nup" and so the system went into meltdown???

Interesting that it seemed to be functioning OK after switching off and on again with the foot off the brake. One odd thing we noticed though as we drove slowly and carefully to the dealer, there was no blue light on the power switch like there usually is.

It will be interesting to hear what the dealer reports.
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Re: Outlander PHEV suddenly disabled

Post by PaulHowdle »

Hi Rob,
I'm considering buying an Outlander PHEV. Can you tell us how this ended up? Did the recall fix it?
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rhills
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Re: Outlander PHEV suddenly disabled

Post by rhills »

Hi Paul,
Hmmm, thought I'd updated this tale, but evidently not. Melville Mitsubishi ended up having our vehicle for over a month. They offered us a replacement drive (non-EV/PHEV) after a couple of weeks from memory. I called them weekly for an update and after drawing a blank on their own troubleshooting, they were awaiting the arrival of a Mitsubishi EV Expert who was travelling to the Aust East Coast from NZ and they said would come to WA to look at our vehicle. Then after 5-6 weeks (from memory) I had a call out of the blue to say the vehicle was fixed and to come and collect it. When I went to the dealer to collect it they said the NZ guy didn't come over to WA and they ended up replacing the BMS and that fixed the problem!

We've had no further problems with our PHEV since that time. The fascinating sequel is that our range on battery has increased by about 20% since that repair! I regularly travel from home to our yacht in Fremantle, arriving there with between 5 and 12km residual range on battery (having driven the whole dist ance on battery alone), plug in at the Yacht Club and recharge (usually fully) and then drive home again, in the past arriving home with 10-15km left in the electric tank. Since the BMS was replaced, my fully charged, startup battery range is usually reported as 62km (up from 45km) and I now arrive at the Yacht Club with 20-25km left on battery range and arrive home with 25-30km left on battery range.

A week or so after getting the vehicle back from Melville Mitsubishi, I called them to tell them that my battery range had increased and to ask what they had done to achieve this. They couldn't explain my observations. I asked if perhaps my 2015 PHEV BMS had been replaced with a 2017 unit, but they were adamant this wasn't the case. I suspect that, notwithstanding the dealer's denial, this is what has happened. I understand the 2017 PHEV has better battery range compared with previous models and that this was achieved with better BMS software so in the absence of any other explanation, I'm going with this one.

Both my wife and I remain delighted with the Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV despite our prolonged "outage".

HTH,
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Re: Outlander PHEV suddenly disabled

Post by nuggetgalore »

rhills wrote: Mon, 15 Jan 2018, 00:59 . I suspect that, notwithstanding the dealer's denial, this is what has happened. I understand the 2017 PHEV has better battery range compared with previous models and that this was achieved with better BMS software so in the absence of any other explanation, I'm going with this one.

I wonder if the charge and discharge regime can be modified with BMS settings? What it could mean is that the safety/ longevity margins are reduced but the energy available to the user is increased.
It could be an interesting feature for batteries that are degraded to the point of nearing replacement (except if the degradation is individual cell collapse).
I can get still get 9o km in my 2010 iMiEV but expect in several years that may be only 6o-70. That will be the time to think of replacing the batt, or ramp up the fully charged volts by a small fraction and get 2 more years.
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Re: Outlander PHEV suddenly disabled

Post by PaulHowdle »

Many thanks for the update, Rob.
Glad you ended up with a good result.
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Re: Outlander PHEV suddenly disabled

Post by zzcoopej »

nuggetgalore wrote: Mon, 15 Jan 2018, 05:05 What it could mean is that the safety/ longevity margins are reduced but the energy available to the user is increased.
I feel the only way the real range could be extended by around 20% (as is reported by rhills) would be as you say nuggetgalore - allowing deeper discharge and/or higher recharge. You could easily ascertain this by looking at the cell voltages at different charge levels.
Other software changes such as smarter cell leveling would amount to a couple of percent at most.
One thing I have found recently which I don't believe occurred when our PHEV was new is that with even 3-4km range remaining, under hard (still less than 60kW) acceleration, obviously weaker cells drop below the voltage threshold and the ICE starts. I would think that this behaviour could easily be changed in software so the entire pack needs to show a lower voltage before the ICE kicks in, assuming the previous low cell voltage has since proved to be overly conservative?

Rhills, do you have a battery SOH (Ah capacity reading or PMC) before and after this issue?
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rhills
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Re: Outlander PHEV suddenly disabled

Post by rhills »

zzcoopej wrote: Mon, 15 Jan 2018, 07:01rhills, do you have a battery SOH (Ah capacity reading or PMC) before and after this issue?
Thanks for the comments guys. @zzcoopej unfortunately I don't have any of those measurements. I admit I've not pushed for them from the dealer the way others have, but my experience so far with Mitsubishi EV service at Rockingham (where I bought the vehicle new and where I get it serviced routinely) and Melville is that both seem to struggle with the EV aspects of the vehicle and even returning it to me fully charged after a service seems to be beyond their capabilities :(

I have an OBD dongle but I've not yet had the time to work out which app/SW to install to interrogate the battery stats and I must confess that outside of this "system failure" episode, I've not had any issues to motivate me to make the time. As I mentioned before, outside this one (albeit quite significant) problem, we've been delighted with this vehicle, both of us agreeing it's the best vehicle either of us has owned in our 60ish years.
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Re: Outlander PHEV suddenly disabled

Post by reecho »

I reckon they have a firmware update that is going deeper into discharge for more range......Interesting...
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