Maintenance mode for warming up your petrol engine.

Hi,

After nearly a year with my Phev ( 1 year old in 2 weeks) I have finally found a way of warming up the petrol motor easily before driving on the freeway here in Australia.

My situation is I live about 2kms from our freeway on ramp to travel to other towns, cities etc which are all out of Ev range ie petrol motor will be used.

Now as a engineer I hate having the petrol motor coming on cold, and oil pressure at zero , at 110kph and suddenly be needed to rev at approx 2900rpm and take the loads of the Phev at that speed. Even worse is the Petrol motor at 4500rpm in Serial mode when merging with traffic at the on ramp. So I have been trying to find a way of warming up the Phev in our 60kph zones before taking to the highway.

So how have I been doing this? By driving around, when the Hv battery is full, in the 60kph zones around town here, for 5kms so I can get the Petrol motor to start using the save or charge button. The Phevs Petrol motor will not start (with charge or save buttons) unless the Hv battery is 86% or less. Remember I am about 2kms from the on ramp. So at least 3kms of stuffing around so I can get petrol motor to start so it is at least a little warmed before using on the highway.

Well not anymore. Thanks to a little section in the Dutch written pdf that forum member anko sent me that says:

Starten benzinemotor
Ready inschakelen en daarna de chargeknop 10 seconden lang ingedrukt
houden, nu draait de motor onbelast stationair.

Which translated with Bing translator says:

Start petrol engine
Enable ready and then the charge button 10 seconds
keep, now running the unloaded motor idle.

Well I could not believe it. If this is what I thought it was saying ie no matter what the SOC of the drive battery (even when full) you can start the petrol motor of the Phev by being in ready mode and pressing and holding the Charge button for at least 10secs and the petrol motor will start totally unloaded (no charging or anything) at a low idle.

Well after charging overnight the Phev's Hv battery to 100% I checked this morning and sure enough it worked. I have not seen this mentioned anywhere before but I may have missed it.

Anyone seen this before? Ie Hold charge button for 10secs and start Petrol motor unloaded at a low idle?

Regards Trex.

I had seen it. Never related it to your personal quest though

I think what you get is the same as what happens when the engine starts to provide heat. It runs, gets warm but does not charge the battery. I may have actually written about it somewhere. But I also may have not.

The feature was created to allow engineers to perform maintenance to the engine. Sometimes this requires a running engine.

I have used it to compare fuel consumptions at standstill with engine running:
- in charge mode
- for heating purposes
- purely idle (10 sec procedure)
in order to get an idea on how much fuel is used to turn the engine and how much fuel is used to actually charge the battery.

(A very faint reference to the existence of an idle function: http://www.myoutlanderphev.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=832&p=8709&hilit=Idle#p8709)

Btw: here "on the northern half" we simply cranck up the heater when we want to start the engine :evil:

Gold! Thanks, has been a real worry for me

The dealer ran this run with me when I bought the PHEV. In theory if the battery is flat you can start the engine get out of car lock it with the emergency key then go for a coffee.

Interesting find! Thanks, you two!

Will it also get into idle when I'm on a highway with, let's say, 50% soc when I keep the button pressed for 10 secs?

However, engine wear due to cold starts is much less of a concern with modern synthetic oils:

http://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/abs/10.1108/00368790010352691

https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/engine-wear-question.566275/

In fact, idling it to warm up will do more damage than putting a load on it straight away, shortening the warm-up time.

jaapv said:

In fact, idling it to warm up will do more damage than putting a load on it straight away, shortening the warm-up time.

Click to expand...

Another myth busted?

But it still could be used to get max. acceleration from 0-100, even with 100% soc, when the ICE is already running from the startline...

Not that I would ever need that....

I thing you will find that the PHEV has an electric oil pump to keep the pressure up all the time.

Have a look at the oil warning light when you next energise the vehicle.

NAPpy

Kim said:

jaapv said:

In fact, idling it to warm up will do more damage than putting a load on it straight away, shortening the warm-up time.

Click to expand...

Another myth busted?

But it still could be used to get max. acceleration from 0-100, even with 100% soc, when the ICE is already running from the startline...

Not that I would ever need that....

Click to expand...

Not really a myth, more like a carry-over from the time that machining tolerances were wider and mineral oils less effective at cold temperatures.
For the same reasons there is no need any more for running-in oils or even, to a large extent, running in.

jaapv said:

In fact, idling it to warm up will do more damage than putting a load on it straight away, shortening the warm-up time.

