[Battery Warranty] A potential nightmare that turned out ok

I signed up to share some information that some may find useful, feel free to relocate if this is not a suitable sub.

So I've been an electric car owner for about a year and a half now (Leaf ePlus). We were a one car family but my wife needs to use it more often than before so I picked up a 2nd hand 2012 iMiev at auction. I understood that that was in and of itself a bit of a risk as there is no test driving etc. But there was enough battery to turn the available cars on and see RR at that battery level and do whatever static tests I wanted. I have a OBDII bluetooth adapter but canion only shows battery capacity and nothing else when using it (37.7Ahr). I would have known about the miev's pickiness to adapaters if I'd have found this forum a little earlier.

Anyway, wife prefers safety features etc in the Leaf so predictably I'm now using the miev for commuting (easily within range). I got the car and was commuting with no big issues, but then I decided to charge to full to see what sort of range I could expect. I put the car on my charger and came out in the morning to find it had only charged to 13 of the 16 bars on the meter. Tried plugging it in again, but charging finished within 1 minute. I didn't think that boded well, and after some internet searching I found this forum. Similar threads all pointed to a bad cell, and I was prepared for the worst.

Next step was taking it into a dealership for a battery checkup (overnight, free loan car). Result: pack health 79%, 82% after balancing, BUT 1 defective cell identified. They told me immediately that the defective cells were under warranty for 10 years so it would be replaced, I just had to have a checkup to ensure the car hadn't been abused as I wasn't the original owner. The checkup is a list of government recommended annual spot checks which I'd already had, but not at a dealership so they do it again. Including the battery check, total cost around USD$150 (but in Japan, not US). They say they'll be in touch when they clear things with Mitsubishi and know when they'll get the cell.

About 8 days later they get in touch to update me on the cell. They wouldn't be replacing it, Mitsubishi had authorized a full battery replacement (under warranty for 8 years). At that time, they didn't have the battery schedule yet, but would be in touch once they knew. They'll need the car for 2 or so days, but will provide a loan car again.

5 days after the last update they call again. The battery has been sourced and would arrive with them in another 4 days. The batteries are heavy so they want have my car when the other battery arrives so that they can send the defective pack back on the same truck. They wanted me to drop the car in the day before and leave it with them for 3~4 days. I'd have free use of a loan car during that period.

So 16 days after the battery checkup I handed over the car. 4 days later I had it back with a brand new battery. All in all, 20 days from battery checkup to battery replacement. With just over 3 months left on the 8 year warranty, I have an as good as new iMiev.

RR of defective battery: 85km @100%, after balancing 92km @100%, after battery replacement 112km @100% (value when I picked it up)

This worked out very well for me, but it was a big risk and could just as easily have been money down the drain. But for anyone with a 2012 iMiev, it might be worth getting a battery checkup done.

yipidee, welcome to the forum and thank you very much for your detailed information and recommendation.

Yes, inability to charge to 16 bars is often an indication that there is a bad cell, and good for Mitsubishi for holding up their end of the bargain in this instance. Unless an individual cell has actually failed, Mitsubishi is not amenable to replacing the pack, no matter how much its capacity has degraded.

The battery you now have, if new, is LEV50N which is turning out to be a significantly-better chemistry than the original (through 2012), and so you can expect a good ten years or more out of your i-MiEV.

I was a little confused as to your location - it's interesting to all of us to know where in the world you live -
http://myimiev.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=3196

Wishing you many many troublefree years of i-MiEV ownership.

Joe,

Thanks for your reply. I updated my location in my profile. I'm in Japan, which probably plays a significant role in how quickly Mitsubishi and the dealership acted.

yipidee, wow, if memory serves me correctly, you are the first i-MiEV owner on this forum from Japan itself.

Inasmuch as the i-MiEV never became popular here in the US, the availability of parts such as shock absorbers is limited to only Mitsubishi dealerships. I'm curious what that situation is like in Japan - i.e., can you just go down to your local auto parts store or a Japanese online auto parts store and order a non-Mitsu shock absorber for the i-MiEV, as an example? I guess what I'm asking is how extensive are aftermarket product supply sources there for the i-MiEV? ... the natural extension to this question is whether they have an online presence and whether they ship overseas? It would be interesting to compare prices...

I'm the first from Japan, really?! I would have thought it's the biggest market, maybe not a lot of English speaking owners though.

