ASC warning and ASC "off" lights come on intermittently

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acensor

Well-known member
Joined
Mar 15, 2013
Messages
371
Location
Southern Oregon
In the last couple of weeks on two (or maybe three) occassions shortly after pulling out of the driveway I noticed that the two ASC yellow warning/status lights were on.
The one on the right with "off" below it normally should come on only when you manually deliberatly disable ASC.
I was, until then, unaware of the one on the left (which shows the same icon as the right-hand one).... and it apparently is a "something not right with ASC" light.

I turned the car off, restarted, and in each case the lights went out and didn't come back on. At least not until the next incident. In short, this has happened 3 time out of, say, 30 startups. So definitally falls into "intermittant."

The owners manual seems to say, regarding this,
"If you turn the car off and the problem resolves forget about it.
If you turn the car off and the lights either come right back on,
or come back on later, take it in for service."

Of course the car can be driven perfectly well without ASC,
but (a) SOMEday it could be important to have it working,
particularly if my wife finds herself at the edge of handling on some occassion,
and (b) I want this issue (and any more serious one that might be lurking behind it) resolved while under warrenty.

Speaking of potentially more serious issue that might be lurking in the electronics: On one occassion about two weeks ago I was backing out of the garage and by steering-wheel feel and within 10 feet of driving was 99.5% sure the power steering had not turned on. (In retrospect I should have driven it a bit longer to 100% confirm "yup, ain't no power steering.") I turned the car off, turned it on again, and powersteering was active as usual.

Other possibly relevant data item: The ASC off/on switch is working normally after restart. IIRR on the occassions when both ASC lights were on pushing and holding it either 4 seconds or quickly did nothing.

I have an appointment to bring it in to the Mitsu dealer service tommorow.
I'm a little nervous about having the dealer touch it as has been reported here Mitsu service folks are not always up on dealing with the MiEV.
They SHOULD be competant as about 5 of their own employees lease and drive MiEVs and they own two themselves (one as a customer shuttle car, and one as a parts pickup and delivery car.)

So my questions here are along these lines:
# Has anyone here encountered anything like this or heard of it?
# Any thoughts about alternative to try before letting the dealer put their scope and screwdrivers on the car?
# Anything you suggest saying to, or asking, the service techs?
(I thought of asking them if they could give me a battery status check while it's on the scope without charging me an arm and a leg.)

FWIW: We've owned the car for 1.5 years and have 7000 miles on it.

P.S., I phoned the Mitsu customer support phoned, and was a BIT surprised that the woman could not even confirm that this was clearly not normal behavior and said "sorry we have no technicians on this line." A bit surprised as on the only other time I called that line, when I had somehow switched my speedometer to Kilometers, I got a guy who was willing and able to walk me through a pretty convoluted proceedure for switching back to MPH.
 
Happened to me on the 2012 a couple of times -too fast with the ignition switch
How fast did you turn the ignition switch?

Did you pause at the on position (where all the warning lights light up for a couple of secounds) before turning the key to the spring for the ding - ready position?
 
sandange said:
Happened to me on the 2012 a couple of times -too fast with the ignition switch
How fast did you turn the ignition switch?

Did you pause at the on position (where all the warning lights light up for a couple of secounds) before turning the key to the spring for the ding - ready position?

It is very possible, even likely, that I flipped past that diagnostic position fast.
If the car wasn't away right now (wife has it) I'd run out there and see if I can replicate the issue with deliberate fast wrist action.
If anyone else cares to try that to see, report of results appreciated.Would be nice if we could establish this symptom is even partly reproducible... not just for my own and others knowledge here, but, even, if the Gods be with us, pass it to someone in Mitsubishi to address (if not with software fix, at least with a note in the trouble shooting page in the manual and a note to their service personell and customer phone support reps.
 
acensor said:
If anyone else cares to try that to see, report of results appreciated.Would be nice if we could establish this symptom is even partly reproducible... not just for my own and others knowledge here, but, even , if the Gods be with us, pass it to someone in Mitsubishi to address (if not with software fix, at least with a note in the trouble shooting page in the manual and a note to their service personell and customer phone support reps.)

Alex

Well, FWIW, I just went out to our EV and flipped the key from Off to "ding" (Ready) as fast as I could, about 20 times, and could not reproduce the problem.
 
This may sound stupid, but check to see if any of the brake light bulbs (including the high mounted stoplight) are out. I put led bulbs in the high mounted stop lamp and caused the problem you are seeing. Even the dealer's diagnostic tester only showed a brake light switch problem--which the car didn't have. For some reason the indication to the driver that there is a problem with the brake lights or switch is shown by turning on the two warning lights for the stability and traction control. It may not be your problem but worth a look.
 
Wanted to add that when it happened to me, it was on a
cold winter morning -20 C ( -4 F )
Intermittent electrical problem are the hardest to diagnose.
Do share what you find.
 
sandange said:
Happened to me on the 2012 a couple of times -too fast with the ignition switch
How fast did you turn the ignition switch?

Did you pause at the on position (where all the warning lights light up for a couple of secounds) before turning the key to the spring for the ding - ready position?
I doubt that is the sole cause. Since buying my car, that's always been how I've started it. Spin the key all the way to start and release. A couple of times I've been too quick going into drive, though, and the car doesn't start, then it's back to park, click start, de-ding, and go.

The left ASC Warning light flashes when the system activates (slide on snow, gust of wind blowing you out of your lane, etc.).

Has anybody tried pulling the fuse for power steering and seeing what that does, for both range and side effects?
 
sandange said:
Wanted to add that when it happened to me, it was on a
cold winter morning -20 C ( -4 F )
Intermittent electrical problem are the hardest to diagnose.
Do share what you find.

