Battery Problem - Turtle With Several Bars Left

[Don]

I have no idea, but hopefully you guys can maybe tell me what to look at

We bought a third car, a 2012 SE Premium with 27,000 miles on it. Had about 1/4 charge when I drove it off the car lot to the house. Full recharge netted an RR of only 40, which gave me a bit of pause. Aired up the tires to 40 and took it for a test drive to see what shape the battery is in. Drove it 40 miles and the RR still said 17, so probably those who demo'ed it on the car lot were all flooring it every chance they got to see how much power it has?

Anyway, about 4 or 5 miles from home with 4 bars of battery left and 18 or 19 RR, the Turtle light came on and the car started slowing down, eventually getting down to maybe 20 mph max, so I pulled over and let it sit for a few minutes . . . . thinking maybe something was getting hot. Turtle went out and we're on our way again, but in less than a mile, same thing all over again. Stopped and let it cool a bit two more times and made it home OK. Nothing smells bad, there's no 'crinkling' noises like it's too hot or anything

What say you? Turtle comes on with plenty of battery and many miles left to go . . . . and the car slows down. On the plus side, it seems to be a really nice car . . . . not a scratch on it, nor on any of the wheels. Yokohomas on the back and mismatched, nearly bald tires on the front. Clean as a whistle and the battery seems OK . . . . but in 8 years with 2 cars, I have ZERO experience with the turtle and was shocked to see (and feel) it come on with so much battery left. Here's hoping it's nothing serious, 'cause the car seems like a keeper and now that Carolyn finally has the Raspberry Metallic she's wanted since day one, there's no way I can talk her out of it! :lol:

Don

 

[Don]

Well, it's not hot - In fact, after a 40 mile drive on an 80 degree day, everything under the back cover is as cool as a cucumber . . . . much cooler than I would have expected in a normally operating car. The motor and transmission were barely warm to the touch. The coolant reservoirs in both the front and back are full of clean, new looking coolant with no heat in it at all. I can hear the pump running intermittently while it's recharging, just as normal

Now I'm really perplexed - Why the turtle after 40 miles and why does it go away (for a bit) if the car sits for 5 minutes??

Don

 

[kiev]

Howdy Don,

i'm in the exact same boat. i found a silver 2012 premium SE and checked the pack with canion--it was flat top all cells within 5 mV. Only said 40 miles RR, but i thought previous driver had lead foot, etc. Turns out as it is driven there is a bad cell that is laying down, which pulls down the average, and which causes Turtle with 5-8 bars showing. The bars are still high due to the average pack voltage, but when that cell drops it causes the turtle. i'm wishing that cell would just fail so i can replace the pack, but it charges up to 16 bars, 36-40RR, so i doubt they would consider it bad.

Any ideas how to get a bad cell to just go totally bad?

Good luck and keep safe during this coronaggeden.

 

[Don]

Thanks Kiev! - I was hoping I'd hear from you

I guess I need to take another stab at Canion. 2 or 3 years ago, I loaded it on my Android tablet, bought the recommended dongle, but could never get it to work on either of my cars. Don't recall now my exact symptoms, but I think the car established communications with the tablet, but Canion didn't work

Odd thing is, the car had about 4 battery bars when I left the dealership to drive it home and I don't think it experienced the turtle . . . . but, now that I think about it, I think it went through 3 battery bars in about 6 or 7 miles, so I suspect your diagnosis is spot on!

You don't think Mitsu would honor a battery warranty replacement for turtle and 20 mph with 4 bars of battery remaining?? Not sure of their definition, but that would seem to indicate a failed battery to me

Didn't plan to title or register this car for the next 2 or 3 months, so it may be awhile before anything gets resolved

Don

 

[kiev]

Does it charge up full to 16 bars, or does charging stop before? i was surprised that a bad cell would charge back up with all the rest of them, but then fall so fast to get the pack out of line. i've got it sitting with about 5 bars showing 20RR, and i take it out for a couple of miles every few days--trying to run it down without hitting turtle to get all of them down to the bottom. i think if i do that then it may "fail" to hit the top on recharge. i know at least one criteria for a pack replace is fails to charge to 16 bars. Anything else they could claim as normal degradation, wear and tear, etc.

The tech will put it on charge, then do the discharge test in the shop, then put it on charge again. If it won't hit 16 bars then you won a new pack.

i bought it to use as a test/demo car for friends and family--give it to them to drive for a week and get them hooked. But a 40 mile car with turtle is not a good sales tool.

 

[Don]

Only fully recharged it once so far. It not only went to 16, but I went 6 or 7 miles before it dropped to 15 and I was patting myself on the back at that point - Good battery! . . . . or so I was beginning to think

It's recharging now and we'll see what the next RR is and go from there. Your idea of getting it discharged to zero bars and then recharging sounds like a plan. This car hasn't had the vacuum pump recall done yet either. I just had it done on our other two and developed a working relationship with the service manager at the closest dealer to me - He went to bat with Mitsu and got both of our cars transported to his shop and back for the recall, so I'll see what he has to say about this one and *maybe* he can do something about a new battery *before* it gets to where it won't fully recharge - I hope, I hope, I hope!

Don

 

[Don]

It recharged to a full 16 bars and an RR of 60 - Much better than the 40 on the previous charge, but not where it should be after a careful 40 mile trip at a leisurely 40 to 45 mph

Now . . . . how to get it discharged again without driving it?? - I don't have it registered or insured yet. Turn the on the key to Ready and leave it parked for a couple days??

