Error; reduced propulsion power / EV system maintenance rq

[janneman]

Driving my brand-new silky white car yesterday... suddenly, ......... :shock:

kinda nothing. streched my right foot, nothing. the car rolled on, no power. an error message came up

"EV system requires maintenance" - and a warning light. Luckily I was at a small road, manouvred to the side. Hmm
switched the car off, waited till all the lights went out, switched it on... ehhh worked again. For two kilometers.
Driving electric, battery full, gas full, ... it was alternating weirdly - some power, no power, more power, no power...

got the assistance - they did not understand. drove a bit with the guys diagnose box plugged in, he could not find anything. :?:

I agreed to try it another time today. same thing. sometimes the message warning comes across "reduced propulsion power" - hey, i already noticed that!
When i floored the gas, nothing happens. on a busy crossing I pulled up... creeped at less then 10 km/h ... :?

just brought it to the garage..

anybody heard a similar thing?? :|

 

[Fragge]

Not really, not a common problem.

 

[gwatpe]

Hi janneman,

the forum members seem to be heavily biased with drivers without any problems affecting the car operation. Myself excluded. Early releases of the PHEV seem to be serious problem free. We had a saying in the electronics repair industry, "design complex equipment with connectors to ensure service will be needed". Cars are full of connectors and the complex bus systems with comms and computers and sensors all having to be fully functioning for the car to work seems to be a poor outcome for the car owner.

The more serious wheel speed sensor fault my PHEV had brought up the EV service required, as well as 5 other serious warnings, but did not enable limp mode.

There may be many more PHEV owners that have had their car quit on them who are not forum members.

I wish you luck with a speedy fix of your PHEV. Just wish the PHEV came supplied with a workshop service manual. Some of us may provide useful feedback if we had a manual and did not have to try and explain second hand to someone else. Not all problems persist and having to wait for a permanent fault to occur is the present service solution.

 

[janneman]

"design complex equipment with connectors to ensure service will be needed".

haha I studies electronics / telecommunication (and management...) and recently I suggested to go sell a product within my company where I said; we need to be aware we need to arrange service agreements and/or third party maintenance. people glazed.
yes, because this has a connector. It WILL die somewhere somehow and customers will cry for help.

well, my PHEV is under warranty, so I wont be nosing in a manual, but have a word with the dealer tomorrow. just curious if similar things ever happened.

 

[maby]

I don't think anyone has reported those particular symptoms here, but you must remember that the Outlander PHEV is a young car and the number sold to date is quite small - it is too soon to make meaningful judgements on its reliability.

 

[CJ1045]

I would say that it is far more likely for people to post on these forums if they have a problem than if the car is running perfectly. Thus the forum, in my view, represents a bleaker view of the reliability of the car than across the full ownership base.

CJ

 

[gwatpe]

How many vehicles constitute a fair number. Aren't there more than 20000 of these vehicles sold already.

 

[Ozukus]

26,000 plus units in Europe this year based on a previous post I saw.

 

[Ozukus]

http://evobsession.com/europe-ev-sales-update-october-sales/

Actually 17K in Europe up to end Oct. Expect that would be over 20k with all the boats that have been coming in since end Oct.

 

[gwatpe]

We should remember that 6500PHEV were recalled somewhere in the sales loop These were potential unhappy customers that were reprogrammed and then continued for sale.

 

[maby]

Those are tiny figures by car production standards. I'm sure we would all be hoping for less than 1% coming off the production line with significant defects - the statistics will not be settling down to anything meaningful until there are a hundred thousand or more in use with a reasonable number of years and miles on the clock. If this forum is in any way representative, then the car had significant quality control problems - out of a couple of hundred owners, we have several significant faults on record.

 

[Fragge]

Forums like this attract people that have issues with their cars, so the members of this forum is hardly representative of all owners.
I've been following this forum for a long while now and I can't see the "several significant faults" that you are seeing, so please enlighten us which these are.

 

[Ozukus]

+1

A lot of people only join a forum to find out, read up and post about negative things hence any forum like this will be swayed heavily towards the negative aspects that people find with the vehicle.

I have noticed that a lot of people posting problem issues with their vehicle normally precede their problem with a statement like "First time post".

Am sure there's thousands of happy PHEV drivers out there who probably don't even know forums like this exist.

As for me I'm 100% satisfied with my PHEV, there are some quirks like not being able to change the intermittent wiper settings on a GX3h that I find annoying, however pretty well every car I've had has had it's quirks and niggly things like the wipers aren't going to make me disappointed with what I find to be a very enjoyable vehicle to own and drive.

 

[maby]

Forums like this attract people that have issues with their cars, so the members of this forum is hardly representative of all owners.
I've been following this forum for a long while now and I can't see the "several significant faults" that you are seeing, so please enlighten us which these are.

Well, apart from gwatpe who has been fighting a long running battle over battery condition, here are four others that popped up with little searching:

http://www.myoutlanderphev.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=542

http://www.myoutlanderphev.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=369

http://phev.club/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=91&p=170#p170

http://www.myoutlanderphev.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=949

Don't get me wrong, I love the car and I'm not attaching too much importance to these given that the total number sold is still small. However, if these proved to be representative given the small number of vehicles covered by this forum, then it would become a problem.

 

[gwatpe]

As a follow up, the PHEV is complicated with many onboard computers, interacting communication Bus systems, hundreds of connectors. My PHEV was replaced, after 6months of driving with the faulty battery and intermittent system stops when driving. The PHEV I am now driving is like I expected to get NEW.

