EV System Service Required

[Davep01]

The post title was the warning displayed on the dash of my 11000 mile GX4h yesterday after a 15 minute rapid charge at Cobham Services.

What this meant for me was a 4 and half hour wait for the first service guy who simply condemned the car and arranged recovery, which took a further 2 hours to arrive due to the M25 being closed just after I arrived at the services. Mitsubishi Assistance were very helpful, phoning me with updates regularly and the service guys were polite and helpful. The delay was due to them being swamped and the fact they simply couldn't get to me.

Car was taken to Firs Mitsubishi who, despite being booked up for 3 weeks, managed to plug it in and resolve the fault today. Other than the evening spent at Cobham and a truly awful Vauxhall Corsa hire car provided this morning (not what should be provided when you have a £30k+ vehicle as a high mileage business user), the experience was pretty good.

The punchline is the alleged cause of the fault though. Apparently I removed the charging lead too quickly... I'm not quite sure how I can have done this as I had to wait for the charger to terminate the charge and then release the handle as usual but this is what the issue was blamed on today. So unless you want a trip in the recovery truck it seems it's best to wait a few seconds after the charge finishes before removing the lead!

I'm really not convinced but I guess I'll take my time in future.


Dave.

 

[Titan]

Sorry to read this but it seems yet another PHEV fried by rapid charging. Ecotricity by any chance?

 

[greendwarf]

Cue another bout of Rapid charge grumbles etc.

But every time this (or similar) happens costs Mitsu money, rather than the considerable annoyance to us - so you can be sure my fellow bean counters are leaning heavily on the engineers to get this sorted asap, never mind the marketing guys sweating over loss of sales as a result.

 

[user 422]

I think the answer is DONT do short charging sessions on Rapid chargers...
UNLESS you are going to stay long enough for the charge rate to drop - i.e. the last 5% of the charge - so for empty battery that would be around 20min then DONT use a rapid charger....
The fault seems to be due to the Cars Computer not liking having the charge disconnected prematurely - during the 50Amp (approx) portion...!
Maybe the chargers software is partially at fault in allowing an early termination without gradually lowing the charge rate - but for such small gain in mileage on a HYBRID whats the point in terminating a rapid charge early???

I have used the eccentricity chargers many times without a problem - but I have always stayed long enough to get to at least 80% SOC

"PHEV fried by rapid charging" Do you work in Journalism - yet another over dramatic statement - the car was fine - it just didn't like what the owner did to it so shut down to protect itself.

 

[Neverfuel]

Apart from when I had an indicated Canbus error before charging started (due to a faulty charger I think) I have not had a problem. I always let it finish and it has never taken more than 24 mins. If you are lucky enough to be close enough to use the app to see the charging state, you should start walking to the car when the battery symbol is at 12 bars. It will finish a minute later at 13 bars. Just enough time to use the toilet and buy / drink a cup of coffee. And when you get the disconnect screen it will tell you how long it has taken and how many Kw has been consumed. If the battery is not empty, allow 2 mins per battery bar back up to 13 to know how long you will be stopped to be on the safe side.

 

[greendwarf]

If the battery is not empty, allow 2 mins per battery bar back up to 13 to know how long you will be stopped to be on the safe side.

But no "bars" on the GX3 with no MMCS

 

[PeterGalbavy]

Not wishing to sound rude to the OP who obviously had a lot of wasted time and hassle, but this and similar posts confuse me.

I have used a number of Ecotricity rapids now and the display on the rapid charger itself seems clear and obvious. The buttons on the other hand are not well laid out and used differently depending on the display, but you get used to them. Once you have been through the dance to plug the thing and start charging in it shows percentage charge and the time you have been charging as well as the real-time voltage and current. If you want to stop you press the bottom right (and/or bottom left) button pointed to by the blue line labelled "Stop" on the LCD. You then wait until it prompts you to present the card to remove the cable.

If you get to 80% the charge stops and you can remove the cable without your card. If you leave the cable in and/or restyart the whole procedure you can continue charging to 99% or so (another 20 mins)

What's to go wrong? What do people do that break this?

 

[milkfloat]

Not wishing to sound rude to the OP who obviously had a lot of wasted time and hassle, but this and similar posts confuse me.

I have used a number of Ecotricity rapids now and the display on the rapid charger itself seems clear and obvious. The buttons on the other hand are not well laid out and used differently depending on the display, but you get used to them. Once you have been through the dance to plug the thing and start charging in it shows percentage charge and the time you have been charging as well as the real-time voltage and current. If you want to stop you press the bottom right (and/or bottom left) button pointed to by the blue line labelled "Stop" on the LCD. You then wait until it prompts you to present the card to remove the cable.

If you get to 80% the charge stops and you can remove the cable without your card. If you leave the cable in and/or restyart the whole procedure you can continue charging to 99% or so (another 20 mins)

What's to go wrong? What do people do that break this?

From my experience it's not always people doing anything wrong.
RMaybe there are issues if people don't follow the charging procedure. However for me I charged many times without problem and was also oblivious of this Ecotricity issue.
Until I followed the same procedure and the car just fried and needed towing away.

It could just as easily happen to any of us- however clear we think the instructions are.

This is a real problem for Mitsu as it must cost them a lot in recovery costs and many owners like myself are now choosing to avoid these rapid chargers as it is like a game of Russian roulette - and I don't want to have another 4 hours wasted for the sake of 20miles of free motoring.

 

[jaapv]

If you get to 80% the charge stops and you can remove the cable without your card. If you leave the cable in and/or restart the whole procedure you can continue charging to 99% or so (another 20 mins)

That is a bad idea. Quite apart from the fact that Mitsubishi discourages overusing rapid charging in the manual, they explicitly warn against charging in succession, as that can damage the battery.
The car stops rapid-charging at 80% to protect the cells.
You won't get guaranty on a battery that is damaged this way.