Battery health

[HelenWilliams]

I have a Mitsubishi Outland PHEV.
I am planning a long trip abroad.
If the eBattery is not regularly charged, will it degrade and be less efficient on my return?
Thank you, and kind regards, Helen

 

[greendwarf]

No - one of the advantages of lithium batteries AFAIK is that they retain their charge and do not deteriorate merely due to the passage of time - what degrades them, are the number of full discharge/ recharge cycles, around 2000.

HOWEVER, in the normal course of driving using the ICE, charge is being put into and drawn from the battery anyway, although you don't notice it unless using SAVE of CHARGE You can see this though with the dashboard charge flow display.

So, if you mean the car is staying in the UK, whilst you go abroad - then no problems with the drive battery but you need to have the wifi module activated to top-up the 12v auxiliary battery everyday at 2pm (unless you have a Gxh3 - no module!) which people have reported as going flat after several months.

If you mean the car is going with you but you are not going to plug it in, then really no different to normal use in UK.

 

[Juddoh]

From Geelong, Victoria, Australia.

I went away for 4 months and left my 2016 Outlander PHEV outside. It does not have wifi as it is the base model. The main drive battery was fully charged up before I went away (but not connected), which I thought would be fine.

Upon my return and power up (4 months later), I was getting several error messages on the dash, esp the Parking Brake malfunction or stuck, or something like that. Funny things going on with wipers etc. The main drive battery appeared to be fully charged, which I did try to charge again from the mains, but the charger cable was also showing it was full. It would not take any electrons.

Error messages on the dash went on for about 10mins and then nothing, no lights at all, the doors would not even lock. Not a LED light to be seen anywhere.

I rang Mitsubishi service who suggested I get a tow truck and "deliver it to use and leave it with us for a month... we are super busy, but we will get to it as soon possible" ... I consulted google.

I purchased a trickle charger and attached it to the terminal/earth under the front bonnet for about 6 hours. Still nothing. There was perhaps something happening inside somewhere as a faint rhythmic beating could be heard within the inner workings of the PHEV. Still no lights anywhere...

I purchased a jumper cable and pulled up another small diesel-powered SUV next to it, leaving the SUV engine on. Upon careful connection of the jumpers, the Outlander sprang to life and the "don't run me over pedestrian shizzer" started going again along with all the dash lights as per a normal start-up. I left the jumper cables attached for only about 2 mins and disconnected them. The main drive battery was still showing full. I drove to a service station to put some air in the tires which had gone down a little.

So far so good. Everything seems to work fine, although the trip computer and I presume the service computer seem to be reset as the very annoying spanner icon and "service me now" thing is gone, and there is no economy long-term history.

Happy days so far. I will update this post if there are any problems such as the 12v Aux playing up again and needing to be replaced.

 

[greendwarf]

Yep! 12v almost discharged and unable to boot up systems properly.

 

[littlescrote]

If you have an issue with a flat 12V Aux battery, it's best not to turn it on until it's charged again or you'll get all of those errors. If you do, you need to disconnect the Aux battery for a couple of minutes to clear them, even if you then attach jump leads/booster pack etc.

 

[Lon12]

Wouldn’t it be great if the first warning message was “12v battery voltage low. Ignore all of the next warning messages”.

 

[greendwarf]

Except it does, in effect, with the red battery icon in the left-hand dial, which presumably stays red if there is a problem with the 12v one and only goes out once the drive battery has taken over? :idea:

We, no doubt, all short-cut the start process - by foot on the brake and then press the start button and so miss out this step. If you do it by 2 presses of the start button then you can see that the 12v icon only goes out with a third press whilst having your foot on the brake - if all is well.