Re: my Miev will not charge

First Glitch

As happy as we have been with our Miev we encountered our first serious problem.
At just over 63,000 km (39,140 miles)

One month prior to this event on 2 occasions, we experienced the car had not charged in the morning, when the delayed charging on the Schneider EVS was set to start after midnight.
Our Schneider EVS is not one of the recalled units and the cars software was updated.
I wrote it off as not having latched the connector to the car properly. Now I'm not sure.

April 10
I had the car charging for about 3 hours (Level 2) ,just before heading out to pick up Angelika ( my wife) from the train station.
I started the car, put in D and advanced about 50 ft when a whole bunch of warning lights lit up & the car shut down -
The car icon warning light with the exclamation mark stayed lit up and the car would not go.

I thought that maybe I was too quick with the key and tried to a restart at a lot slower pace this time. The car reset and this time quit after 10 feet.
I repeated this several times to try and get the car back into the driveway, each time the car would travel less & less.
I finally got into the drive way and arrange for Mitsubishi to pick it up the next day.

The next morning I drove my ICE car to the service center at my dealership,
The service told me the road side assistance expired along with the full warranty coverage at 60,000 km , 3,000 km ago just my luck.
Our dealer equipped & qualified to service the Mev is 44km ( 27 miles) from our house .
Towing cost over $ 200

Went through the regular sales pitch at the dealer service , they did the scheduled maintenance, sold me a windshield wiper, cabin air filter, brake cleaning, etc. had them change to summer tires.

I complained about noise from one of the wheels when doing a full locked turn, They found I had a plastic inner fender broken caused from ice building up in the front passenger wheel well - ordered that.

They called me at the end of the day that the car was ready, they had road tested it &
didn't find anything wrong with the car.

That's when I had my doubts. I've seen gremlins of this kind before.

Picked up the car and it drove fine all the way home.
I plugged it in overnight - delayed the charging from the wall mounted EVS to start at 2 am.

Next morning at 5:30 am, Angelika left to go to the train station - I usually drive her and keep the car but suggested I stay home with access to or ice car in case she gets stranded
She made it 150 yards and the same scenario happened .

This time I decided to read my warranty manual and discovered that the
Roadside assistance is covered for 3 years UNLIMITED
towing to the closest dealership with qualified staff to do the service - $ 200 sigh of relief - but also a $ 200 argument to look forward to for the previous charges.

Roadside towed it to the dealer and I told them to keep it and drive for several days to make sure the problem is solved .

Now personally I don't have a problem dealing with this within reason.

As an early adapter. I expected to have to deal with several inconveniences
Paying more for the car , several recalls, The possibility of the odd road side break down,
Even inexperienced service staff that is learning.

Now others see this and are judgmental - neighbors especially for EVs
The worst kind of advertising is an EV that is loaded onto a flat bed repeatedly.

Comparing this event with some Ice cars I've owned ..
My Honda Fit had and O2 sensor fail just after the warranty expired, similar scenario
but it did not leave me on the roadside.
will update when I have more news

Hey Sandage,

Sorry to hear about that.

My first guess would be some kind or flakey wheel speed sensor but who knows. Surprising they did not see a fault code in there.

It sucks seeing your car towed away, I hope they get to the bottom of it so you can make it for next Friday.

My dealer just closed on St. John's so if I need service I think I have to go to st Jacque.


Don......

DonDakin said:

It sucks seeing your car towed away, I hope they get to the bottom of it so you can make it for next Friday.

Click to expand...

Funny thing is this was my main concern as well.
Really want to participate in that.

Sorry to hear the Mitsu dealer shut down.
Did the the whole dealership shut down or only the EV department?

Yeah the timing kind of sucks also.


As far as I can tell the whole thing is shutdown. It was really close and convenient.....

Keep us updated...

Don.....

sandange, since the car went to the dealer a second time for the same symptoms, this will hopefully get their attention. Surely, the onboard diagnostics recorded something? I wish you all the best in getting the dealer to provide you with a detailed explanation of everything they did to troubleshoot and hopefully fix the problem.

They said they ran a diagnostic but found no fault codes.
Time will tell.