The PHEV works really well when all systems are working. Time will tell how well the PHEV continues to be a great vehicle. It would be great if the MMCS was able to be used as an in car service aid, instead of needing a plug in specialist MUT3 unit. The myriad of error messages I saw when a rear wheel speed sensor failed made no sense.

Hopefully specific diagnostic tools will become more available as the PHEV gets older, to reduce the reliance on service dealers to fault find for us.

 

[itserve]

Driving my brand-new silky white car yesterday... suddenly, ......... :shock:

kinda nothing. streched my right foot, nothing. the car rolled on, no power. an error message came up

"EV system requires maintenance" - and a warning light. Luckily I was at a small road, manouvred to the side. Hmm
switched the car off, waited till all the lights went out, switched it on... ehhh worked again. For two kilometers.
Driving electric, battery full, gas full, ... it was alternating weirdly - some power, no power, more power, no power...

got the assistance - they did not understand. drove a bit with the guys diagnose box plugged in, he could not find anything. :?:

I agreed to try it another time today. same thing. sometimes the message warning comes across "reduced propulsion power" - hey, i already noticed that!
When i floored the gas, nothing happens. on a busy crossing I pulled up... creeped at less then 10 km/h ... :?

just brought it to the garage..

anybody heard a similar thing?? :|

Yes, we had exactly the same thing in February this year. No warnings at all, no 'reduced propulsion' message or 'turtle' mode message. The car just stopped delivering any power at all. Engine was not running, we were doing motorway speed on the A11 with no hard shoulder in rush hour and had to drift across three lanes, at night in the rain under no power, and park in the slow lane with hazard lights on. Very scary.

A lot of people seem to want to jump to defend the Outlander when people post problems like this, which I find strange. I like the car, but it is not as good as I had hoped and dangerous problems like this do nothing to inspire confidence. No fault codes were logged and the dealership locally dismissed the issue as they could not evidence it or repeat it. The car was loaded for a holiday, but not excessively, and had a roof box on increasing drag so of course the drive system was under load, but nothing that isn't normal operation for a family car.

Driving again to Austria and back last week, with similar loads, and cruising not in excess of 85mph, the reduced propulsion message came up over and over again. This was despite having CHARGE mode engaged for the entire 800 mile journey each way. Over and over again, I had to put up with almost no power as the engine revved its socks off putting energy into the battery and stopped driving the front wheels when this happened. Forcing me to reduce speed to 60 to 70 mph, which is not safe on many European motorways. In my opinion the car is not fit for purpose if your intended use includes two almost 2000 mile hauls across Europe each year. Yes, it's fine for everyday use and very good - averaging 58mpg in my case most of the time. But it is useless on long trips at speed and this limitation needs to be pointed out to potential customers before they purchase. Incidentally the economy on long trips is appalling, truly appalling. On our long runs in Europe we are lucky to return 23mpg. Our XC90 owned previously was considerably more efficient. The two litre engine with no turbo simply cannot cope with the energy demands.

Mitsubishi customer service has been very poor. My lease company, LEX, have tried what they can to get the problem investigated, but short of hiring an independent engineer to load the car up and drive it at speed on an autobahn, they have been unable to replicate the issues or to accept these problems exist.

 

[anko]

Yes, we had exactly the same thing in February this year. No warnings at all, no 'reduced propulsion' message or 'turtle' mode message.

So, it was not the same? Would it be possible you accidentally flipped it into Neutral?

Out of interest, what does "similar load" mean, in your case?

EDIT: Just saw you mentioned a roof box. I wander, is it realistic to expect to be able to do 85 MPH sustained with a car sized and shaped like ours with a roof box on top, when all you have is 120 bhp? I have towed a 1500 kg caravan from the Netherlands to Croatia and back, not hitting the Turtle mode once. That seems to work. But of course, speeds are much lower then. More like 60-ish.

 

[Grigou]

... Forcing me to reduce speed to 60 to 70 mph, which is not safe on many European motorways.

Sounds weirdly to my ears :roll:
On french motorways I often overpass cars at 70 mph and they don't seem unsafe ...
I see many trucks and caravans (like anko's one ) at 60 mph. If you are forced to drive at this speed momentarily, just stay behind one of theses trucks for a while ?


Anyway, I tend to believe you if you (only) say that the Outlander PHEV is not able to sustain for a long time a constant 85 mph (= more than 135 kph, wich is forbidden everywhere except in Germany -but I'am not a cop ) with a top-roof on it.
If you want to do that, there many many far better choices than this one !

 

[gwatpe]

... Forcing me to reduce speed to 60 to 70 mph, which is not safe on many European motorways.

Sounds like these drivers have "Hurry Sickness". I guess no points for efficient driving either.

I once drove 250km in 1h6m legally on a public road, averaging about 210kph, but not in my PHEV. Don't see the need now, and the PHEV is certainly not designed for sustained speeds over 125kph, but I have no hesitation using the acceleration available for passing a caravan.

 

[jaapv]

Yep - the PHEV brought my average speed on the Autobahn down from 180 KpH to 140KpH. And you know what: I am suddenly less tired when arriving and it takes me only a few minutes more...
Actually I find the safest and most relaxed speed on the Autobahn is something like 130-140 KpH. I do about 8000 Autobahn KMs a year. The PHEV can sustain that effortlessly - plenty of reserves- even with a skibox on, with the bonus of excess power for accelerating at speed.
It sounds to me like there is something wrong with your car - I need to drive with the handbrake on to get such results.
And it is not just me - i just checked back with the relevant thread in the Dutch forum (obviously much more Autobahn driving there) and the results match mine.