my Miev will not charge

[kiev]

@Pluto, What's the age and condition of your 12 volt aux battery, is the electrolyte water level low, is there any corrosion on the terminals, etc?

A weak old or worn out Aux battery can create a multitude of issues with these cars.

A broken charger wouldn't heal itself, but a flaky aux battery could produce the symptoms you have experienced.

 

[pluto]

As far as I know the 12V battery is original; I took it to a local (non-EV) shop last week and they tested it under load and told me it was 87% good. I can't really see the electrolyte level through the casing.

 

[kiev]

Original = 2012, being 6 or 7 years old the aux battery has exceeded it's life. A lead acid battery has to be tested under load to see how much the voltage sags. The resting voltage doesn't indicate the condition of a battery.

 

[pluto]

Right, like I said they tested it under load and it had a grade of 87% which they deemed to be good. I have no idea if the battery is actually original as I've only had the car two years.

 

[jray3]

All this talk of failing 12V batteries made me check. I thought mine needed water, but that was just the shadow of the lead plates, the water level was still higher than ideal, and I last watered last summer. :roll: It did spit some electrolyte as a result of the last over-watering, and the hold-down bolt really showed its poor quality plating.

So I load tested, and my 40 degree cold-soaked May 2012 (or earlier) starting battery with over 83,000 miles and a number of jumper-cable roasting jump starts to its credit is still putting out 215 amps for 15+ seconds before my pile tester goes into thermal limit and screams for mercy, all while saggin no lower than 12.0 Volts. (DC-DC still connected, but that's only 60 A, IIRC)

Charge On!

 

[luvmymiev]

I thought I would reach out here. Last month my 12v battery died. I replaced it and continued on. Not even a week later my car would not charge. It would start and go, but error lights came on and none of my 3 EVSE chargers would work. I brought it to the dealer who discovered a blown on board charger fuse. They replaced that and it immediately blew again. Now they want $4000 plus labor to replace the charger. With 70,000 miles on my car, if it was in good shape (it is a wreck) it wouldn't be worth it. I bought it new and hate to think of this car as a throw away. Is there a source for a used charger? Can I add a DCQC and a portable DC charger and charge that way (I have a cold weather package)? Any other insight?

 

[mikedufty]

I also am having charger issues.

2010 Australian model with 50,000km.
Showed a couple of odd symptoms - seemed to be less than fully charged a couple of times over a week or so, then wouldn't charge.
Low voltage (battery shaped light) and high voltage (!) warning lights on dash.
Car still drives fine, 12v battery seemed to have a good charge.

I took it to local Mitsubishi dealer who said the charger will need replacing ($4000) but that our charger was recently replaced in a recall, and they might be able to do it under warranty. 2 months and a few phone calls to Mitsubishi Australia later, and they have agreed to replace it under warranty. Now waiting another 2 months for the part to come from Japan and be fitted - car broke in early May and estimated fix is in early August.

 

[kiev]

Howdy Mike, if you get any information or details about the charger recall, please post it up here.

 

[mikedufty]

This is what the service reciept says:

Carry out work as per campaign bulletin
MIR9481A092 Charger, EV battery Kit

10MY 1-Miev ON BOARD CHARGER/DC-DC CONVERTER Misc :RND 1 & 2 c rounding 0.02

Actually the reciept doesn't make much sense to me, I've attached a photo of it.

I think this is something that came up on their system when we brought it in for the ECU, rust on battery frame, vacuum pump, recalls that we were notified about, we had no notification for this one.

I can't find anything about that recall online, and if I enter my VIN into the official mitsubishi page to search for recalls it just says invalid VIN.

 

[kiev]

What VIN is listed on the plate in your car--sometimes they transpose digits when reading on the car and writing the service order.

using a vin decoder i got this info, which seems half-correct

https://www.vindecoderz.com/EN/check-lookup/JMFLDHA3WAU003565

 

[mikedufty]

I'll have a look next time I see the car, it has been at the dealer for 3 months and is still there. I have thought about getting it back to store undercover, but would be dependent on getting a dc charger to work to get it back again.

 

[kiev]

...
Showed a couple of odd symptoms - seemed to be less than fully charged a couple of times over a week or so, then wouldn't charge.
Low voltage (battery shaped light) and high voltage (!) warning lights on dash.
Car still drives fine, 12v battery seemed to have a good charge.

One other idea is that the pack has a defective cell. The "less-than-full" charging is one of the indicators for that issue. A MUT3 scan of the pack would show the max and min cell voltages--if a cell is lower than all the rest then it will cause the gauge to show less than full after a normal charge session.

i would hope that they tested the 12V while under load, or by specific gravity measurement, to get a real determination of health. A weak, old, or worn out 12V will cause a multitude of unrelated issues and problems in these cars.

 

[mikedufty]

EVbatmon showed all the cells close to the same voltage.
I feel like if it the 12v battery was that bad you would see an impact in some areas other than charging. If it works well enough to start and drive the car shouldn't it be good enough to allow it to charge?

 

[CGauer]

Guys,

for the sake of the charger/DC-DC longevity, ideally how many amps should I pump out of my eMotorWerks JuiceBox L2 EVSE?

8A it barely gets hot... Maxed out, 16A it gets pretty hot... It can be set as low as 5A or perhaps even less. Efficiency shouldn't be as good on really low rates, right?