OK:
Took it in to dealer.

Here's what their report (no-fee invoice) said:
7105 CHECK FOR CODES, NO CODES FOR ASC OR P/S SYSTEM.
TEST DRIVE OK. CALLED TECHLINE, NO CASE WITH SAME PROBLEM.
RECOMMENDED DOING RECALIBRATION OF STEERING WHEEL ANGLE SENSOR.
PERFORMED RECALIBRATION OF STEERING WHEEL ANGLE SENSOR.

This dealer routinely washes and vacumes out and dusts inside any car left for service, so came back shiny clean, anyway. ;)
Have my doubts whether that relcalibration was relevant, as the ASC lights came on when (a) car wasn't even moving and (b) steering wheel was centered.

Like I said.... a main reason I even bothered bringing it in to dealer was to get problem on record as "within warrenty." Most USA states and I believe even the federal FTC have a rule that basically says "it you have a problem within warrenty and it is not fixed within warrenty period the factory has to extend the warrenty on that problem until fixed."
 
acensor said:
Took it in to dealer.

Here's what their report (no-fee invoice) said:
7105 CHECK FOR CODES, NO CODES FOR ASC OR P/S SYSTEM.
TEST DRIVE OK. CALLED TECHLINE, NO CASE WITH SAME PROBLEM.
RECOMMENDED DOING RECALIBRATION OF STEERING WHEEL ANGLE SENSOR.
PERFORMED RECALIBRATION OF STEERING WHEEL ANGLE SENSOR.

Like I said.... a main reason I even bothered bringing it in to dealer was to get problem on record as "within warrenty." Most USA states and I believe even the federal FTC have a rule that basically says "it you have a problem within warrenty and it is not fixed within warrenty period the factory has to extend the warrenty on that problem until fixed."

FWIW: The symptom reoccured, briefly, twice in the last week.
I didn't take it back to the dealer.
Just called them and got them to log the events into my service record.
 
OK.... Here's a follow up report on this issue from the original poster (me.)

Since the several months since the dealer did the supposed recommended fix for this issue, it has become far more common that I turn on the car and see both ASC yellow light staying on. I'd say approximately half the time.

I've tried turning on slowly (stopping at first click where all indicator lights come on). That seems to make no difference whatever..... still get the quirky lights-stay-on about 50% of the time.

What DOES seem to help , contrary to what another poster in this thread reported, is if I turn the key QUICKLY from dead off to full start (ding) it seems (so far) to never manifest the stuck-on-ASC lights.

----
By the way: The other event I reported (pulling out of the garage and noticing the power steering was not running) has never occurred again.

----
Still curious about other possible reports of "ASC light stuck on."
 
acensor said:
What DOES seem to help , contrary to what another poster in this thread reported, is if I turn the key QUICKLY from dead off to full start (ding) it seems (so far) to never manifest the stuck-on-ASC lights.


We hit temperature down to - 20 C ( -4 F ) here Tuesday morning
That morning I experienced a group of warning light staying on after spinning the ignition switch too fast, including the ASC .
All returned to normal once I restarted slowly and did not come back once the car was driven during the day.

The only difference is that this time it happened on my 2014 Miev

I guess we have 2 different situations.
 
sandange said:
We hit temperature down to - 20 C ( -4 F ) here Tuesday morning
That morning I experienced a group of warning light staying on after spinning the ignition switch too fast, including the ASC .
All returned to normal once I restarted slowly and did not come back once the car was driven during the day.

The only difference is that this time it happened on my 2014 Miev

I guess we have 2 different situations.

What the have in common is a suggestion that there are some minor(we hope) quirky bugs in the programming of sensor and/or display instruments-lights.... That these are intermittentd, and that unless they get much worse or we beat hard on a dealer with the threat of making them give us a new car under the lemon law, we're probably going to have to just live with these. :roll:
 
Here's a further follow-up:
Summary: At least this is now a Mitsubishi acknowledged issue.

Took Evie (wife's name for our MiEV) in for recall C14111E (rust issues on bolt kit under battery) and recall C1413E (brake vacuum pump issue) .... so while in there also reported and asked them to address the continuing intermittent (but increasing) occurance of ASC trouble-light and ASC "off" light coming on.
Really didn't expect them to fix it but wanted to solidly document it.

Fortunately it DID chose to misbehave on the way to the dealer so was able to actually show it to the service manager.

Uploaded/attached with this is the repair order , showing in writing that Mitsu is aware of the issue. In one way it's trivial. I have driven cars without ASC for decades... no big deal. Beside, AFAIK if I spot the light inappropriately coming on and turn car off and on again the problem goes away for the whole trip.
In another respect not trivial.
If in one of the rare crashes of an MiEV happens to coinincide with this problem, if owner or survivors claims that had the ASC been working he/she would not be crippled, Misubishi would have a real problem, being in the position of it being a known risk that they had neither fixed, recalled, nor even advised owners about.
And of course there is that one in 100,000 chance that failure of the ASC could actually cost me damage or injury.

Well darn! I don't see an option to attach the service order scan. I KNOW I have done so before.
Until I figure out how to do that I'll just quote from last section of the service order:

CUSTOMER STATES TRACTION CONTROL LIGHT COMES ON INTERMITTENT
Story: 8736 CHECK FOR CODES. NO CODES FOUND FOR TACTION CONTROL
SYSTEM, MITSUBISHI KNOWS ABOUT THIS BUT HAS NO FIX FOR IT
RIGHT NOW.
 
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