Battery pack replacement - Plug and play?

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JFC

New member
Joined
Jan 9, 2023
Messages
3
Hi,

I'm the owner of a 2012 IMiev, I have been replacing weak cells every year in my battery pack with accidented 2014 IMiev cells sold on ebay... But now, I'm reaching the point where I would need to completely replace the battery pack. My car is still in good shape, but I'm not willing to pay the 18000$ the Mitsubishi dealership is asking for a battery back replacement. I paid 11000$ for my used IMiev back in 2016.

I found an accidented 2012 IMiev 2 hours drive from my place on marketplace with a battery pack that was replaced in 2019. Before I buy the car for pieces and the battery pack, I was wondering if I could just replace the battery pack in my car without any reprogramming required. Would the whole process be plug and play? Are the BMUs interchangeable?

Any insight on the subject would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you
 
The VIN is sent over the CAN buss for some reason (maybe on 2 different PIDs?), and the FSM indicates that the VIN must be programmed into a new battery (the CMU boards have the VIN on eeprom) when replaced. Also there is something about writing the mileage and date in the EV-ECU. i suppose that is all about the warranty replacement procedure, etc.

So chances are that the 2019-era pack in the wreck was re-programmed to that car VIN. If you buy the whole thang then you could just replace the pack along with the EVECU and the BMU. One other VIN-tagged item might be the MCU.

if you had an laptop running microsloft XP, the MUT-3 software, and a VCI then you could likely do all the VIN writing yourself.

Let us know how it works, we are all in the same boat with cells dropping out.
 
JFC said:
Before I buy the car for pieces and the battery pack, I was wondering if I could just replace the battery pack in my car without any reprogramming required. Would the whole process be plug and play? Are the BMUs interchangeable?

Hello
The jury is still out on what exactly is plug & play and depends greatly if your car was built late enough in 2012 to be equipped with the upgraded LEV50N cells.

If that’s the case (VIN should show) there is a good chance that just swapping the pack followed by a battery calibration will do the trick.

If it doesn’t, BMU replacement would be my next step but even if that is unsuccessful (VIN issues?) you could still exchange all 88 cells individually and then let the car adjust capacity over time by itself.

Mickey
 
Hi,

I'm the owner of a 2012 IMiev, I have been replacing weak cells every year in my battery pack with accidented 2014 IMiev cells sold on ebay... But now, I'm reaching the point where I would need to completely replace the battery pack. My car is still in good shape, but I'm not willing to pay the 18000$ the Mitsubishi dealership is asking for a battery back replacement. I paid 11000$ for my used IMiev back in 2016.

I found an accidented 2012 IMiev 2 hours drive from my place on marketplace with a battery pack that was replaced in 2019. Before I buy the car for pieces and the battery pack, I was wondering if I could just replace the battery pack in my car without any reprogramming required. Would the whole process be plug and play? Are the BMUs interchangeable?

Any insight on the subject would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you
I believe you can just swap them. There is a guy on Facebook MiEV group who did it. I will look up the link. Ben Nelson is his name. Mitsubishi I-MiEV electric vehicle owners is the Facebook group.
 
Before you get too deeply into this, double check the condition of the chassis, particularly ABOVE the battery pack and around the suspension mounts

Thanks to their poor corrosion protection a 10 year old iMiev is potentially on its last legs, body-wise
 
I've done three pack swaps now, all Plug and Play, including a 2014 pack into my very early 2012 model. The 2012 with a '14 pack is not getting the full benefit of the later pack, but is driving with like-new range and charges up the later pack very conservatively and DCFC's very well. This makes pursuing the '14-to'12 BMU swap a much lower priority that I've back-burnered behind other round tuits!
 
I've done three pack swaps now, all Plug and Play, including a 2014 pack into my very early 2012 model. The 2012 with a '14 pack is not getting the full benefit of the later pack, but is driving with like-new range and charges up the later pack very conservatively and DCFC's very well.
Great, if it charges and drives like new then can you elaborate on ‘not getting the full benefit’??
 
Supposedly the 2014/16 packs had greater capacity than the 2012's, but my original 2012 BMU doesn't recognize it, so I've not seen better range than the car EVer displayed when new (154,000 miles ago). I didn't open the lid to further investigate which cells are in this 2014 pack.
 
I believe you can just swap them. There is a guy on Facebook MiEV group who did it. I will look up the link. Ben Nelson is his name. Mitsubishi I-MiEV electric vehicle owners is the Facebook group.
What’s the Facebook iMiev group? Could you drop a link?
 
Supposedly the 2014/16 packs had greater capacity than the 2012's, but my original 2012 BMU doesn't recognize it, so I've not seen better range than the car EVer displayed when new (154,000 miles ago). I didn't open the lid to further investigate which cells are in this 2014 pack.
Don’t think so, LEV50N cells have improved ‘longevity’ but are still the same 50Ah capacity as the original LEV50, apparently no way to tell them apart just by looking at them either
 
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