Don

 

[veimi]

I was just curious if when charging you are disconnecting the charger when the battery reaches 16 bars or are you letting it continue as the cells balance?

If my memory serves me on 120V , from 1 bar mine reaches 16 bars in about 16 hours, but will continue charging for another 6 hours before the charge indicator light turns off.

 

[JoeS]

By all means, I'd assume that the car was sitting for most of its life. Repeatedly topping off (thus balancing the cells) might help.

Don, it's like with the virus, without testing you don't know what's going on. I would focus on getting your Android and CaniOn working, and a couple of the OBDLinks are the only Bluetooth that will give you Ah with CaniOn. Be sure you have the latest CaniOn app installed. Threatening my Android tablet with tossing it into the septic tank usually gets it to shape up... :roll:

 

[PV1]

My theories are a weak cell or a battery pack that’s been sitting a long time.

As for discharging without driving, running the heater would be the quickest way. It should automatically turn off when the turtle appears. Or, if you have a garage that needs dehumidified, park it inside and run the A/C.

 

[Don]

My theories are a weak cell or a battery pack that’s been sitting a long time.

I have a 10 page CarFax on it - Actually, it's been pretty regularly driven most of it's life. It was an unsold car that went to lease, It did sit on the car lot from March of 2012 until March of 2013, when it went to lease for 2 years. Auctioned in April of 2015 with 15K on it. 2 owners since then

I'll find me the 'right' dongle and give Canion another try - That'll tell the tale I think

Don

 

[kiev]

i went ahead and drained the pack using the heater while in READY, it went from 5 bars down to 1blinking in about 1h20m. The HV error light came on and i stopped the test. Let it sit for an hour and i was able to drive over to my LVL2 spot.

i plugged in and got all the usual sounds of the fan and contactors snapping, then shortly heard an abnormal snap from the rear--i'm guessing that the fuse/snubbers may have just popped. i'll check on it later...

[edit]
Found 4 DTCs with the i909 scantool and cleared them
EV-ECU
P1A12 Abnormal OBC stop
P1A2F cell malfunction BMU
P1AFB quickcharge time over
BMU
P1A4B each cell voltage difference

i read some datastreams, ECU power supply voltage 14.31, and Occupant Classification Module, Battery Voltage 13.60. So i think the DC/DC is working, and that would mean the MCU fuse is okay. i hope that means the snubbers are okay too.

Using Canion i found the peak max-min difference is 150 mV, and 7 cells were 60 mV below the average. It's a ragged looking pack and way out of balance down at the bottom end.

[edit] trying to get it charged, it tripped off on L2 several times, so i moved it over to connect L1 EVSSE. that seemed to work for awhile but then the GFI blew on the outdoor outlet, reset it and its chugging away, should be done in the morning.
Finished showing 16 bars and 53RR.

 

[Don]

Well I ran it down to 5 bars using the heater on Max. Only took about 3 hours. Now I can experiment driving it around a little, flooring it and seeing where the turtle begins to appear

I also ordered an MX OBDLink from Amazon, so maybe by Tuesday Canion can tell me more about the pack

I'm pretty excited about this car for some reason - The color is even beginning to grow on me . . . . a bit, but it's going to be Carolyn's 'new' car and she absolutely loves it. If worse came to worse, I could take the battery pack out of her current car (the one we bought new in 2012) and do a swap. Her car has 35K on it and the RR numbers on it have never gone down - I was VERY careful about how and when we recharged the battery and until recently, very seldom recharged it to full

Don

 

[Rember]

Hi everybody, I have the same problem with my 100K (165 000km) 2010 Imiev. When I have 4 bars left, I even don't have the turtle mode, I just have not enough power to get back home (it's difficult besause I live on a hill) and when I try to restart after the stop, the car is vibrating a lot. My mitsubishi dealer is unable to analyse my car because the car frame number is unknown, maybe because it's a right driving car and that in France cars are left driving... Should I use the CanIon application ? It seems to work with bluetooth but I think my imiev is not equiped with this technology.
Thanks in advance for your help.
Rémy

 

[JoeS]

Hello Rémy, and welcome to the forum.

The first step in understanding your battery is to measure it.

To do that you need a OBDLink LX or MX or MX+ Bluetooth adapter which plugs into the car's OBDII connector, an Android phone or tablet with Bluetooth, and an app such as CaniOn or hobdrive.

Your car should have an OBDII port - look under the dashboard above your knees somewhere around the steering column. You must find it and know you have it before you buy anything.

The car itself does not have Bluetooth - the Bluetooth is inside the OBDLink adapter. Be sure you get a genuine OBDLink LX, MX, or MX+ Bluetooth adapter, as cheap imitations do not work.

Once you have the hardware, install the app onto your Android device and follow the instructions when plugging in the OBDLink adapter and pairing it with your Android device. Do NOT try to use the OBDLink software.

Once you have paired the OBDLink adapter to your Android phone or tablet, open the CaniOn app or hobdrive app and hope it links up.

I am only familiar with CaniOn. It is very programmable - you move from screen to screen by swiping sideways. Once you get it working, you can configure the individual screens by selecting from the menus above.

The key information you are interested in is battery capacity (in Ah) and individual cell status (voltage) which with CaniOn is seen on the screen with the 88 vertical bars. Ideally these bars should all be at the same height, or at least within 0.01v of each other.

Let us know how things turn out for you.