batteries failed, car gone

[thomash85715]

My 2013 base model had range of 80+ when I got it around 2016 or so. It had around 20K on it and I paid $5K for it from BMW dealer in san diego. I loved it for all in town operations here in tucson AZ but rather suddenly the range dropped to the 50s and the charge would not go past 80% with my level 2 duosida charger. I traded it for a ICE car and I often wish for a proper usable EV. At the time the dealer stated battery replacement cost would be $12K. There was one month left on warranty but I was told I had to pay $500 diagnostic fee to determine exact situation. There was significant risk factory would deny coverage and I would be out the $500.

 

[JoeS]

tomash85715, thank you for posting, but what a sad story! I'm further saddened that you didn't replace the i-MiEV with another electric car.

Here is the link to the NHTSA TSB which covers ground rules and troubleshooting flowchart for battery replacement -
https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/tsbs/2017/MC-10116253-9999.pdf

To be threatened with a potential $500 bill for simply looking into this issue for a battery still covered by warranty is, in my opinion, uncalled-for! Is that normal nowadays? I haven't been to a Mitsu dealership in 8 years. In any case, I understand your decision.

I had a clear-cut cell failure on my used i-MiEV in 2015 and it was replaced by the dealer with apologies for my inconvenience, with no charges threatened to have a look at the problem. Perhaps it helped that I had the car flatbedded to the dealership as I didn't think I could make it since each time I recharged it the end number of bars kept getting lower and lower...

Of course, the battery warranty has now expired on the 2012 i-MiEVs and their original LEV50 cells, as there were almost none unsold by the end of 2013. The popularity of threads dealing with i-MiEV battery repair or upgrade is steadily increasing...

 

[PV1]

Sad to hear, but what’s worse is that Mitsubishi’s battery warranty is pretty clear that if the battery experiences a failure, like not fully charging, they replace the pack at no cost if some dealer-specific processes can’t recover it. Having a battery fail near the end of the warranty is almost like hitting the lottery in that a 10 year old car gets a free new battery. I probably would’ve paid the $500 to roll the dice at that point if there wasn’t another EV certified dealer within range.