Best

Clemente

 

[redcane]

I also am having charger issues.

2010 Australian model with 50,000km.
Showed a couple of odd symptoms - seemed to be less than fully charged a couple of times over a week or so, then wouldn't charge.
Low voltage (battery shaped light) and high voltage (!) warning lights on dash.
Car still drives fine, 12v battery seemed to have a good charge.

I took it to local Mitsubishi dealer who said the charger will need replacing ($4000) but that our charger was recently replaced in a recall, and they might be able to do it under warranty. 2 months and a few phone calls to Mitsubishi Australia later, and they have agreed to replace it under warranty. Now waiting another 2 months for the part to come from Japan and be fitted - car broke in early May and estimated fix is in early August.

Interesting - I've seen a less than full charge on maybe 3-4 occasions with our 2010 AU model with 64,000km. However I started poking around because tonight the car decided to stop charging at 3 bars below half full. Unplugging it and plugging it back in gives a fan, and the charger light flashes, but at the point the fuel gauge would normally light up I get the exclamation mark warning, and the battery warning light. The charger light then turns off, and the battery light turns off leaving just the exclamation mark. I've checked the fuses I think are relevant in the user serviceable fuse boxes, but they all seem fine.

Car still starts to ready, but the battery and exclamation mark warnings are on. 12V battery was replaced two months ago, after the a door was left ajar. Canion shows cell voltages from 3.900V to 3.905V, and 39% SoC.

Fingers crossed it decides to start charging again over the weekend. For us it's going to be a bit of a challenge to get it into a dealer with less than half a charge, I might have to get it towed in.

 

[JoeS]

redcane, thank you for your posting, and commiserations. In desperation, I would still be inclined to put an external charger on the 12v battery for a while, and try again. Stopping charging when partially charged had been a main battery problem symptom, but your cell range looks good. Good Luck and, if it comes to that, do let us know what the dealer says. If you are out in the middle of nowhere you might consider towing the i-MiEV with the car in Ready and the motor engaged in order to let regen bring up your charge enough to let you drive to the dealer.

 

[mikedufty]

Redcane - sounds very similar to ours. I hope its not the same issue as it is possibly expensive and time consuming to fix. It should be possible to charge from a DC fast charger should you happen to have one closer than a dealer.

There is a fair bit of information spread over several threads on this forum, which I have not had to use as Mitsubishi Australia say they are going to fix ours under warranty. Will still be 4 months off the road if nothing else goes wrong.

More seems to happen when you phone up Mitsubishi Australia and select the complain about a dealer option, than if you just leave it to the dealer, but still slow.

 

[redcane]

In somewhat good news, I had enough charge to get to the dealer without getting stranded.

The dealer has pulled some trouble codes (including a "P0A09"). I'll talk to them tomorrow to get more details. They are up to $395 worth of diagnostics fees as it is, and the next step is to order an EV-ECU for $1400. They have told me that if that doesn't fix the problem, I've still bought the part! They also suggest that it might be a fault in the charger/DC-DC converter unit, but they replace the EV-ECU first because it's cheaper...

I'm at least 300kms from any kind of public fast charger, let alone a chademo one, and the local dealer doesn't have any kind of charging facilities (they needed me to bring my cable in with the car). Although it has crossed my mind that it might be less expensive to get a 360V DC charger and connect it via the Chademo socket than to get mitsubishi to replace everything.

My next step is to drive it across town, and get a friend with an interest in EVs to look at it, after going over all the advice in this (and other) forums. If we can find an obvious failure of a replaceable component then happy days.

If not, I'm not really sure what to do. I wish I had access to a salvage imiev.

 

[mikedufty]

Have you looked at the 5 or 6 different threads on it in this forum.
Your experience with the dealer sounds a lot like electronpushers
http://myimiev.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=4067
Are you in the same state?
I'd be very reluctant to try the ECU without something firmer.
Are you a member of the Australian Electrical Vehicle Association? There is a bit of discussion on the AEVA forum too.
One member in Brisbane has just bought a wrecked i-MiEV. He is going to use all the parts to convert a Cortina, but might be willing to let you try swapping some bits for troubleshooting. I guess you are not likely to be nearby if you are 300km from a charger.

A few people are trying to pull the chargers apart and replace components but I don't know if any have succeeded.
jray3 on this forum and at least one other have succeeded with second hand chargers. Their is an imiev being parted out on ebay in the uk at the moment, though I didn't see the charger listed, and they want 1500gbp for the motor ecu, but might be worth looking into.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/m.html?_ssn=davies.salvage.ltd&_from=R40&_sacat=0&_nkw=miev&_ipg=200&rt=nc

You could also try asking Mitsubishi for a 'goodwill' warranty repair. That is what they say they are doing for us. Haven't said exactly why they approved it, but we had 2 factors in our favour - that the charger was only 2 years old, having been replaced in a recall, and that we have an extended warranty certificate from the dealer that sold it.

 

[kiev]

P0A09 [DC/DC Converter error (1)] troubleshooting is found here:

http://mmc-manuals.ru/manuals/i-miev/online/Service_Manual/2012/54/html/M154920520002300ENG.HTM

i'm always leary of shops that just want to throw parts at a problem hoping to fix it--how is it that the cost of the part has any bearing on the repair if they don't know the root cause? Shame on them, this is the troubleshooting flow chart that they should be using.