4WD system does not work, I chase Mitsu for solution.

[MartinH]

Ha, Ha , Ha! Tesla calls that a trailer, I call it a handbag.

 

[phevnor]

I provoked the cross axle problem, and tried the left foot brake trick.

Used simular trick as a young driver on my then -72 Corolla, in winter. Used the parking brake to make a limited slip diff effect.

I checked to night that pressing brake with left foot and in the same time press throttle pedal, and the motors worked harder ad the brake was engaged.

Look at this video at 2:00: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L85t5WLCK84
It show the effect.

Could be usefull if got stucked in a cross axle situation.

 

[MagnusR]

Beg to differ on that movie. Does not seem to be slippery at all, hard sand and rocks. Would like to see it after a couple of days of rain :mrgreen:

There is no grip. Does it matter whether that is because of low pressure or because of a slippery surface? The wheel spins freely. That is all that matters.

When the wheels are sunk into the ground and the car needs to climb out, that is a different story. But then we are really back to incline ;-) I think better traction is a plus then.

The video seems to demontstrate that a cross-axle situation does not have to be a problem. Therefor, personally I think it is all related to one of two things:

- simply not enough of torque available from a single motor
- not enough of torque available from one motor, due to the software limiting the motor output when the other motor has no grip

EDIT: Please don't kill me. Keep in mind I am reasoning from a pure theoretical perspective. A perspective that may utterly fail ;-)

I can only agree with Martin. This is a (very) low friction issue that is not related to the tires. It is just poor execution of slip detection algorithm by Mitsubishi. Instead of increase torque to rear wheels when the front wheels slip (at very low friction), the applied torque on the rear wheels actually goes down to zero.
I have new Nokia studded winter tires on my PHEV 2015 and have done a lot of testing on ice regarding this issue. There is a slight increase of amount of torque to rear axle if AWD-lock is applied together with switching off the anti slip system.
And the sad thing is that this is really just poor engineering. Since an independent e-motors on each axle can easily be tuned to be far superior to a traditional awd system driven by an ICE.

regards / Magnus

 

[Yoran]

I hate the fact they dont release an update for this stuff, this should be easy to fix

 

[george]

may I apply brakes and accelerate at the same time?

 

[phevnor]

may I apply brakes and accelerate at the same time?

Yes.

 

[MartinH]

I got adv. from Mitsu in Sweden some days ago, they state "improved 4-wheel drive" on the adv. I can post it if someone can update me again on post photos on this forum.
I have asked Mitsu what they have "improved" on the new ones, and when they will upgrade our old non function ones.
Also interesting "Improved" is not the word i had used if i was satisfied with the earlier ones, i would have said "even better", or similar.
I do not think Volvo state "improved" saftey or BMW M5, Mercedes AMG "improved" engine performance.

 

[Steepndeep]

I just saw a test from last winter when a Swedish Carmagazine tested the PHEV 4WD system in winter and where indeed very dissapointed.

Test here

http://www.vibilagare.se/test/biltester/fyrhjulsdriven-med-forbehall

and you may try with Google translate but that works roughly as well as the 4WD system

In the first test (on dry ground) they put 2 rollers under any combination of 2 wheels and tested powerdistribution. They could not force the rear wheels to give much torque. They always ended up with front wheel(s) spinning but never the rear. Mitsu Sweden then wanted to do the same test but refused the magazine to participate. After test Mitsu came back and stated the following

1 The 4WD system is primarily there to help cornering in slippery conditions on normal roads.
2 The system is NOT designed to help climb a steep slope.
3 Rear wheel torque is automatically limited when Anti Spin is activated (default mode)
4 You can force higher torque on rear engine if you deactivate Anti Spin

There is also a comment on the 4WDLock function in the test but it is badly written so I do not understand it totally. One part of it is clear though, Mitsu Sweden told the magazine that 4WDLock only activates at speeds above 10,8 km/h, which is not mentioned in the manual. If it disengages when you again go below 10,8 km/h is not mentioned.

So based on the above I think the system is flawed, but could be changed with better sw from Mitsu. Which maybe means it will not happen.

 

[phevnor]

As Norwegian, I can try to translate the swedish explanation regarding 4wdlock.

As I read it, it is so that when you press the lock4WD the difflock is activated for just a couple of sec, before it is of. To reactivate you press 4WD lock again, but it do not lock before the car have moved in a speed of 10,8km/h. Strange function.

 

[maby]

That description does not surprise me too much - the 4WD on the PHEV is clearly intended for on-road use in much the same was as it was on the Audi Quattro - improving handling on moderately slippery roads rather than driving cross-country. I do also maintain that a lot of the logic behind putting 4WD on the PHEV was to simplify the design and reduce costs. They calculated how many horse power they needed to get onto the ground to get the performance they wanted and decided that it was easier and more economical to do this with two motors rather than one. Being able to describe it as a "4WD" would help with marketing, but it was by no means essential - a lot of the Range Rovers sold these days are 2WD and it does not hurt their sales figures.

 

[pasquinade]

Hi,

I just want to contribute something. I have been with the PHEV on a 17-19 degree slope (measured with the phone accelerator) at 0 speed and then took off.

Taking into account the motors and gearboxes, I computed a while ago that one motor is capable of 3904N of horizontal force (at the wheels) and the other 3751N (sorry, I forgot which was which, but the first value is the one that has the 7.065 gearbox with a 195Nm motor). This roughly means 390kg + 375kg.

At 17 degrees, taking into account the weight of the phev of around 2tons, we need at least 584kg of horizontal force for the PHEV to get going, so I assure you that both motors were being used to get the car going. Either that or I completely messed up the math (but in other posts I provided some real life empirical arguments that seem to confirm this).

