Phev worst most dangerous car I've ever owned ?

[gusboy]

After covering a staggering 8000 miles in my top of the range phev at an excellent fuel economy of 31 mpg ( it will get better now it's warmer but the design of the phev means it won't use its battery when it's cold!!).
Two weeks ago my car decided to produce an e v system fault as I pulled out on to fairly busy road. Perfectly safely as I've learn not to trust the formidable acceleration of the phev. RBS fault something to do with the auto braking.
THIS IS A LETHAL FAULT the car will not go quicker than 20 mph and takes its time getting there.
Long and short of it is my wife now refuses to drive the phev when and if it ever comes back.
Shocking.
I'm sure some of you guys are loving the phev but since this has happened to me I now have no confidence in the vehicle.

 

[maby]

I fairness to the Outlander, any car can break down at any age - you should never pull into a gap that is so small that the car approaching could not possibly stop if you come to a sudden halt. I've had a Landrover just a few months come to a grinding halt in the middle of a busy road junction when the gearbox literally fell to pieces - I annoyed a lot of people by blocking the junction, but nobody was ever in danger.

At least the Outlander did allow you to keep moving - most cars would have stopped very unceremoniously, never to move again without a tow truck!

 

[gusboy]

I presume the land rover had cover more than 8000 miles.
As previously stated the gap was big enough for many cars and in no way dangerous.
Wife just scared and quite rightly so.
Typical Mitsibushi customer service kicking in.

 

[jaapv]

Hmm... I had a Volvo 745 Turbo quite some years ago that jumped the rear axle out of its springs due to a manufacturing error. Fortunately I was doing 30 MPH, not the 135+ it was capable of, as I would have expired there and then. Does this make the Volvo 700 series dangerous cars to drive? I think not.

 

[Dave13]

Clearly you've never driven a Sierra XR4i.... Now that was dangerous!! Any corner above about 40 sent the back end all over the place, and god help you if you got above 70, stopping distance was until you hit the car in front. There hasn't been a single vehicle manufactured or will there ever be that mechanical faults will never happen.

Maybe if you lighten up a bit and treat this as a one off, we've all had close things over the years.

The old saying about falling off a bike springs to mind

 

[PolishPilot]

I presume the land rover had cover more than 8000 miles.
As previously stated the gap was big enough for many cars and in no way dangerous.
Wife just scared and quite rightly so.
Typical Mitsubishi customer service kicking in.

Exactly after 8000 miles my Ford Mondeo, 2.5 V6 Cosworth wit AT decided, she will go
just backwards at a busy junction. One of the main shafts in the AT just snapped.

I backed it to the pavement, warranty service took 3 weeks.
Just to put into perspective.

My PHEV is now also 8000 miles, never a smallest hiccup.
Of all my cars until now, I feel she is the safest I ever had.

 

[maby]

I presume the land rover had cover more than 8000 miles.
As previously stated the gap was big enough for many cars and in no way dangerous.
Wife just scared and quite rightly so.
Typical Mitsibushi customer service kicking in.

The Landrover was just a few months old - not sure of mileage, but well under 8000. It was simply a manufacturing fault - apparently quite common at the time - the mainshaft snapped and flailed around wrecking the rest.

 

[Stvtech]

I am a little confused on how the fault could have proven lethal to you.
If (as you say) you pulled out safely, then there should be no danger - and the onus is on any approaching vehicles to perceive the hazard (you travelling at under 20mph) and slow down appropriately.
If however, you were 'shooting a gap' requiring brisk acceleration to avoid causing approaching vehicles to slam on their brakes, then the 'lethal fault' is the one sat behind the wheel.

All cars can suffer sudden catastrophic failure or loss of power, especially now that most cars rely on electronics to function, but that doesn't automatically make them the world's most dangerous.

I guess the tone of the replies to your post are probably not music to your ears, but that's a pretty bold statement there in the thread title (although I do acknowledge that you might feel it is accurate for yourself)...

 

[duplo]

I had a brand new skoda fabia that went into "limp" mode after 500 miles. Turned out it was simply a faulty throttle sensor.

ALL cars will have something similar to this. I would suggest that that the OP needs to put his issue in perspective.

 

[simonrh]

I had a Seat Leon with an injection fault that the dealer could not (would not) diagnose correctly and it went into limp home mode occasionally but did it at one point approaching a roundabout.

It went from 170 BHP to 50HP in a blink which made for an eye opening moment.

 

[anko]

Agree with all of the above. Except for opening post. Maybe TS can change the title of this topic to "What felt like the worst most dangerous car you've ever owned to you?"

