Further adventures off road

[Sailordoc]

I took my 2015 PHEV to Wagtail off road centre in Shipston-on-Stour today to try to work out whether it would meet my needs of being able to get around shooting estates safely as I had a bad experience last year (but the mud then was a lot deeper and wetter than I had thought). The PHEV was on the Toyo R37 tyres, so I asked the owners for some areas that should be OK on road tyres, bearing in mind they had rain that morning.

I have to say it coped with the wet fields and muddy rutted tracks very well, within the limits of it's ground clearance and approach/departure angles. A few of the deeper ruts led it to belly out, but as I was going slowly I was able to reverse out again without problems. Runs up and down steepish field slopes on wet grass were fine as well, although on the steeper sections the electric motors seemed to run out of grunt and the car was only crawling up at these points. No discenable difference with ASC off or on in this scenario, as there didn't seem to be much wheel spin. I suspect it was just at the limit of what the electric motors could put down.

I spent 2 hours going over various tracks and fields both grassy and ploughed and was happy with it's performance, although I'll probably replace the Toyos with Geolandar a/t before the season starts.

Slightly worryingly, towards the end of the off road time, when I restarted the vehicle after admiring the view, I got an 'EV System Service Required' message. I immediately headed back towards tarmac and turned off the car when I got there. After taking a few minutes washing the brakes etc I turned the car on again and the message did not reappear. It remained fine on the 40 mile drive home, but I am struggling to understand what could have caused it. Anyone got any ideas? Obviously if it reappears I'll take it to Mitsubishi to get it checked out.

 

[pasquinade]

Hi Sailordoc,

Heheh, I'm also trying out the PHEV in different offroad conditions (note: I'm not a big "car fan", but the PHEV is pulling me towards these offroad topics .

I once computed that the PHEV should be able to accelerate up a 24 degree (angle) incline (probably more like 22 or 23 due to drag):
http://www.myoutlanderphev.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=2958&hilit=24+degrees&start=40
It should be able to put out around 700kgf of forward force. In two or three different posts I got some confirmation of these values. Of course if you gain a bit of momentum, inertia will allow it to go at higher angles before stopping.

Regarding the tyres I have a set of BFGoodrich AT KO2 (215 70R16) which I use "on long weekends", but I do not recommend these for city people as they are just too noisy on tarmac higher than 50kph (the only "good" thing is that I can no longer hear the engine when it starts). I bought these mostly due to the lack of a spare tyre and I hear these are very puncture proof (trying not to be caught in the middle of nowhere with a flat). You can see them here:
http://www.myoutlanderphev.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=2997&p=35037&hilit=BFGoodrich

My current "issue" is with suspension travel, which I think is quite limited (from some wheel up tests I performed). I am a bit curious about trying to disconnect the roll bars and see what happens (never for city driving, only in test conditions) and am checking around what type of suspension improvements might be possible... Of course open differentials are also a main issue, but this only becomes a problem once the wheel is already up in the air, which I feel is actually a suspension fault unless we are in extreme mud or deep fine sand conditions.

And I also got stuck once "belly on the floor" in some recently plowed field.... Again... suspension (should be higher hehehe).

Best,
Ricardo

 

[Sailordoc]

Hi Sailordoc,

<snip>

Regarding the tyres I have a set of BFGoodrich AT KO2 (215 70R16) which I use "on long weekends", but I do not recommend these for city people as they are just too noisy on tarmac higher than 50kph (the only "good" thing is that I can no longer hear the engine when it starts). I bought these mostly due to the lack of a spare tyre and I hear these are very puncture proof (trying not to be caught in the middle of nowhere with a flat). You can see them here:
http://www.myoutlanderphev.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=2997&p=35037&hilit=BFGoodrich

<snip>
Best,
Ricardo

That's an interesting point as they are the same noise rating as the Geolandars, which claim to be quiet on the road! I do a fair amount of motorway driving, so might have to reconsider my options......

 

[pasquinade]

Hi,

I remember Trex bought the Geolanders:

http://www.myoutlanderphev.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=2964&p=34493

Perhaps you can ask his experience of these on the PHEV.

 

[Sailordoc]

Hi,

I remember Trex bought the Geolanders:

http://www.myoutlanderphev.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=2964&p=34493

Perhaps you can ask his experience of these on the PHEV.

