Drive battery degradation and replacement.

[Trex]

Hi folks,

As my old degradation thread is now 36 pages :shock: long I will start a new one here as the old one has a lot of out of date information.

Now just to catch up of where I am currently with my oldest PHEV's drive battery which my oldest son now drives is we had below 80% SOH (about 77%) in Feb 2018.

After stuffing about with different dealers where the first could not get his MUT-III to communicate with my PHEV I finally got another dealer to get some tests done. It was there where they did a battery smoothing (cell balancing from what I could see) and a Auto Capacity Measured Procedure which empties the battery and measures what it takes to refill it and then adjusts the BMU SOH to include the new result. For me it took the SOH up to about 81% . Now the other day my son and I checked his drive battery and it was showing about 72% SOH so the gain did not last long so I will be trying to get a new drive battery before the 5 year warranty runs out in April.

But will have probably have to get another Auto Capacity Measured Procedure done again though.

Regards Trex.

 

[jaapv]

As I understand it it must be under ~26 Ah after smoothing and BMU adjustment to qualify for guaranty. I rather doubt that that will happen before April on your son's car. Note that the baseline of measurement is the actual SOH at delivery, not the theoretical value.
To give Mitsubishi credit: somehow they manage to compensate for battery deterioration. Mine is down to 28.3 Ah after five years and 120.000 km, but the actual range loss it not nearly as dramatic as one would expect.

 

[HHL]

As I understand it it must be under ~26 Ah after smoothing and BMU adjustment to qualify for guaranty. I rather doubt that that will happen before April on your son's car. Note that the baseline of measurement is the actual SOH at delivery, not the theoretical value.
To give Mitsubishi credit: somehow they manage to compensate for battery deterioration. Mine is down to 28.3 Ah after five years and 120.000 km, but the actual range loss it not nearly as dramatic as one would expect.

That minimal reduction in range is my experience too. My battery reads just under 85% and last week I had to drive to the airport, something I only do a few times a year. It is 33km from my place and I usually arrive there with 8-10km left on the guessmeter. This last time however, it showed 18km left and this also seemed to agree with the battery indicator which was still about a third way up. I even had the aircon on. So, go figure. I could not test whether it had in fact that much left as I ended up waiting for about an hour and sat in the car with the aircon running. That took care of most of the battery capacity left.

 

[anko]

As I understand it it must be under ~26 Ah after smoothing and BMU adjustment to qualify for guaranty. I rather doubt that that will happen before April on your son's car. Note that the baseline of measurement is the actual SOH at delivery, not the theoretical value.
To give Mitsubishi credit: somehow they manage to compensate for battery deterioration. Mine is down to 28.3 Ah after five years and 120.000 km, but the actual range loss it not nearly as dramatic as one would expect.

26 Ah is Netherlands only. And here it is 8 years not 5.ah at delivery is irrelevant. The boundary is a absolute value, not a relative one. 26 = 26.

In Australia it "seems" to be 80% after 10 years. At least for a happy few. As in good will, no warranty

 

[jaapv]

Yes, I meant that the percentage may well be taken from the delivery value of approx. 37 Ah.
As for the 26, the boundary is indeed hard, but I think the measurement may be open to some interpretation, as one is measuring a dynamic process.
Glad to hear it is 8 years

 

[anko]

According to the TSB is is 70% of 40 Ah for MY16, 17 and 18 and 65% of 40 Ah for MY 14 and 15.

They use the result from right after DBCAM. Although ... when denying my claim they have used the SoH number from right after the DBCAM, which in my case has been a few tenths higher every time.

 

[jaapv]

Well, it is not eight years old yet

 

[Trex]

As I understand it it must be under ~26 Ah after smoothing and BMU adjustment to qualify for guaranty. I rather doubt that that will happen before April on your son's car. Note that the baseline of measurement is the actual SOH at delivery, not the theoretical value.
To give Mitsubishi credit: somehow they manage to compensate for battery deterioration. Mine is down to 28.3 Ah after five years and 120.000 km, but the actual range loss it not nearly as dramatic as one would expect.

Hello jaapv, how are you going?

Over here Mitsi Australia were "silly" enough to write on their website degradation is expected to be no more than 20% which IMO is probably not a directly expressed warranty but a lot of us took it as a safe reason to buy the PHEV and think we will not have excessive degradation. Looking back they probably should have not had that there (since taken down from what I can see) but it did help their sales I think.