 

[KillerBob]

Brand new top of the line Range Rover Sport, TD8. 150km into ownership when the engine just stopped doing 130km/hr down the motorway. Auto transmission really took a beating, and the guys behind me learned the true value to stopping distance. Turned out the fuel injectors were calibrated incorrectly - what makes the story OK was that the dealership only had an Aston Martin DB7 as a loaner

All car model can experience full-stop incidents, and it is only how we react that is different...

 

[gwatpe]

My PHEV did have a wheel speed sensor failure that caused the car to pull to the right severely as all the ABS systems tried to interfere with the driving. I can sympathize with the OP. My PHEV was still very new, around 1000km. I did not think the car was unsafe, just maybe an issue with quality control somewhere. Mitsi did replace my PHEV and I have had occasional ECU system messages. The many computer systems do seem vulnerable to wiring additions with say aftermarket items. Have found a link with CC cancel and the OBD2 port HUD. Will require some future investigation.

I was not confident with the PHEV that had the problems. Owners that have had no problems still outnumber those with. My own experiences have had less impact on me than my passenger. The driver usually is holding onto the wheel, whereas a passenger is tossed a bit when all goes pear shaped.

Time will tell how this ends.

 

[jaapv]

Worst experience with a relatively new car: Jaguar X-type 2.2 D, 30.000 Km. Lost all power in the middle lane inside a motorway tunnel. It was scary until the red crosses came on. And then it caused a 5 Km traffic jam. It turned out some sensor in the exhaust system had failed.

 

[gusboy]

There are many cars out there that have issues in the early years and I get that.
Had one with a BMW car was collected courtesy car provided.
Had one with a Toureg, car was collected courtesy car provided.
So far my PHEV has been off the road at the dealership for 16 days and I have not been offered a replacement vehicle FOC. Mitisibushi have come back to say the generator is faulty and required replacing. This will take a further 14 working days to be delivered from Mitisibushi.
Thankfully it's under warranty but I don't think I'd like the bill If it wasn't.
You chaps obviously love the PHEV far more than I and are willing to put up with the niggles and the odd things you must do to get a sensible MPG.
Mine is for sale.

 

[anko]

My thoughts: you didn't like it as much as many others, even before the mishap. Otherwise, you would have been looking for another dealer instead of another car.

 

[maby]

There are many cars out there that have issues in the early years and I get that.
Had one with a BMW car was collected courtesy car provided.
Had one with a Toureg, car was collected courtesy car provided.
So far my PHEV has been off the road at the dealership for 16 days and I have not been offered a replacement vehicle FOC. Mitisibushi have come back to say the generator is faulty and required replacing. This will take a further 14 working days to be delivered from Mitisibushi.
Thankfully it's under warranty but I don't think I'd like the bill If it wasn't.
You chaps obviously love the PHEV far more than I and are willing to put up with the niggles and the odd things you must do to get a sensible MPG.
Mine is for sale.

I agree that there are some round here with an almost religious attraction to the car. Personally, I view it as a tax efficient, decent spec, large 4WD automatic estate that can turn in respectable running costs. I'm a little nervous about build quality and reliability - though I don't think that the evidence to date supports that - it's just an engineer's view having looked at it in some detail.

Your experience with the dealer trying to get yours repaired does highlight a genuine cause for concern - in those few cases described here of serious faults in PHEVs, the dealers do not seem well prepared to fix them and the supply chain of spares does not inspire much confidence. Mitsubishi seem to be committed to the car, so one would expect this to improve, but it is undoubtedly annoying if yours is one of the early failures.

 

[duplo]

Agree, that's the one thing that seems to evident is that when a problem occurs with this car it may not be fixed quickly. In which case the dealer network should be taking care of their customers fairly and promptly.

 

[outofyorkshire]

To be honest the issue with spares for far eastern built card has been around for years.
However I am surprised that the industry seems to have done very little to fix it.

We had a similar problem when someone hit my wifes Honda CRV way back in the early days of the CRV.
'wear and tear' items were readily available but a couple of body panels were a different issue and we had to wait for them to be shipped.

I know some manufacturers have 'regional hubs' and it seems pretty simple to me that a parts hub in Europe would be a sensible approach.
However, I guess it ultimately comes down to cost as I know Mitsubishi UK is actually The Colt Car Company Limited and is a privately owned business.
Add to that that there there is only 10,000 ish in total in the UK (many of which were in the last 12 months) and it will only just start to become viable to hold many of the parts locally.
No sensible company can afford to put customer service ahead of profitability :shock:

 

[duplo]

Is that the case though? it seems that in some cases you can get a car shipped quicker than you can get a part.