URGENT Heater Help Needed

I have a fault with the heater on our PHEV. I have taken it to the garage and they have said "fault not found". The model is a first generation GX4H. When I have the car plugged in (charged-up) and then turn the electric heater on in the morning we don't get any heat. We used to. Can I just check with anyone that has a GX4H to be absolutely sure that when you have the car plugged in and you turn it on and then turn the heater up that you too get heat coming out?

Example; ambient temperature = 10 degrees C. Car plugged in and fully charged. Ignition turned on (blue). Heater set to 24 degrees C. What does the air coming out of vents then measure? Because for us now it is 10 degrees C.

Huge thanks in advance for your help.

I switch heater on with phone app or timed function while connected to mains without issue

Sure I read in handbook you must never switch on ignition while connected to mains :shock:

I haven't got handbook to hand so maybe others can confirm :?

I agree - I try not to switch it on when plugged in as it can get a bit upset (beeping etc).
So I have the same car but have never tried that...
H

Phevourite said:

I have a fault with the heater on our PHEV. I have taken it to the garage and they have said "fault not found". The model is a first generation GX4H. When I have the car plugged in (charged-up) and then turn the electric heater on in the morning we don't get any heat. We used to. Can I just check with anyone that has a GX4H to be absolutely sure that when you have the car plugged in and you turn it on and then turn the heater up that you too get heat coming out?

Example; ambient temperature = 10 degrees C. Car plugged in and fully charged. Ignition turned on (blue). Heater set to 24 degrees C. What does the air coming out of vents then measure? Because for us now it is 10 degrees C.

Huge thanks in advance for your help.

Click to expand...

My electric heater does not work when the car is connected on charger and I manually operate the climate control sitting inside the car .. mine does no make any beep ... if I press on "START", it it just start the MMCS and some dash light (does switch on more or less based if I press the brake while I press the START) .. but there is no way to get out of parking mode, nor even go into ECO mode ... so ... when plugged it has a special status that prevent the car to be moved (else it may damage the charging cable and/or connectors)

Electric heater works only in normal running mode (assume the temperature is not to cold, else ICE will start) , or when you program the heating via MMCS or Apps (but works only if the car is empty and possibly locked too)

So, I guess there is no defect on your car .. unless your heater does not work also in the two condition above

elm70 said:

My electric heater does not work when the car is connected on charger and I manually operate the climate control sitting inside the car ..

Click to expand...

Now that you say so, it is the same with me. Normal A/C function does not work. But turning on heater via the app does work. Until you open the door ....

There is no problem with turning the car on when plugged in I think. The manual says:
"Even if the power switch is On with the normal charge connector is inserted in the normal charge port it will not be in the state which can be driven."

It then goes on to explain how to turn the vehicle off. There is no comment that the car should not be turned on.

anko said:

elm70 said:

My electric heater does not work when the car is connected on charger and I manually operate the climate control sitting inside the car ..

Click to expand...

Now that you say so, it is the same with me. Normal A/C function does not work. But turning on heater via the app does work. Until you open the door ....

Click to expand...

Hmm. Interesting. Thanks so much for your replies. Just to be clear then, if I turn the car on (foot-on-the-brake-and-press-start-till-the-button-lights-blue) with the charge cable still plugged in then the heater controls light up and I can set the temperature and turn the fan speed up and down, select air conditioning on or off and so on. Everything is available, every control and dial works, air flows out of the vents. It all seems operational except that no heat comes out. Is that your experience too then? Everything works except the heat?

Phevourite said:

anko said:

elm70 said:

My electric heater does not work when the car is connected on charger and I manually operate the climate control sitting inside the car ..

Click to expand...

Now that you say so, it is the same with me. Normal A/C function does not work. But turning on heater via the app does work. Until you open the door ....

Click to expand...

Hmm. Interesting. Thanks so much for your replies. Just to be clear then, if I turn the car on (foot-on-the-brake-and-press-start-till-the-button-lights-blue) with the charge cable still plugged in then the heater controls light up and I can set the temperature and turn the fan speed up and down, select air conditioning on or off and so on. Everything is available, every control and dial works, air flows out of the vents. It all seems operational except that no heat comes out. Is that your experience too then? Everything works except the heat?

Click to expand...

Yes .. exactly the same .. ventilation can be used, but I never manage to get hot air in that "mode"
I'm not even sure heated seat works in this "mode"

Some time ago here there was a post of somebody complaining that while he was waiting sitting in the car, while charging at some parking place .. he was not able to warm up the cabin .. so I assume it is a known limitation on the car

It is not clear the logic used for disable this function (I can't see why car can be charged and pre-heat, but the same is not possible if somebody is sitting inside) ... but it is not the biggest annoying odd decision from Mitsubishi

After reading your last post, I took a moment and sat down in the car. Car was still charging. Close to 3.000 watts were being fed into the battery (info from the BMU, not the charge station). Then I switched the car on (blue button), with the cable still connected. Indeed everything appeared to work, but the heater. I could crank up the heater to 30 deg C, yet power consumption by the electric heater stayed at 0 watt. And still, close to 3.000 watts were going straight into the battery.

So, no the heater does not work from the A/C controls.

What elm70 says is not true, though. You can pre-heat the car with yourself or another person in it. But you have to use the app.

anko said:

After reading your last post, I took a moment and sat down in the car. Car was still charging. Close to 3.000 watts were being fed into the battery (info from the BMU, not the charge station). Then I switched the car on (blue button), with the cable still connected. Indeed everything appeared to work, but the heater. I could crank up the heater to 30 deg C, yet power consumption by the electric heater stayed at 0 watt. And still, close to 3.000 watts were going straight into the battery.

So, no the heater does not work from the A/C controls.

What elm70 says is not true, though. You can pre-heat the car with yourself or another person in it. But you have to use the app.