 

[Trex]

As I understand it it must be under ~26 Ah after smoothing and BMU adjustment to qualify for guaranty. I rather doubt that that will happen before April on your son's car. Note that the baseline of measurement is the actual SOH at delivery, not the theoretical value.
To give Mitsubishi credit: somehow they manage to compensate for battery deterioration. Mine is down to 28.3 Ah after five years and 120.000 km, but the actual range loss it not nearly as dramatic as one would expect.

That minimal reduction in range is my experience too. My battery reads just under 85% and last week I had to drive to the airport, something I only do a few times a year. It is 33km from my place and I usually arrive there with 8-10km left on the guessmeter. This last time however, it showed 18km left and this also seemed to agree with the battery indicator which was still about a third way up. I even had the aircon on. So, go figure. I could not test whether it had in fact that much left as I ended up waiting for about an hour and sat in the car with the aircon running. That took care of most of the battery capacity left.

Gday HHL, been awhile.

My son would not agree with you at the moment. He started driving it full-time just after we did the Auto Capacity Measured Procedure, so about 81%, and came to me the other day saying it has noticeable lost range. That is the reason I checked the SOH using my copy of Evbatmon and OBD adapter.

 

[Trex]

In Australia it "seems" to be 80% after 10 years. At least for a happy few. As in good will, no warranty

Hi anko. So who are the "happy few" you mention? Is this something I have missed? :?

 

[Trex]

According to the TSB is is 70% of 40 Ah for MY16, 17 and 18 and 65% of 40 Ah for MY 14 and 15.

They use the result from right after DBCAM. Although ... when denying my claim they have used the SoH number from right after the DBCAM, which in my case has been a few tenths higher every time.

Ok DBCAM is ? :? Surely not a Auto Capacity Measured Procedure which is in the MUT-III and workshop manuals.

 

[anko]

In Australia it "seems" to be 80% after 10 years. At least for a happy few. As in good will, no warranty

Hi anko. So who are the "happy few" you mention? Is this something I have missed? :?

Auch. I guess you have fallen behind. YouTube 'celebrity' Andy from EVUnplugged Australia has led the rebellion against MMAL and this resulted in his battery (and maybe one or two others) to be replaced on short notice. Not because of warranty but because of goodwill

He needed about 140 short VLOGs and this is the final one in which he announces the results.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_FCXE0gKzo&t=280s

 

[Trex]

Auch. I guess you have fallen behind. YouTube 'celebrity' Andy from EVUnplugged Australia has led the rebellion against MMAL and this resulted in his battery (and maybe one or two others) to be replaced on short notice. Not because of warranty but because of goodwill

He needed about 140 short VLOGs and this is the final one in which he announces the results.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_FCXE0gKzo&t=280s

Auch? I guess you mean ouch? YouTube 'celebrity' Andy? Oh you mean the whinging German (from memory) that moved here. Calls himself Bert when he comes on the forum from memory. Fallen behind? That video is a couple of days old. I guess I have not fallen behind that much. :mrgreen:

But seriously, after watching it (thanks for providing it) Mitsi Australia have now set a precedent that will be hard for them to stop others probably including myself from getting the same outcome ie a new drive battery.

Unless it was just to stop him whinging on youtube but that does not seem the case. He talks about becoming part of a "special" forum that has access to Mitsi direct.

Strange days indeed.

 

[HHL]

Auch. I guess you have fallen behind. YouTube 'celebrity' Andy from EVUnplugged Australia has led the rebellion against MMAL and this resulted in his battery (and maybe one or two others) to be replaced on short notice. Not because of warranty but because of goodwill

He needed about 140 short VLOGs and this is the final one in which he announces the results.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_FCXE0gKzo&t=280s

Auch? I guess you mean ouch? YouTube 'celebrity' Andy? Oh you mean the whinging German (from memory) that moved here. Calls himself Bert when he comes on the forum from memory. Fallen behind? That video is a couple of days old. I guess I have not fallen behind that much. :mrgreen:

But seriously, after watching it (thanks for providing it) Mitsi Australia have now set a precedent that will be hard for them to stop others probably including myself from getting the same outcome ie a new drive battery.

Unless it was just to stop him whinging on youtube but that does not seem the case. He talks about becoming part of a "special" forum that has access to Mitsi direct.

Strange days indeed.

