For past year or more I have noticed that I have been consistently getting 35-40 miles on a full charge. So when I had car in to dealer for recent recall regarding brakes I asked the dealer to run a battery diagnostic test. Initially I got a generic answer from the dealer stating we drove the car for 10 miles and everything looks fine, I can come and pick up the car. When I pressed them for details on actual battery capacity and health of individual cells and asked for a report they initially told me they will send it to me. Couple weeks went by and I didn't get anything so I called and was told their computer was broken and they are waiting for a new computer. Today I got a call saying they can't run actual diagnostics because of a technical issue. They are telling me there are two cables that run from battery to charging port which are gone bad which doesn't allow them to run diagnostics on the battery. Mitsubishi will cover the only one of those cable under warranty but not until I replace the extension cable first which will cost $2000. Without these cables they can't tell me for sure if battery is ok. Mitsubishi wouldn't cover extension cable despite dealer trying to get it covered. Any help will be appreciated.
Warranty issue, need help.
- Thread starter cha2ny
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A brake recall? That's a new one - Details please
In Mitsubishi's opinion, any battery that fully recharges to 16 bars on the fuel gauge is in satisfactory condition, no matter how many amp hours it actually has remaining, so it wouldn't matter if your dealer did do a battery capacity test and gave you a number - Any number is OK so far as any warranty claim is concerned, so long as it still recharges to 16 bars. All batteries lose capacity as they age and the warranty doesn't cover any capacity loss - Just coverage for defective cells which would prevent it from fully recharging
Don
In Mitsubishi's opinion, any battery that fully recharges to 16 bars on the fuel gauge is in satisfactory condition, no matter how many amp hours it actually has remaining, so it wouldn't matter if your dealer did do a battery capacity test and gave you a number - Any number is OK so far as any warranty claim is concerned, so long as it still recharges to 16 bars. All batteries lose capacity as they age and the warranty doesn't cover any capacity loss - Just coverage for defective cells which would prevent it from fully recharging
Don
Thanks Don, that is very helpful. The only question I would have is that warranty states "loss in capacity of 30% or more after 10 years or 20% after 5 years (I believe)". So how would one measure capacity, certainly RR on car would not be accurate. Also I remember reading somewhere that the first symptoms of lost capacity is range loss before you start loosing ability to charge to full 16 bars. Any thoughts? Thanks a bunch.
cha2ny, sorry to hear about your plight, as the ten-year battery warranty period is soon expiring on so many of our cars.
Anyone with experience regarding warranty claims and the process we should follow?
Sad to say, I'm not aware of any battery degradation warranty for our Mitsubishi i-MiEVs. Anyone ever see that in writing? - if so, please do post a copy here on this thread.cha2ny said:
Anyone with experience regarding warranty claims and the process we should follow?
PV1
Well-known member
One owner pressed for a capacity-related warranty replacement and got it several years ago here, but that’s the only case I’m aware of (something like 40% of rated range at 2 years). Didn’t we all (new US i-MiEV owners) sign the waiver that the warranty doesn’t cover degradation?
With EVBatMon, an OBDLink LX, and an Android phone or tablet, you can pull the Ah capacity from the car.
With EVBatMon, an OBDLink LX, and an Android phone or tablet, you can pull the Ah capacity from the car.
We sure did. Never heard of the "30% after 10 years or 20% after 5 years" guarantee - The form we signed said basically the opposite - Degradation is to be expected and the warranty only covers defective cells. I've got one car which basically goes to turtle and slows down with 3 or 4 bars remaining, but it recharges to full, so I'm out of luck, or so I've been toldPV1 said:
Don
cha2ny said:
The only cables such as that are in the Chademo port for DC Quick Charge--is that how you charge your car? What about using the Level 1 EVSE unit that came with the car and plugs in to the AC mains--does that work okay?
kiev said:
Kiev,
I always charge with level 1 cord which works just fine, in over 10 years I charged with Chademo port once just before I took the car to the dealer last month, for 70 mile drive I had to charge the car twice, when I got at the dealer I had 10 bars left (interestingly when I used Chademo it automatically stopped charging at 84% or, I didn't think much about that, not sure if that is normal or not). I received several different and inconsistent answers from the dealer regarding the state of the battery, after initially telling me on the phone battery / all cells were normal they informed me yesterday that they could not run the diagnostic test on the battery pack because of the damaged cable and extension cable.
Here is the link for the actual language for the battery warranty. As Don had stated it speak about not being able to charge the battery to full 16 bars.
https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/tsbs/2017/MC-10116253-9999.pdf
cha2ny, thank you very much for posting that Mitsubishi tech bulletin, which is dated 2017. For the life of me I don't recall this ever appearing on this forum. It does contain quite a bit of specific information regarding what Mitsubishi considers a defective battery and the steps they go through to pin it down.
CHAdeMO charging usually automatically stops at 80%.
BTW, it's always fun to know where in the world someone is located, as we occasionally find other i-MiEV owners close to us. You might consider updating your profile (which will show your location by your username whenever you post), the procedure described here: http://myimiev.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=3196
If you haven't tried to run your own battery test already, perhaps there is someone close to you with an app and OBDII adapter that might help. I think it would be worthwhile for you to find out what your Ah capacity is and to know whether you are experiencing simple degradation or have one or more bad cells.
I've gone through that lengthy thread and for the life of me cannot find the reference to 80% 5 years and 70% after 10. Is there a specific post you can identify? You can find the post number by clicking on a post header and then looking at the last numbers of the URL.cha2ny said:
CHAdeMO charging usually automatically stops at 80%.
BTW, it's always fun to know where in the world someone is located, as we occasionally find other i-MiEV owners close to us. You might consider updating your profile (which will show your location by your username whenever you post), the procedure described here: http://myimiev.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=3196
That is too weird! Did they say the cables were on your car or on their instrument they were trying to hook up? I would ask them to specifically identify those cables to you. Regarding "...on the phone battery / all cells were normal.." does that mean they were using one of the smartphone apps?cha2ny said:
If you haven't tried to run your own battery test already, perhaps there is someone close to you with an app and OBDII adapter that might help. I think it would be worthwhile for you to find out what your Ah capacity is and to know whether you are experiencing simple degradation or have one or more bad cells.
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