PHEV stuck on charge mode?

[Stoobay]

Help? My PHEV gx3h (12k miles) has stopped providing electricity to power vehicle. Display showed 7miles range which has gone up to 9 miles from last trip today. No charge mode on display but shows no pure EV mode going to power vehicle either. Seems like it is stuck on charge mode with no way to manually change? Getting 29mpg from trips. Had vehicle 8 months from new and no issues until now. Any ideas? Have I missed something simple?

 

[Ozukus]

Help? My PHEV gx3h (12k miles) has stopped providing electricity to power vehicle. Display showed 7miles range which has gone up to 9 miles from last trip today. No charge mode on display but shows no pure EV mode going to power vehicle either. Seems like it is stuck on charge mode with no way to manually change? Getting 29mpg from trips. Had vehicle 8 months from new and no issues until now. Any ideas? Have I missed something simple?

Any chance that you've done loads of miles on EV and it's doing the auto consume the 15 litres of fuel thing.

 

[Stoobay]

Thanks for response. I am unsure if this is the issue as I have done lots of EV miles but also do lots of motorway miles so filling up regularly more than the 15 litres required for the auto consume. Car service light had just come on and possibly triggered something.

 

[jaapv]

The range displayed tells us nothing. Did the bar display for state of charge change?

 

[Stoobay]

It seems to have increased but difficult to tell based on the short(ish) journey today.

 

[Hypermiler]

Have you just started using the heating or something? Not sure what impact that would have as I hardly use mine... but would presumably put the engine on more or less continuously for short journeys.
Just a thought.

 

[Stoobay]

Could be. Although have been using the heating for over a month now and not had these issues. I have booked in to local dealership and hopefully something simple.

 

[jdsx]

Could be. Although have been using the heating for over a month now and not had these issues. I have booked in to local dealership and hopefully something simple.

It's not so much using the heating per se, as the difference in temperature between ambient (outside) temp and what you set the heating to inside. Around 7-8 deg C difference and the car can cope, but more than about 10 degrees difference, the petrol engine will cut in. If I were you, I'd put some warm clothes on and turn the heating off completely (or set the inside temp to lowest - 15 degrees I think) and seeing whether you can drive on EV or not. That should tell you whether there's a more serious problem.
HTH

 

[Regulo]

I thought GX3h's had to use the engine for heat, whatever temperature was set? No electric heater?

 

[jdsx]

I thought GX3h's had to use the engine for heat, whatever temperature was set? No electric heater?

Ah you might be right Regulo. My bad. Some more discussion here http://www.myoutlanderphev.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=1036

 

[greendwarf]

Done 12k - has it been serviced? If not, might be the answer :?

 

[Ozukus]

I actually had a similar problem this morning, which is the 2nd time I've had the problem.

I have a commute to the office where I join the Motorway at Junction 3 for my trip to Slough.

In current weather, with heating on (GX3h), the battery has sufficient SOC to get me up the hill between Junction 7 & 8, plus say 1 mile down the road. In summer I use Save to have enough for that hill climb.

I then get off at Cobham Services for breakfast where I do a charge to 80%, depart in Save mode and use the battery for my return journey which effectively gets me back to Cobham Services on pure electric (lots of traffic of course which keeps the speed down).

May not be the most efficient however works for me.

However today I had an issue that pretty well near to Junction 5 I still had a full SOC, normally it would have dropped by around 20%. I have had this once before having not noticed it until I got to Clacket Lane Services, at which point I turned the A/C off.

My initial thought was what was different today, which actually coincided with the previous time, was that I had the front window demist on. As soon as I turned this off the arrow from the engine to the battery stopped. This is the only common denominator as previously turning the A/C off, had the same affect as turning off the front window demist, that I can come up with.

Anyone experienced anything similar and to the original poster "stoobay" could this have been the same circumstance for you, i.e. using the front window demist button.

 

[jaapv]

I'm not quite sure that I follow your post but in general the demist button will operate the aircon.

 

[anko]

True. But running the aircon will only result in starting the engine when the temp setting is not at the lowest. And then we are back to heating, right?

 

[Ozukus]

Temperature was set at 22 degrees with outside temp of 12 degrees.

When heating only on, car works as expected, i.e. once car up to temperature, engine switches off, then engine comes back on again at later time to re raise the temperature to 22 degrees.

If I also turn the front window demist to on, button on the left of auto, the engine never switches off.

If I turn the front window demist button back to off, then it reverts to engine switching off until it needs to raise it back to 22 degrees.

 

[maby]

Temperature was set at 22 degrees with outside temp of 12 degrees.

When heating only on, car works as expected, i.e. once car up to temperature, engine switches off, then engine comes back on again at later time to re raise the temperature to 22 degrees.

If I also turn the front window demist to on, button on the left of auto, the engine never switches off.

If I turn the front window demist button back to off, then it reverts to engine switching off until it needs to raise it back to 22 degrees.

It's not something that I have paid too much attention to, but now that you mention it, I get the impression that our GX4h behaves very much the same. I don't often need the screen demist.

 

[jaapv]

True. But running the aircon will only result in starting the engine when the temp setting is not at the lowest. And then we are back to heating, right?

Of course, but demist involves heating. I should try (but my widfe has the car), I think demist overrides heating off.

 

[Ozukus]

It's not something that I have paid too much attention to, but now that you mention it, I get the impression that our GX4h behaves very much the same. I don't often need the screen demist.

Either do I, it was just this thread that made me realise I'd had something similar before, and then today when it happened I was using front window demist for the first time in a long time, and drew the conclusion that was what was causing the problem.

 

[greendwarf]

True. But running the aircon will only result in starting the engine when the temp setting is not at the lowest. And then we are back to heating, right?

Of course, but demist involves heating. I should try (but my widfe has the car), I think demist overrides heating off.

Surely not - as Anko says only if the temperature is set higher than 15c. I am currently driving around with it set to 15c and switching on the aircon to demist (passengers insist on breathing for some reason :lol: ) when necessary and the ICE never starts because there is no heating involved. Of course, I therefore get revenge on the selfish passengers who have to put up with the cold draught :twisted:

 

[jaapv]

:mrgreen: :mrgreen:

I never tried - I think saving a few electrons does not warrant cold feet - I'll take your word for it.