Click to expand...

Then why would the PHEV still let the battery provide the power while the engine warms up even with a flat battery (as long as the power demand doesn't exceed the battery output of course)?

Kind regards,
Mark

To heat your toes...

jaapv said:

However, engine wear due to cold starts is much less of a concern with modern synthetic oils:

http://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/abs/10.1108/00368790010352691

https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/engine-wear-question.566275/

In fact, idling it to warm up will do more damage than putting a load on it straight away, shortening the warm-up time.

Click to expand...

Really, where is the evidence - not sure those articles relate to a petrol engine designed for a PHEV!! It may be true but those articles/discussions do not prove it.

NAPpy said:

I thing you will find that the PHEV has an electric oil pump to keep the pressure up all the time.

Have a look at the oil warning light when you next energise the vehicle.

NAPpy

Click to expand...

Hi Nappy,

I think you will find that electric oil pump is for front electric motor and gearbox. See sticky (above in this section) to see diagram.
Petrol motor has a normal built in oil pump I think.

Edit. Ok found it:

The oil pump is a gear type which is driven by the crankshaft via the balancer timing chain. <4B11-PHEV

Regards Trex.

Bilbo59 said:

jaapv said:

However, engine wear due to cold starts is much less of a concern with modern synthetic oils:

http://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/abs/10.1108/00368790010352691

https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/engine-wear-question.566275/

In fact, idling it to warm up will do more damage than putting a load on it straight away, shortening the warm-up time.

Click to expand...

Really, where is the evidence - not sure those articles relate to a petrol engine designed for a PHEV!! It may be true but those articles/discussions do not prove it.

Click to expand...

Hi,

Totally agree with Bilbo59. Diesel lubricates when cold far better than petrol. Both articles are about diesel motors.

I am hitting the on ramp of highway with a dead cold motor and low oil pressure and the motor is going straight to 4500rpm in series mode so I can merge with fast traffic.

With a normal car where are you doing that? You start petrol motor in morning, idle out of driveway and mostly accelerate up to town or city speeds. I will never thrash a Petrol motor when it is not up to at least a warm temp and oil pressure stabilized.

Regards Trex.

Kim said:

Interesting find! Thanks, you two!

Will it also get into idle when I'm on a highway with, let's say, 50% soc when I keep the button pressed for 10 secs?

Click to expand...

Hi Kim,

It idles as long as you like until you hit the Charge button again momentarily (short press) to take it out of this special mode from what I can see.

Regards Trex.

anko said:

I had seen it. Never related it to your personal quest though

I think what you get is the same as what happens when the engine starts to provide heat. It runs, gets warm but does not charge the battery. I may have actually written about it somewhere. But I also may have not.

The feature was created to allow engineers to perform maintenance to the engine. Sometimes this requires a running engine.

I have used it to compare fuel consumptions at standstill with engine running:
- in charge mode
- for heating purposes
- purely idle (10 sec procedure)
in order to get an idea on how much fuel is used to turn the engine and how much fuel is used to actually charge the battery.

(A very faint reference to the existence of an idle function: http://www.myoutlanderphev.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=832&p=8709&hilit=Idle#p8709)

Btw: here "on the northern half" we simply cranck up the heater when we want to start the engine :evil:

Click to expand...

Hi anko,

Yes this mode it is perfect for my usage. To hot here "down under" at the moment to be running heaters. :lol:

Again thanks for the pdf.

Regards Trex.

Ok I have bumped this thread and changed it to a more applicable title to show newer members a mode they may find useful that we have started talking about in another thread but really is not applicable to the thread's title.

Also found out this should work on the newer PHEVS including the North American models.

When you go into this mode Save mode will be showing on your dashboard but this is what I have stated elsewhere:

Trex said:

Another way of looking at this mode is its just a run the petrol motor unloaded mode ie no generator load on the motor (with the proviso of my last paragraph).

This is from the training manual for dealers where I found this hidden feature (not in the owners manual) initially:

"Switch on Ready and then press and hold the charge button for 10 seconds, now the motor runs unloaded."

I think it would run as long as you liked until cancelled ie not temp controlled.

But I think I also remember it turns into a quasi "Save" mode around 85% SOC ie starts to load up the generator onto the ICE to keep the same SOC but unlike "normal" Save the ICE never turns off ie it unloads itself again and keeps running.

Click to expand...

Note that last paragraph about turning into a "quasi" Save mode.