The i-MiEV and the Mitsubishi "i" share a lot of common parts (apart from drive train). The "i" is a fairly common kei car (special class of small car in Japan), so there's no shortage of parts available. I've been lucky enough not to have needed any parts yet (apart from the battery obviously), but I did install a 2Din head unit and was able to source a second hand centre panel online easily. Even brand new I wouldn't have had to buy directly from Mitsubishi, there are plenty of genuine parts resellers.

Regarding your example, I just did a quick search for a genuine Mitsubishi shock absorber and found this rear one for about USD$60 on an industry focused online retailer.

https://www.monotaro.com/p/3071/3637/

I'm honestly not sure if Monotaro ship abroad, but I imagine if they don't there will be someone on amazon or yahoo auctions/shopping willing to do it. If you know the part number for a shock absorber or whatever that fits the miev, I can take a look to compare prices if you want.

Thank you for the legwork and information. For now, no need to search further, thank you. It's simply good to know just in case in the future there might be a need. For now, I'm happy continuing to drive the most maintenance-free vehicle I've ever owned.

Back on the Battery Warranty topic, and not meaning to hijack this thread, but I'll repeat a question asked elsewhere:

Does anyone have anything in writing which shows that Mitsubishi extended the battery warranty from 8 years to 10 years in the USA? Suggestions on where to look? Perhaps a service receipt from Mitsu? I would sure appreciate a copy of that. Thank you.

Greetings JoeS,

I have a letter dated September, 2015 from Mitsubishi
(TSB-15-54-002)

"Affected vehicles
Model: 2012 i-MIEV"
It then lists my VIN

Phone number listed is: 1-888-648-7820 (M-F, 7am-4pm Pacific time)

Stay charged my friend.

Lithim, thank you. Sent you a PM.

JoeS said:

Thank you for the legwork and information. For now, no need to search further, thank you. It's simply good to know just in case in the future there might be a need. For now, I'm happy continuing to drive the most maintenance-free vehicle I've ever owned.

Back on the Battery Warranty topic, and not meaning to hijack this thread, but I'll repeat a question asked elsewhere:

Does anyone have anything in writing which shows that Mitsubishi extended the battery warranty from 8 years to 10 years in the USA? Suggestions on where to look? Perhaps a service receipt from Mitsu? I would sure appreciate a copy of that. Thank you.

Click to expand...

My experience is from Canada. Dealer looked in their database and told me - my battery has 10 years warranty (up to jan 2022).

JoeS said:

yipidee, welcome to the forum and thank you very much for your detailed information and recommendation.

Yes, inability to charge to 16 bars is often an indication that there is a bad cell, and good for Mitsubishi for holding up their end of the bargain in this instance. Unless an individual cell has actually failed, Mitsubishi is not amenable to replacing the pack, no matter how much its capacity has degraded.

The battery you now have, if new, is LEV50N which is turning out to be a significantly-better chemistry than the original (through 2012), and so you can expect a good ten years or more out of your i-MiEV.

I was a little confused as to your location - it's interesting to all of us to know where in the world you live -
http://myimiev.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=3196

Wishing you many many troublefree years of i-MiEV ownership.

Click to expand...

My story is NOT SO GOOD ... I bought a 2012 iMiev 2 years ago after the owner had a new battery replaced under warranty. 4 weeks ago I went to drive it and after about 6 blocks it went into a crawl. I shut the key off, turned it on to READY and off we went ... for a short distance again. It shows a FULL charge. After 6 weeks at a Mitsubishi dealership, they inform me the main drive battery has a "leak"? NO replacement of the 2 year old battery ... a $13,000 option for me to buy one! NOT A HAPPY OWNER and have NO IDEA of what options I have other than TRASHING it and losing all my money. There are Mitsubishi dealers about 1 1/2 hour north and south of me with ONE TECH at each! What is going to happen when we have THOUSANDS of electric cars out there failing and needing repairs?

Open to any ideas OR offers. The car only has 23k on the miles, new tires, and a 2 year old battery!

colonellh said:

There are Mitsubishi dealers about 1 1/2 hour north and south of me with ONE TECH at each! What is going to happen when we have THOUSANDS of electric cars out there failing and needing repairs?

Click to expand...

You’re not the first who bought a cheap second hand EV, assuming service/repair and spare parts availability are the same as with an ICE car.

This is unfortunate especially true for a 12 year old IMiev, given the low production numbers, finding a qualified tech to work on the HV system is challenging to say the least.

