2015 PHEV Handbrake & Motor Lock Failure

NightPHEVer · Jul 11, 2018

As far as I'm aware the wheels on mine definitely spin freely - I checked this not long ago, but I haven't looked at the 'clearance between the lever and stopper' so I'll have a go at that. I've often cleaned the calipers and squirted WD40 around the handbrake mechanism, but have no real idea if the WD40 is actually getting to the bit that gets stuck. I also periodically check that the handbrake actually works as a handbrake, which it does up to a point. And as suggested elsewhere on this thread I do actually use the handbrake on a regular basis. All things considered though, ie.potential cost and the highly probability of failure in the future, I'd still like some replacement, modified calipers before any potential warranty expires.

Did Mitsubishi replace the entire caliper or just the bit that's defective? Or is it the case that the entire caliper has to be replaced in order to accommodate the modified bit?

richi · Jul 11, 2018

I certainly got the entire calliper x2. You can see the shiny through the wheels.

They replaced the pads as well, as part of the warranty repair.

NightPHEVer · Jul 18, 2018

I just had a look at the operation of the offending handbrake assemblies and yes, they do return completely to their endstops. I squirted some more WD40 on them too. I'm doing my best here to ensure that they don't seize, which might prove to be a costly mistake for me in the long term. The thing is though, do all PHEV handbrake assemblies of a certain age and/or mileage seize?

richi · Jul 18, 2018

Hard to say whether all older Outlanders encounter the problem. It might depend on how much road salt they see.

But let's think about where to squirt the lube. Also, WD40 isn't a good choice for this job, as it can attract dirt.

A while ago, I drafted some text for the PHEV UK Facebook group, but took it down because I didn't want to encourage people who didn't know what they were doing to muck about with their brakes.

Here's the snippet: https://richi.co.uk/handbrake.html it seems to have lost its stylesheet and mucked up some special characters, sorry, but I'm sure you can figure out what it says.

NightPHEVer · Jul 19, 2018

richi - thanks for that. Quite within my technical and safety abilities to do this so I'll give it a go. I see what you mean though about brakes - safety, litigation - all that sort of thing is a potentially tricky area if you're effectively 'publishing' something on Facebook. The PHEV is a mighty heavy vehicle too, with surprisingly useless jacking points - I have a rubber hockey puck for my trolley jack cut to fit the sill jacking 'point' (such as it is) without damaging it, and always put large lumps of wood and axle stands underneath too.

As you mentioned earlier on this thread though it looks as though in the long term that it's not a permanent fix (as there's clearly a design fault) like a replacement, modified caliper is.