Thanks - I've sent him a message.

No recurrence of the 'EV System Service Required' message so far either :lol:

 

[pasquinade]

Sorry, when I read the post I was meaning to reply to that as well, but got carried away with the offroading part

I have also experienced that message on occasion and restarting it seems to clear it. Some situations seem to be more prone to it:

1) When I use the chinese ELM attached to the ODB II port (to get sensor readings on the mobile phone) I estimate I have problems 1 every 3 times I start the car. If I plug it in after starting I usually get no problems.

2) Once I was in a situation where I turned on-off about 3 times in succession ("oops, forgot to get the windows up, oops now I forgot something else" type of situation) and it also gave the error.

3) not sure, but I think I got it once with no apparent reason when starting the car. Again, not sure on this one.

Causes 2) +3) must have happened at most 2 times in my 6 months ownership (total). when I forget the ODB in there it's around 1 in 3 car starts.

It always happened on car start so I guess it's an initialization issue... when ODB II is pluged in I guess it's probably the chinese chip initializing and "shorting" the bus when everyone is talking (and messages getting lost at the initialization time), when on-off in quick succession I guess it must be some component capacitor that might have not emptied itself completely and left some latch in an undefined state when restarting.... anyway, not too worried as the frequency has not increased (unless chinese chip in ODB II port).

Hope this helps

 

[pasquinade]

By the way, when the message happens, the sub-system is actually in error (e.g. no assisted turning wheel) so I recommend you restart as soon as possible as it can be dangerous. Luckily it only seems to happen on startup an not on the move...

 

[ps44]

I took my 2015 PHEV to Wagtail off road centre in Shipston-on-Stour....

I live a couple of miles away and never knew this was there. But now I understand the state of some of the vehicles that I see !

Not sure I want to subject my PHEV to it though

 

[Sailordoc]

I took my 2015 PHEV to Wagtail off road centre in Shipston-on-Stour....

I live a couple of miles away and never knew this was there. But now I understand the state of some of the vehicles that I see !

Not sure I want to subject my PHEV to it though

They have some gentle routes as well!

 

[Sailordoc]

By the way, when the message happens, the sub-system is actually in error (e.g. no assisted turning wheel) so I recommend you restart as soon as possible as it can be dangerous. Luckily it only seems to happen on startup an not on the move...

Bizarre - my car behaved as normal whilst the message was displayed i.e. No problems with steering or anything else. Didn't have anything in the OBD port. Happily it hasn't occurred again since restarting.

By the way, Trex says the Geolandars are not noticeably louder than the stock tyres, so will have a think about those later in the year.

 

[anko]

By the way, when the message happens, the sub-system is actually in error (e.g. no assisted turning wheel) so I recommend you restart as soon as possible as it can be dangerous. Luckily it only seems to happen on startup an not on the move...

I've have had that while driving. But always related to the use of a not so good OBD adapter.

 

[GreyBigFoot]

By the way, when the message happens, the sub-system is actually in error (e.g. no assisted turning wheel) so I recommend you restart as soon as possible as it can be dangerous. Luckily it only seems to happen on startup an not on the move...

I've have had that while driving. But always related to the use of a not so good OBD adapter.

You need to have some luck with those Chinese ELM adapters... Some are OK and others must have gone wrong in the manufacturing process.

I have an old one which I think is OK (used before in previous vehicles with no problems) but since it wouldn't switch off by itself (and it's kind of huge) I have replaced it for OBDLink LX. Have done 3000kms with the latter (always plugged in) with not a single issue.

 

[anko]

By the way, when the message happens, the sub-system is actually in error (e.g. no assisted turning wheel) so I recommend you restart as soon as possible as it can be dangerous. Luckily it only seems to happen on startup an not on the move...

I've have had that while driving. But always related to the use of a not so good OBD adapter.

You need to have some luck with those Chinese ELM adapters... Some are OK and others must have gone wrong in the manufacturing process.

I have an old one which I think is OK (used before in previous vehicles with no problems) but since it wouldn't switch off by itself (and it's kind of huge) I have replaced it for OBDLink LX. Have done 3000kms with the latter (always plugged in) with not a single issue.

I have had three of those running in parallel for the last 20 or 30.000 km. Indeed no issues. Not cheap but very good.