I must have missed the part where they actually say they will replace a battery under warranty.....
"Expecting" and "Warranty" are not quite the same thing. In any case, if I remember rightly, the original ad or brochure also said a typical use would be mum taking the kids to school and picking them up and needing to charge it every few days... or something along those lines.
I really don't think this car is meant to be fully cycled every single day, perhaps even twice, and then expect the battery to go for 10 years without significant degradation. I would like to know how much they would actually charge once it is out of warranty, as well as the cost of some of the other very PHEV specific bits.
Since they can and do charge hundreds and even thousands of $ for relatively uncomplicated stuff such as lights and spare wheels... I would expect anything a bit more serious would probably make you want to write the car off when it's out of warranty.
My local dealer here (in Brookvale, Trex) wanted 900 bucks for a de-luxe oil change (4 year service) and also told me their hourly labour charge was $186.00....that is really getting up there!

 

[Trex]

I must have missed the part where they actually say they will replace a battery under warranty.....
"Expecting" and "Warranty" are not quite the same thing.

Totally agree HHL that "Expecting" and "Warranty" are not quite the same thing BUT Mitsi Australia were "silly" enough to write on their website degradation is expected to be no more than 20%. This could be used by lawyers and such as a "implied" guarantee IMO and I would think that is why Mitsi have agreed to exchange the drive batteries to a group mentioned in that video that have pushed their case.

I also think it has probably opened up Mitsi Aust to a world of hurt here in Aussie by setting what is called in law a precedent. But we shall see.

I really don't think this car is meant to be fully cycled every single day, perhaps even twice, and then expect the battery to go for 10 years without significant degradation.

Yes I probably agree with this but Mitsi Aust made no mention of this when I bought my first PHEV back in April 2014. Hell as far as I can see still no mention of it. Sorry just putting on my lawyer's cap here as to what would happen in a court if this came up.

I would like to know how much they would actually charge once it is out of warranty,

I remember asking this probably about 3 yrs ago to my dealer, as a what if, and him saying about $10k Aust. Now I do NOT remember the exchange rate at that time etc but I do remember it did not include any exchange on the old battery. It could be more or less now. :?

My local dealer here (in Brookvale, Trex) wanted 900 bucks for a de-luxe oil change (4 year service) and also told me their hourly labour charge was $186.00....that is really getting up there!

:shock: 900 bucks for a de-luxe oil change? It would want to be exceptionally de-luxe. Did you get it?

 

[HHL]

No Trex, I did try and point out that it was a bit over the top to the service manager, as it really is not much more than an oil change and a bit of “look at stuff”.
His reply was that MITSUBISHI allow up to 3.5 hours for that service. I also pointed out that I was keen to have my car serviced locally but as the dealer at Gosford would do it for less then half, it was a no-brainer.
He wouldn’t budge, so that was it. Took a drive up the coast. Incidentally, it took about 2hours to do the service.
So, beware....

 

[Trex]

As I wanted to see for myself after my son says it "has noticeable lost range" I did another range test on my oldest PHEV.

I do this test by driving with a fully charged drive battery early morning, (light traffic so few red lights) with no heating or air conditioner along the same route (same speed) after resetting the odometer and note when the petrol motor starts and goes into hybrid mode. The results of the tests are:

1. 52.5kms Just after buying Phev early April 2014
2. 52.9kms 6ths months later ie October 2014
3. 51.8kms April 2015 Now this test had notable more traffic (some big area championships soccer games) ie stopped at traffic lights more than last 2
4. 53.0kms October 2015
5. 48.2kms January 2017 Battery condition was 86.05% according to EVBatmon.
6. 45.1kms February 2018 Battery condition was 78.68% according to EVBatmon. Geolander 4wd tyres fitted before this test.
7. 38.8kms December 2018 Battery condition was 72.11% according to EVBatmon.

Now you have to remember this is very light traffic early morning so my son would not be seeing this sort of range.

 

[Trex]

Now my son said to me last night that he had trouble pulling his jetski up the boat ramp with the PHEV yesterday . Now the closest boat ramp is noticeable steeper compared to other local ramps but he has had no trouble with it until yesterday (the last time he tried was about 1 month ago). He said that he panicked a bit and put it into charge mode to start the engine but it did not help.

Anko, your battery is down and you tow have you noticed this? Or any one else? Ie Problem with pulling a trailer up an incline from a dead stop that you had no trouble with before.

 

[jaapv]

That cannot have anything to do with it. As long as the battery can reach an SOC of over 30% full power will be full power.

 

[Trex]

That cannot have anything to do with it. As long as the battery can reach an SOC of over 30% full power will be full power.

I am not sure jaapv. :? Is this a sign of what anko (from memory) was talking about of the BMU starting to "throttle" the output of the drive battery to protect itself and reduce further degradation.

Oh I forgot, he said he had nearly a full battery as the ramp is only a couple of kms away and he left first thing in the morning after charging the night before but the SOC was low enough for the petrol motor to start when he pressed charge ie he heard the motor start.