Most owners are left to diagnose and fix the car DIY style with the help of this forum, but for obvious reasons this isn’t everybody’s cup of tea.

colonellh said:

After 6 weeks at a Mitsubishi dealership, they inform me the main drive battery has a "leak"?

Click to expand...

Wow, that's a slow diagnosis.

But electrical leakage is usually fixable, though you need some skills that evidently this dealership did not have.

Don't try this without the necessary skills and equipment. But in essence, it's pretty easy. You disconnect the battery fuse/disconnect that is half way though the pack. Voltage measurement of one half with respect to chassis will usually result in a reading that changes continuously. That half is good. The other half will likely show a solid, unchanging reading. Say it's 80.5 V. The techs drop the pack and open it, don their 1000 V rated gloves, and continue measuring with their 600 V CAT IV rated voltmeter various modules. Next module reads 110.5 V. Wrong direction. Measure in the other direction: 50.5 V. Getting closer. Next module again reads 20.5 V at one end, and -9.5 V in the other direction. Ok, that's the module with the leakage / short. They open that module, and notice gunk coming out of one cell that is all puffy. If there is nothing obvious, they can measure either side of each cell to pinpoint the problem. Maybe the cell is fine, just some insulation has worn etc. They clean up the mess if any, replace that cell with one of about the same state of health and state of charge, verify that the fault has gone away, and put the pack back together. Hopefully less than $500 all up. I might be way off with that estimate, but a lot cheaper than buying and installing a new pack.

Not all main battery electrical leakages are inside the battery; sometimes it's the heater or the air conditioning compressor. There are videos of water dripping out of the case with air conditioning electronics in them. Most of these aren't all that hard to fix either. Hopefully in this case we can believe the dealership that the fault is with the main battery.

The problem is finding someone with those gloves, multimeter, and training that is near to you.

The ICE mentality of "just replace the whole module" doesn't really work when it comes to parts like the main battery that cost many thousands of dollars to replace. Especially for cases like electrical leakage, where there is only a small fraction of the part that is faulty. Fractions like 1/88th (there are 88 cells in the main iMiEV battery). In fact, one cells is much less than 1/88th of the value of the whole battery, as there is electronics in there, much wiring and many high current interconnects, thermal management, the case, contactors, metalwork, shipping and warehousing cost, etc etc.

coulomb said:

Wow, that's a slow diagnosis.

But electrical leakage is usually fixable, though you need some skills that evidently this dealership did not have.

Don't try this without the necessary skills and equipment. But in essence, it's pretty easy. You disconnect the battery fuse/disconnect that is half way though the pack. Voltage measurement of one half with respect to chassis will usually result in a reading that changes continuously. That half is good. The other half will likely show a solid, unchanging reading. Say it's 80.5 V. The techs drop the pack and open it, don their 1000 V rated gloves, and continue measuring with their 600 V CAT IV rated voltmeter various modules. Next module reads 110.5 V. Wrong direction. Measure in the other direction: 50.5 V. Getting closer. Next module again reads 20.5 V at one end, and -9.5 V in the other direction. Ok, that's the module with the leakage / short. They open that module, and notice gunk coming out of one cell that is all puffy. If there is nothing obvious, they can measure either side of each cell to pinpoint the problem. Maybe the cell is fine, just some insulation has worn etc. They clean up the mess if any, replace that cell with one of about the same state of health and state of charge, verify that the fault has gone away, and put the pack back together. Hopefully less than $500 all up. I might be way off with that estimate, but a lot cheaper than buying and installing a new pack.

Not all main battery electrical leakages are inside the battery; sometimes it's the heater or the air conditioning compressor. There are videos of water dripping out of the case with air conditioning electronics in them. Most of these aren't all that hard to fix either. Hopefully in this case we can believe the dealership that the fault is with the main battery.

The problem is finding someone with those gloves, multimeter, and training that is near to you.

The ICE mentality of "just replace the whole module" doesn't really work when it comes to parts like the main battery that cost many thousands of dollars to replace. Especially for cases like electrical leakage, where there is only a small fraction of the part that is faulty. Fractions like 1/88th (there are 88 cells in the main iMiEV battery). In fact, one cells is much less than 1/88th of the value of the whole battery, as there is electronics in there, much wiring and many high current interconnects, thermal management, the case, contactors, metalwork, shipping and warehousing cost, etc etc.

Click to expand...

Mitsu techs are not allowed to open the battery pack therefore won’t troubleshoot anything inside it…
As mentioned before @coulomb is correct the issue is most likely outside the pack, AC compressor is a primary suspect…