Sandange, did they keep the car or do you have it back?
Next time it does this, perhaps take a photograph of the dashboard lights?

They kept the car all weekend and haven't heard anything so far,
I'll up date when I have more news.

A little update of events
Fortunately we had our holidays planned the next week and we didn't need the car .
They have had it for about 2 weeks now and they have been running tests with full communications with Japan.
Latest news is the charger and cooling compressor have failed and now they want to do a full battery test

I'll update once there is some news.

sandange said:

They have had it for about 2 weeks now and they have been running tests with full communications with Japan.
Latest news is the charger and cooling compressor have failed and now they want to do a full battery test..

Click to expand...

Presumably they're referring to the aircon compressor and not the charger/motor/controller liquid coolant pump, although it seems to me that the charger and compressor have nothing to do with each other(?). I'm trying to visualize the techies in Japan trying to educate the dealer's technicians here sufficiently to troubleshoot your car...

It's a new service world out there - at the design end, it must be fun to structure troubleshooting tests and resulting codes based on various Failure Modes Effects Analyses to pinpoint the exact cause :ugeek: ... can't help but wonder if an all-electric drivetrain is easier than ICE.

Sandy, good luck, and your patience will hopefully be rewarded by a bunch of new subystems in your car. Just hope they don't screw something else up while replacing those parts. :roll: Do let us know how things turn out.

JoeS said:

...although it seems to me that the charger and compressor have nothing to do with each other(?)...

Click to expand...

In my car, when I plug the EVSE first thing he does is start the A/C compressor, to check it. Probably if does not work, don't recharge the batteries to prevent damage from overheating.

Are you sure it's the AC compressor that comes on (sounds like a small 4 cylinder idling) and not the battery pack cooling fan (kind of a whoosh sound)? I can make sound clips if that would help.

No, I'm not sure.

The sound I hear at first for a short time is much stronger and it sounds forced air fan. Then I hear no more. I have to check if the sound is similar to A/C or not (have to ask my wife to connect A/C while I hear it from behind, I've never done)

I hear occasionally turn on a liquid pump (a much softer sound), I think cooling the charger.

Yes. You are hearing the fan in the battery pack doing a self-test. The AC compressor is quieter and is located up front. There is also a liquid circulation pump in the back that cools the charger, motor, and motor inverter.

When the car is plugged in, the fan does its self-test, then periodically during the charge (and while driving), the circulation pump comes on to cool the motor and electronics. This is what you're hearing.

Just another up date -
I received a call from my dealer a few days ago and was told that the charger and the compressor for AC were toast.

With 63,000 km ( 39,146 miles ) on the car,
The charger was covered but.....
I was 3,000 km ( 1,864 miles) over for warranty on the AC compressor.

A moment of panic hit me when I was quoted almost $ 4,000

I told him living here in Canada I could lived without AC.
and was told that the car must have the AC operational in order to control the battery temperature.
Now I know we had a discussion here one on this subject but thought that we concluded the batter was NOT actively cooled.

I protested the quote of $4,000 and told them it was not acceptable, He said he would look into what he could do for me.
I spoke with Mitsubishi Canada and was told it was the dealers call.

Got a final call from the dealer service department today, Mitsubishi offered the compressor free of charge and I am paying the dealer for installation and the coolant recharge
I settled for that- about $ 400

It's been 3 weeks today,
I should have Blacky back next week .
It will have been almost a month of paying for gas again. - ouch

Ouch indeed! Am glad that Mitsu stepped up on the compressor. Curious what could have caused that- some sort of voltage kick or ..?
Seems the car could do fine without a compressor if you never use a fast charger, though a warmer weather MiEVer might answer whether AC will EVer kick on during L1 or L2 charging- I've never seen it.

I'm still having no luck on finding any iMiEV that made it into salvage yards. Anybody got a connection to the junkyard networks? I pulled parts at a salvage yard during college, but that was at the dawn of the interwebs...

Wow....

Sandy I think you did really well to tell these guys that was completely unacceptable.

BTW my thought is if the A/C compressor is needed to keep the battery cool (Which is questionable because it only operates for a few minutes when you quick charge) then Mitsubishi should cover it as part of the drive train. Which I guess in the end they did.