Hope this helps to further mystify the car's capabilities

EDIT: just to mention that I did it in normal driving conditions (no extra buttons pressed)

Best,
Ricardo

 

[pasquinade]

... Or perhaps I understood you wrong.

Perhaps what you meant (and I didn't understand) is that the back wheel torque is limited by the front wheel torque. In a front wheel spin condition (front wheel spinning freely but at almost 0 torque) the back wheels will be limited by this and become useless.

I think this would explain both my "real life evidence" and the Mitsubishi answer, but I fail to see in what conditions this would be useful.

 

[pasquinade]

Indeed, you mentioned degrees, not percentage. My bad And yes, 17% is what I meant. I think it is close to what UK people call a "1 in 6 slope"?

Indeed based on my experience, I thought it should be able to do 24% solo. Where your calculations say it can do 44%. So, no surprises there ;-)

Are you sure that steel ramp on the video was more than 44%?

Sorry about the long delay, I tried finding these videos again but since they are in japanese it's quite hard to find them. Today they popped up as a recommended video!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSho8T_Sxlg

This is what I meant at the time. But I'm very convinced this was mostly inertia working after the initial acceleration. If I had to guess I'd say the center section would be about 44% [grade] and the last one much steeper.


Ricardo

 

[AndyInOz]

Love that video, and am very impressed with the driver.

I'd be scared shitless on that last ramp (forward or reverse).

 

[Patsparks]

Well, it is true that the car is not able to reroute the power of the second motor to the axle that still has traction (

Why not? It's only a matter of software. The drive computer surely directs power to front or rear axle for stability control and economical operation.

 

[ian4x4]

Well, it is true that the car is not able to reroute the power of the second motor to the axle that still has traction (

Why not? It's only a matter of software. The drive computer surely directs power to front or rear axle for stability control and economical operation.

Physically there is only so much power / torque that you can direct through either motor. This is quoted as the max power in the specification, and is as much as the wiring and control circuitry can handle.

The PHEV is configured to have half its max power available on each axle, on the other hand a 'normal' 4X4 transmission will normally be able to lock both axles together and transfer most of the power / torque to either axle.

 

[phevnor]

Want to share my experience from doing a "unlawfull" towing when it comes to weight.
Plan was to use a Landcruiser for towing a dead Ssangyong Rexton. The Rexton is 2000kg, and the trailer 600kg. Total weight at least 2600kg. By unforseen reason, the Landcruiser not available as planned, and I had the trailer in hand. Decided, I will tow with the PHEV, even thou it is 1100kg above the stated 1500kg. Range 5 km. Start from sea level til approx 200m above sealevel, average incline of 4%.
The towing went realy fine. The Outlander were very steady, and had more then enough power to mange the thoughed hills.
At home, a steep incline to back up in. At full throttle it could not move in the steepest part, but 2 meter down with the outlander on flat road it moved on full throttle and I managed to get to were I could unload the Rexton
I am impressed.

 

[pasquinade]

Heheh, nice (careful with the visible license plate).

The great thing about a 2ton car is that you can tow 2t more

A quick check (4600kg total weight and the ~700kg of forward force of the PHEV) tells me you should be able to go up to 15% incline (almost 9 degrees) as long as you can keep traction on the wheels. Like we've seen in other posts, it's easy to load a bit more weight on the towing ball and lift the front enough for it to start loosing traction very early. In this case, it seems the trailer has 4 wheels so should not load the PHEV too much in the vertical direction.

Ricardo

 

[phevnor]

I checked the angle, and it is 11 degrees. As i backed up and the outlander were on flat mark, it had no problem moving the the trailer with the 2t Rexton. At were I stoped, it was not possible to start again.
And as you calculated, it is 2 deegres steeper.
I had perfect balance on the trailer, not to much weight on the ball as I knew it could give me a challenge.
Both front wheel on the ground and with traction, the PHEV can do magic.

 

[ozjaydear]

I've had my Outlander PHEV for a bit over a year and just had my first cross-axle slip experience whilst away on holidays. I got out of the situation by rocking the vehicle in Drive and Reverse, gaining a few millimetres at a time until I could just barely get enough grip to move it out.

Just for the record, my previous car was a brilliant Mitsubishi ASX Aspire (manual 4WD diesel) that I had for 5 years and prior to that I had a Ford Escape 4WD (a re-badged 3 litre V6 Mazda Tribute) for over 12 years and they were both very capable in all sorts of rough country road conditions, wet and dry, and never let me down. They both had real 4WD Lock, which is what I expected from the Outlander PHEV.

I truly love 95% of the Outlander PHEV experience, but the so-called 4WD Lock is seriously misnamed and cannot be relied upon to do what my previous two 4WDs could do very easily. I was very disappointed and embarrassed that I got immobilised when I stopped on the side of a not very rough dirt road to take a picture. I had been toying with the idea of driving along a beach (a legal 4WD beach) earlier that day and I'm very glad I chickened out or my beloved PHEV might have ended up bogged and under the waves :mrgreen:

Anyway, I am always willing to learn and I am very keen to try out the left foot braking technique I saw in this topic. I think it might help to have the vehicle in CHARGE mode whilst doing that because a lot of power will just be going into the brakes. I also saw elsewhere a suggestion that putting the vehicle in ECO-4WD LOCK mode would help, so I am going to try that out too. Perhaps pulling on the hand brake might also assist. There is a lot to experiment with.

The Outlander PHEV is a very interesting and unconventional vehicle with a lot of control options at one's fingertips. It would be great if Mitsubishi provided a tutorial with the vehicle that showed how to get out of various situations by using the clever facilities it has instead of us owners having to find out by trial and error.

I know it's been a few months since your last post pasquinade, but did you approach Mitsubishi and if so did they help you in any way?