ICE starts even when the car has been preheated

[JKL]

It seems to me there is a change in the car's firmware, the car has been serviced in October and since then the ICE starts on cold days even if the car is preheated and has stayed overnight in the garage. I do every day a commute of 11 km forth and back and whole time the ICE keeps turning on and off. Temperature in the car is set to 20 DG Celsius and heating is running during the commute and display about 4-5 l/100km

As far as I remember I did not have this behaviour last winter, anybody else made this observation ?

 

[anko]

How cold is cold?

 

[JKL]

Less than +5 Dg Celsius, did not do that last year

 

[anko]

How long did you pre-heat?
Did you turn on the heater as soon as you took off? If you give it the opportunity to cool down after departure, the engine may still start ....

 

[JKL]

5-8 Minutes of pre-heat, heater was on when I started off, engine started at once, turned the heater off, engine stopped, turned the heater on, engine started again and keeps running intermittent for the whole commute! I really suspect a firmware update for engine management. Will ask my dealer if an update has been applied?

 

[anko]

5 - 8 minutes is most likely not enough. Initially we could only preheat for 10 minutes. People had to run two or three cycles in order to prevent the engine from stating up on take off. Then Mitsu updated the control unit and the app, allowing a preheat cycle of 20 or even 30 minutes. That took care of the 'issue'.

 

[JKL]

I will try a pre-heat of 20 minutes even if I am sure I needed less than 10 minutes last winter....

 

[karl]

Eco-mode seems to make a difference.

Complicated startup sequence to start in Eco mode, as described elsewere.

• Preheat.
  Start in "ACC".
  Set the temperature to something not too high.
  Stop the ventilation and heating system. ("OFF")
  Start the car. (Brake+Power On)
  Enable the "ECO" mode.
  Turn on the ventilation and heating system. (Auto)
  Hope that you guessed a low enough temperature...

The irritating part is that the trigger for starting the enginge seems to depend on
the relation between the set temperature, the outside temperature, the coolant temperature,
and possibly the cabin temperature.

I won't actually mind running the engine for a while in the winter, as I don't like freezing my *ss off,
so I just typically enable ECO-mode and drive away if the car was not preheated.

 

[gwatpe]

The novelty of the sequence above would soon wear off.

Would be useful to compare some logged data of a successful sequence compared to when the ICE operated.

A difference from 0L/100km to 4-5L/100km is significant as a percentage, but for a short, 20km round trip, we may be talking about 1L of petrol.

To compare with the amount of petrol that your PHEV would consume as an ICE car, you could place the PHEV in CHARGE mode and do the same journey with a full battery, recording the L/100km. The difference will sort of give an estimate of the proportion of petrol operation for heating.

A longer preheat may be all that is needed. Judging how cold it is, is quite subjective and the PHEV is sensitive to small changes in the environment that affect its component operations.

This is not a problem I am likely to experience soon. Aircon has a much lower impact on petrol consumption and ICE operations.

 

[maby]

At 5 degrees ambient, I've never seen our PHEV run in EV mode irrespective of pre-heating or none. it starts the engine as soon as I press the power-on button. I value my comfort and set the climate control to 21 degrees - cannot comment on the various strategies that have been suggested to supress engine start which involve turning the heating off.

 

[kentphev]

Ever since the weather has turned a bit colder my PHEV loves to run the engine any time I have the temperate set above 20 degC.
Most of the time I now have it switched off and rely on the heated seat which gets you feeling toasty quicker.

 

[maby]

Ever since the weather has turned a bit colder my PHEV loves to run the engine any time I have the temperate set above 20 degC.
Most of the time I now have it switched off and rely on the heated seat which gets you feeling toasty quicker.

If not burning any petrol really matters that much to you then, yes, you really do have to keep the heating turned off. Cars are not double glazed or particularly well insulated - even if you pre-heat, the internal temperature will drop quite quickly with 30mph of windchill!

 

[kentphev]

Ever since the weather has turned a bit colder my PHEV loves to run the engine any time I have the temperate set above 20 degC.
Most of the time I now have it switched off and rely on the heated seat which gets you feeling toasty quicker.

If not burning any petrol really matters that much to you then, yes, you really do have to keep the heating turned off. Cars are not double glazed or particularly well insulated - even if you pre-heat, the internal temperature will drop quite quickly with 30mph of windchill!

Most of my trips are short.. if your EV runs its engine with a fully charged battery it makes the whole thing a bit pointless.