charging flap

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maxoldfield

New member
Joined
Feb 13, 2015
Messages
1
I now own a phev and whilst satisfied the flap you open to access the charging point has a black clip which has now fallen out twice and so the flap now catches as it is closed on the end closest to the hinge causing some damage to the body. The garage i purchased it from have tried to fix it but it is still not satisfactory. Has this happened to anyone else?
 
maxoldfield said:
I now own a phev and whilst satisfied the flap you open to access the charging point has a black clip which has now fallen out twice and so the flap now catches as it is closed on the end closest to the hinge causing some damage to the body. The garage i purchased it from have tried to fix it but it is still not satisfactory. Has this happened to anyone else?

Bizarre - only previous posts have been about the flap getting opened to far and having to bend the hinge back into shape.
 
Yep, happened to mine the first time I used it. I undid the two bolts that hold the flap in place and was then able to reposition the black spring clip correctly before rebolting back in place. Also the flap hadn't fitted well and the back edge snagged very slightly on the main body work - I was able to improve it slightly when I refitted it but still wasn't quite right so i took it back to the dealer who I thought would take some time to investigate and adjust but in fact just arm-wrestled with the entire flap until it was marginally better. I've noticed it getting worse again recently so will need to take it back to the dealer. All in all, the flap is a very poor design.
 
This happened to me as well. The spring dislodged and was scraping against the charging socket. The door hinge got bent, and the door was scraping against the body work which has chipped the paint.

I took it into the Mitsubishi dealer to be fixed under warranty, they could not fix it. They took some photos and said they would ask Mitsubishi if they could fix it under warranty, and accused me of 'walking into the door' and breaking it myself!

They also said that they has never heard of this happening.

If anyone else has seen the spring clip dislodge please post here , as I am worried that they are planning to charge me for the repair.

20150309_093621.jpg

20150309_103023.jpg
 
The same happened to mine after 5-6 months.

I managed to re-fit it a few times but when I had my 12,000 service the dealership in Exeter fixed it and its been working fine again

The car is leased but nothing was mentioned about charging for it
 
Dealer is Wiltshire and Sons, Farnham Surrey.
Its very interesting that this has happened to other people.
Is the warranty with Mitsubishi UK or the dealer, can I just take it to a different dealer to be fixed?
 
SL999 said:
The same happened to mine after 5-6 months.

I managed to re-fit it a few times but when I had my 12,000 service the dealership in Exeter fixed it and its been working fine again

The car is leased but nothing was mentioned about charging for it

Ummm- could you please repost the image @ 600 pixels wide?
 
james12 said:
Dealer is Wiltshire and Sons, Farnham Surrey.
Its very interesting that this has happened to other people.
Is the warranty with Mitsubishi UK or the dealer, can I just take it to a different dealer to be fixed?

A warranty is from the manufacturer, so any dealer will fix. However, your legal rights under the Sale of Goods Act are against the dealer if Mitsu won't accept it as a warranty claim. Finally, if in dispute with either you may have a Section 75 claim against your credit card supplier - assuming you paid at least £100 towards the car on the card (e.g. deposit)
 
Well, I estimate I have opened and closed the flap about 200 times since new. As you plug the car in every time you drive it, and sometimes more if you rapid charger its a very high use component.
In contrast I have probably opened the petrol flap about 10 times in the same period.

You could open and close the flap 200 times when you pick it up, could be 10 mins well spent.

Mitsubishi UK have said they have not seen this fault before, and will not fix it under warranty, and that I will have to pay for it to be fixed.

It is a contract hire though Lex, so I am going though the process of rejecting the car on the grounds that it is faulty.

Lex are currently investigating.
 
I picked up a 2015 PHEV courtesy car today as mine was getting a service , the hinge on the charging flap has been modified, an extra bit of grey foam has been added, this was not supplied on my 2014 car.


If you can I would get your dealer to put it in.

PHEVModified.jpg
 
james12 said:
Well, I estimate I have opened and closed the flap about 200 times since new. As you plug the car in every time you drive it, and sometimes more if you rapid charger its a very high use component.
In contrast I have probably opened the petrol flap about 10 times in the same period.

You could open and close the flap 200 times when you pick it up, could be 10 mins well spent.

Mitsubishi UK have said they have not seen this fault before, and will not fix it under warranty, and that I will have to pay for it to be fixed.

It is a contract hire though Lex, so I am going though the process of rejecting the car on the grounds that it is faulty.

Lex are currently investigating.

I don't see why the fact that they haven't seen it before could justify not covering it on warranty. I guess that the average frequency of usage is probably less than yours, but they should be scheduling for a few hundred operations in the three year warranty period at least with a fair chance of lasting beyond that.
 
james12 said:
I picked up a 2015 PHEV courtesy car today as mine was getting a service , the hinge on the charging flap has been modified, an extra bit of grey foam has been added, this was not supplied on my 2014 car.


