Using 700W+ when charged?

[MassMayhem]

My 16 PHEV is sat on the drive (UK, like many others) a lot. I got an electricity bill. I knew it would go up as my petrol bill went down - but ow, it's gone up by 40% and even before lockdown I was doing 60-80 miles a week max.

I put a portable electric usage meter on the charging plug (I'm using 13 amp plug) and even though the car is fully charged it's pulling 700W to 1KW. Unplug the charging lead from the car (leaving the adaptor box on the charging cable) and it drops to 0.

I can't believe the car is pulling best part of a KW for a trickle-top-up when fully charged. In every other way things look good - I'm getting 24miles in the cold (kids hate my 'slow' driving style), charging happens well through both charging points both at home and when I'm out and about.

Any ideas or thoughts anyone? I can't find anything on the interweb and my mitsubishi dealer is currently shut.

 

[littlescrote]

That is not right. Is anything getting hot that shouldn't? I'd be very careful about leaving it plugged in with that situation.

You could always try putting a charging timer on in the vehicle and check what the power consumption is outside of that charging period.

 

[MassMayhem]

No, nothing getting hot that I can see. I think next step is to drive the car and get rid of some juice, and then see what the consumption is while charging.

 

[michael8554]

By no means an expert on the finer points of the charging process, but I believe there may be background activities towards the end of charging, or even after fully charged is indicated - cell balancing for example?

But safest to set a charge time as suggested.

 

[HHL]

My 2014 model draws less than 5W when it is full charged. Do you have heated seats that may be turned on?

 

[littlescrote]

My 2014 model draws less than 5W when it is full charged. Do you have heated seats that may be turned on?

No way that heated seats would be on when the vehicle is switched off and they would not consume anything like 700W!

 

[AndyInOz]

Not the heated seats perhaps, but what about the cabin heater?

I bored everyone to death here about inexplicable loss of charge overnight etc. Until I discovered that the car was set to Heat up every night at 7 pm.

(I assume that someone was just playing with the settings at the dealer before I bought it)