Click to expand...

Thanks enormously. That is hugely useful. I wish the manual would cover this but in fact it has no detail whatsoever.

anko said:

What elm70 says is not true, though. You can pre-heat the car with yourself or another person in it. But you have to use the app.

Click to expand...

Right

That's your task ... find a little detail that can be wrong on my post for make me look like I say only wrong stuffs

Apps does not work for me ... so I can prove it .. (BTW .. I can use the apps even if my car as wifi .. thanks to bad design from Mitsubishi ... ups ... actually I could .. I just need to drive to a competent Mitsubishi service (not sure there is any near me) and give something like 100 euro and they can read the password from the diagnostic cable :roll: ... more then 100 euro, waste 4h for this is not worth it)

I'm surprise that program pre-heat does work different from MMCS to APPS .. but more then pre-heat .. maybe you mean the option to force immediate start of heating from remote (ups ... in case you may also have done a little mistake .. and you should be marked as NOT TRUE) ... that maybe it will work if this is operated while inside the car

Anyhow ... however you want to read ... once again the firmware design is very very questionable

elm70 said:

anko said:

What elm70 says is not true, though. You can pre-heat the car with yourself or another person in it. But you have to use the app.

Click to expand...

Right

That's your task ... find a little detail that can be wrong on my post for make me look like I say only wrong stuffs

Click to expand...

Oh, come on .... This afternoon I quoted you in this same thread:

anko said:

elm70 said:

My electric heater does not work when the car is connected on charger and I manually operate the climate control sitting inside the car ..

Click to expand...

Now that you say so, it is the same with me. Normal A/C function does not work. But turning on heater via the app does work. Until you open the door ....

Click to expand...

So, I was confirming your contribution and adding to it. This addition was either ignored, missed or contradicted by you, several hours later, when you said the heater could not be operated while the car was hooked up. Yes, I felt I had to step in. Not to make you look bad, but to stop the spreading of (IMO) wrong information.

I'm lost

In my first post I stated that heating works while car is charging, if pre-programmed by mmcs or app, but as far as I know this works only if nobody is in the car.

Later on you stated that people can be in the car, with car charging, and heating can be started via the app.. This was the very unclear point

It looks like you automatically interpret "pre-heating" as "timer based pre-heating". But pre-heating doesn't have to be timer based, as "immediate start of heating from remote" is also a form of pre-heating.

anko said:

It looks like you automatically interpret "pre-heating" as "timer based pre-heating". But pre-heating doesn't have to be timer based, as "immediate start of heating from remote" is also a form of pre-heating.

Click to expand...

Just for clarify ... using the app and activate the heating immediately via the app .. this does start even if car is open and people are sitting on it ?

Would it also work if this is activated by the keyfob hack ? ..For sure you know that there is a switch that does start the heating on the keyfob that somebody did solder and enabled on the PHEV key

Hi

I have resoldered one of the keyfobs and you can indeed start preheat while sitting in the car. Very windy and noisy inside. Stops as soon as you open a door.

A slightly different topic. I want to run preheat with boot or doors open. Takes forever to load car with winter gear, skis,kids and wifes (just kidding, wife). and the car will be very cold if not preheat is running. Can this be done??

Steepndeep said:

Hi

I have resoldered one of the keyfobs and you can indeed start preheat while sitting in the car. Very windy and noisy inside. Stops as soon as you open a door.

A slightly different topic. I want to run preheat with boot or doors open. Takes forever to load car with winter gear, skis,kids and wifes (just kidding, wife). and the car will be very cold if not preheat is running. Can this be done??

Click to expand...

Thanks ... this is what I did want to know ..

I have the new keyfob case and switches on the way from china to my home .. I hope to join the "club" soon

PS: Loading the car and running the heating .. I'm afraid you need to start the car and use the heating system of the car (which most probably will start ICE) .. but if it take forever to load the car, I guess you are planning a long trip, so .. heating using ICE is possibly not a bad idea .. avoid ICE start make sense only for short trip inside the battery range

Hi elm

There is a "strange" implementation of the keyfob functionality. You start the preheat by pressing the button twice rapidly and the preheat starts. Sometimes.

Sometimes you need to do the manouvre twice, e.g. press button twice and car signals happily back with three blinks, but nothing happens. Do it again and car signals back again and preheat starts, including the massive clonk that indicates it also starts to charge. I suspect the implementation is that if the car is hooked up to charge but "full" so it has turned off charging, say in the morning after charging through the night, then the first two button presses alerts the "Brain" to "something". The second buttonpresses start preheat.

When the car is charging or not hooked up one double press is enough to start preheat.

The confirmation that preheat has started is that the little green led in front of the gearlever lights up. Unfortunately that is the same indication that the car is charging so then there is no other indication than to listen for the fan to blow. And although inside the car it is noisy, outside it is very difficult to hear if there is any background noise. You can open a door to check but then preheat stops so you need to "throw in your head" pretty darn quick to catch the last revs of the fan :lol:

Have fun resoldering

elm70 said:

[Just for clarify ... using the app and activate the heating immediately via the app .. this does start even if car is open and people are sitting on it ?

Click to expand...

Doors must be closed, but not locked.

elm70 said:

Would it also work if this is activated by the keyfob hack ? ..For sure you know that there is a switch that does start the heating on the keyfob that somebody did solder and enabled on the PHEV key

Click to expand...

I am one of those people ;-) Pretty sure it will, but will check later ....

edit - sorry, see steepndeep beat me to it ;-)

Steepndeep said:

There is a "strange" implementation of the keyfob functionality. You start the preheat by pressing the button twice rapidly and the preheat starts. Sometimes.

Click to expand...

Mine seems to work consistently. Have not been in a situations where the indicators lit up but heating did not start.