If you can I would get your dealer to put it in.

PHEVModified.jpg

I've just checked mine when unplugging this morning. I've got the grey foam as well - car delivered September 2014.
 
Mine too. It bends with the flap when it opens ans stops contact between the panel and the car. It doesn't seem like a cure to the spring flying out though - it looks more likely that the spring would become disengaged from the small holding pin towards the centre of the flap and then drop out of the rear engaging hole. It doesn't look that hard to fix if it goes wrong apart from compressing the spring itself to relocate it.
 
I have had the same issue with my PHEV at 11months, and the response from dealer and Mitsubishi is external forces have been applied to it and it is not a manufacturing issue. Its seems the same external force has found its way to all of our cars! Which is quite funny as the only way the dealer could fix the flap was to exert external forces on it.

It may seem like a little thing but the dealer was quoted £700 to correct the damage to the bodywork from the flap, which they are not willing to carry out without Mitsubishi taking the cost. Therefore its a NO nothing to do with us from dealer, and NO nothing to do with us from Mitsubishi.

Here is my latest email to Mitsubishi customer services, [email protected] and the dealership.

I have done a quick search on some forums and clearly I am not the only person this is happening to. Clearly Mitsubishi are aware of the problem as dealers are reporting the problem to you.

http://www.myoutlanderphev.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1180&hilit=electric+charging+door+flap

Your comment regarding the part being fit for purpose at manufacture versus at 9k miles is very niave, the point is that the wear and tear is causing the problem, therefore it will work when the door has only been opened a hand full of times, however when it has been opened and closed a minimum of 365 times in a year and it ceases to be functional on a £40k car with 3 years warranty, this is not acceptable, especially as this seems to be happening anything from 5-6 months onwards.

Clearly from some of these pictures I have caught the issue quite early on before it causes even more damage but it really does not fill me with hope that with the continued use and wear and tare on the flap from electric charging everyday, that this is going to re-occur time and time again on my PHEV, as well as other owners PHEVs. It is also interesting that the dealership way of 'fixing' the problem is to exert external force on the flap and hinge to correct it, rather than make precise adjustments with a tool. When the wear and tear causes the problem again on my PHEV, I will be clear with the dealer and yourselves that the only person who has applied any external force on the flap is the dealer who fixed it the last time.

Were the flaps tested over a reasonable amount of time and climates to ensure wear and tear did not cause this problem? Especially with a door that can be open half its life, and subjected to negative temperatures in the winter and +30C in the summer, and extreme changes in temperature in any 24 hours. That is just in the UK!

Mitsubishi can stick their head in the ground and ignore this but with more and more PHEVs on the road and the poor quality of the electric door flap/hinge solution, the same issue is going to pop up with more and more owners. The question is what is the tipping point when Mitsubishi sits up and does something about this.
 
Well, 45.000 Km since December 2013, daily use opening the flap at least once and often twice daily. Bent it once accidentally and bent it back myself. No damage, works as it should.
 
Having had a facelift outlander for a year, my experience is that the charging flap is fragile and easily accidentally knocked, bending the hinge causing contact between flap and body, and when bending back the flap the spring clip performance is affected, lessening the ability of the clip to hold the flap properly closed.

The fix for me was:
Remove the flap....two 10 mm bolts.
Bend the hinge assembly using levers/spanners to realign as far as possible.
Remove black spring clip and compress in vice, then refit.
Refit flap to vehicle, may need small adjustments to achieve satisfactory alignment.
If hinge side of flap still contacts bodywork it can easily be packed out using washers between the hinge and the bodywork (hold washers in place with small piece of tape when fitting).

Took me around 15 mins, fit and action are now far superior to when new and no more occurrences of "charging flap open" warning alert coming on.

Dealers did have a go first, did a rubbish job.

Hope this helps.
 
I am also experiencing this problem.
Picked up my 3+ (MY16) last February. After 6 months daily usage the charging flap changed from smooth opening to a jerking motion after half open. The edge of the flap now fouls the bodywork taking some paint off.
I found a piece of moulded plastic on my drive half moon shaped. Has this anything to do with the change in function?
Big John

3+
MY16
Orient Red.
Electric Scooter Lift.
Tow Bar
Name "Sparky"
 
I too have had problems with my charging flap (2014 model). The flap seems to sometime open of it's own accord. I park the car, get out and find the flap open and internal light on (no warning on the dash to say that it is open, and I am sure that I am not pressing anything to open it.
This in itself would not be a problem so long as I notice it and close it before it gets caught on something, however a few days ago it popped open whilst I was in a car wash (I was of course inside the car) and the flap got caught by the machine, bent back and put a small crease in the main bodywork. The flap was not open when I drove into the car wash as I checked both flaps at the same time as I removed the aerial.
Has anyone else experienced a problem with the flap opening "on it's own"? Have I perhaps missed a computer setting or something?

Thanks Julian
 
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