I think you are being more then reasonable by paying the labour and recharge for the A/C. I just had to replace the A/C compressor in my 2008 Nissan rogue and it cost $850.00 for the job as a comparison.

It just really burns me to think they would even ask you for $4000.00 for an A/C compressor on this car. What a hassle that is, you should not have to fight about this with a dealer. I think Mitsubishi is giving dealers a hard time about warranty work reimbursement and the dealers are just trying to get money anyway they can. I think it was lame that Mitsubishi Canada told you it was the dealers call. Not very impressive.

I really love the iMiev but I hate hearing these stories it just does not give me a warm and fuzzy feeling knowing that if something else goes in the car in a few years I am likely to get screwed.

Perhaps we should start a coop fund on the forum to by wrecks and part them out.

Anyways end of rant.

I hope blacky is back soon......


Don.......

Sandy, sorry to hear about all these troubles, but relieved that at least a fix is on the table. I'm glad Mitsu stepped up to the plate and at least covered the material cost of that a/c unit.

Other than a physically broken Remote, this is the first vehicle failure I recall on this Forum that has resulted in an out-of-pocket expense by an i-MiEV owner.

I'm trying to reconcile the symptoms you experienced with the parts that were replaced, as it makes no sense to me that two disparate pieces of equipment would both fail at the same time and, furthermore, result in vehicle inoperability. Neither the charger nor a/c failure should leave us stranded - what ever happened to "gracefui degradation"?

Has our culture so frightened the vehicle manufacturers that instead of "get you home" fallback subroutines they instead now shut the car down at the slightest hiccup? Sadly, because of the complex computer controls, we no longer have the ability to revive a stranded car ourselves.

I hope Mitsubishi is reading this and will use this failure as a case study - just how convoluted is your system which would lead to identifying the need to replace these two very different (and very expensive) parts?

jray3 said:

Ouch indeed! Am glad that Mitsu stepped up on the compressor. Curious what could have caused that- some sort of voltage kick or ..?
Seems the car could do fine without a compressor if you never use a fast charger, though a warmer weather MiEVer might answer whether AC will EVer kick on during L1 or L2 charging- I've never seen it.

Click to expand...

That's my call, you are right, the car could do fine without a compressor if we never use a fast charger. AC never kick on during L1 or L2 (seen it going over 31º C so many times, with L1 or L2, and never uses AC). But with fast charger, one sensor hits 31º C and its on. I have it in video and I see it every time I make a fast charge. Because of this, I will always prefer a fast charge then a slow charge in an hot day. The orange light turns on when a sensor hits 31º C, but only in a fast charge.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3GePlW1P4E

sandange said:

Just another up date -
I received a call from my dealer a few days ago and was told that the charger and the compressor for AC were toast.

With 63,000 km ( 39,146 miles ) on the car,
The charger was covered but.....
I was 3,000 km ( 1,864 miles) over for warranty on the AC compressor.

A moment of panic hit me when I was quoted almost $ 4,000

Click to expand...

The US warranty coverage is:
Basic Coverage: 3 years/36,000 miles
Powertrain Coverage: 5 years/60,000 miles
Main Drive Lithium-ion Battery Coverage: 8 years/100,000 miles

The Powertrain includes the transmission, differential, drive shaft, EV motor, inverter, on board charger & DC/DC converter, electric motor cooling system (which is the same cooling system that cools the inverter and charger), the ECU (electronic control unit), and the BMU (battery management unit). I am disappointed that Mitsubishi does not include the heater and air conditioner since they are integral to the powertrain.

As someone who often diagnoses and repairs electrical failures, I find it curious that both the charger and AC compressor would fail simultaneously. Surely, if they have both in fact failed, their failure is related, and should be covered under the powertrain warranty. Looking at the i-MiEV circuit diagrams, the only thing that both the AC compressor and the charger have in common is that they are both connected to the traction battery. Hopefully, the documented chargers and batteries that have failed on this forum member's i-MiEV's are being sent back to Mitsubishi in Japan to be studied for future improvements in the vehicle's design. (I would love to know what the cause of failure was, but I can understand why Mitsubishi would not want the competition to know.)