Loss of drive power [merged topic]

maddogsetc said:

Thanks jdsx - I vaguely remember seeing this post now (maybe I just haven't actually posted anything for a year or so). It's a very good point and having a gangly 6 foot 15 year old in the car at the time cannot be discounted. Does it explain the inability to cancel cruise I wonder? At least it's something I can safely try out on a quiet stretch of dual carriageway at some point.

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AFAIK the cruise control switches are deactivated in N.

As I said - try pushing it towards R. it will engage N instantly when moving at speed. Not when moving slowly, in that case it will go into R - smoothly. Very practical when parking.

As said previously, you can't 'knock it in' it has to be held in the N position for at least 5 seconds.

:roll:

jaapv said:

As I said - try pushing it towards R. it will engage N instantly when moving at speed. Not when moving slowly, in that case it will go into R - smoothly. Very practical when parking.

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And it is two seconds if you push it towards N..

This happened to me the other week as well. I was heading eastbound on the M4 by Slough with:

[*] Eco mode enabled
[*] Cruise control at 65mpg

My passenger was asleep, I was listening to the radio, and I can be sure I didn't knock the gear selector. The car suddenly started to slow down, and pressing the accelerator did nothing. My speed hovered for a while at 40mph, but then dropped again. By this time I'd pulled off the M4 and was able to come to a stop on the hard shoulder of the slip road.

As I was losing power, the car beeped at me, but there no lights came on on the dashboard. I think three times it did that beep-beep you get when you've done something wrong.

Once I'd stopped I was able to get going again, and it's been fine since.

I took the car into the garage and the mechanic found nothing in the diagnostic log. However, he helpfully said that his colleague had been on a course the previous week and the instructor had mentioned something about eco mode+cruise control+inclines, and that he'd try to find out what was said.

From my one experience I consider this a software bug - although the battery was drained, there was plenty of fuel, and before I joined the M4 again I made sure that the ICE started OK. I won't enable eco mode again, and I hope that Mitsubishi can find and patch a flaw. My experience wasn't too bad as I was in the left hand lane already, but had I been in heavy traffic, it could have been more serious.

If you've experienced this sort of trouble, would you say that:

[*] Eco mode was on
[*] Cruise control was on
[*] You were on a slope going up

buconne

Many of us must have driven this combination of parameters countless times without the car losing power. At the very least there must be an additional factor, as a software bug must be replicable.

Shock....was my experience Saturday night, after three and a half years of trouble free motoring it happened to me.

Was driving up a hill doing about 50mph, put my foot on the accelerator and then...….nothing the car started to slow down and came to a stop.

I wasn't sure what was going on...range indicator was showing 11mls electric remaining and combined of 48mls.
Sat there for about 30 seconds then pressed the charge button, the engine fired up, put into drive and drove off.

Its been OK today but im very worried about a long drive I have to do on Tuesday, I consider myself lucky as the road was clear when it happened.

I have seen suggestions that the selector lever can be accidentally pushed to N, but no chance in my case as I was alone and both hands were on the steering wheel.

Today I drove up and down a quiet road to see if I could replicate the above, I push, pulled, tapped, juggled, the lever repeatedly but nothing happened, in fact to put the car in natural you must hold the lever for several seconds, something I did not do Saturday night.

Does anyone know if there been any recalls regarding this???

Was Eco mode enabled when you had the trouble?

Like I suggested in my post, I've not used Eco mode again since the day my PHEV lost power as described above. I've used cruise control plenty of times since then, but no Eco mode, and I've had no similar trouble. I've also been in for my regular services, and so quite possibly have had software updates in that time.

You said you were going up a hill (one of the other factors it was suggested to me could combine to cause the issue) - was cruise control also enabled?

If you did have Eco mode enabled, perhaps if you turn it off you can drive on Tuesday with more confidence, but it's a scary thing to happen isn't it :/

buconne

Gosh what a lot of Chicken Littles - must be elm70's analysis that the car turns us into grannies :lol:

My laptop sometimes fails to boot up at home, my office PC freezes without explanation and my mobile goes into sulks and refuses to do anything for several minutes - frustrating but I don't panic and throw all my toys out of the pram.

Perhaps there is some other unknown factor, or a software bug or a sub-standard component, but surely by now we are used to these "computer glitches" and apply the engineers first line in fault finding of "turn it off, wait, then back on". If it reproduces then we have a problem, if no to get on with our lives and don't worry.

Yes, there a chance that this sort of issue might be unsafe in a particular set of circumstances but driving is a hazardous exercise without worrying about "one offs" like this.

greendwarf said:

Gosh what a lot of Chicken Littles - must be elm70's analysis that the car turns us into grannies :lol:

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:mrgreen:

After 2 years owning the PHEV, I feel like I have aged 20 years :lol:

In my new PHEV grandpa view .. I think it is quite scaring if the car might decide to go into neutral on its own

Still ... I hope jaapv is right ... so I believe it should be visible in the dash that the car did switch into N

Possibly ... it could be some dust or other form of glitch that could cause the car to believe the gear has been put into N

Hello buconne,

Thank you for your learned, considered and helpful reply.....for which I am very grateful.
I cant recall if ECO was engaged, cruise was off, I was going up a hill.

My long drive is postponed until tomorrow, will make sure ECO stays off, lets see how it goes.

Thanks again...

Happened to me last weekend. Plenty of battery, no ECO mode, no cruise control. I was going uphill when it happened. Tried restarting it several times. Ready light came on, shifted into drive (didn't check if drive was indicated in the dashboard, though) but no response when pushing the gas pedal.

After I had given up getting it to run I thought I'd roll backwards a bit down the slope to park in a better place. I put it in reverse in order to get the back camera. When I reached the lowest point I felt that the car was actually trying to continue a bit further (as it does when you but it in gear and let go of the brakes). Tried drive again and now the car worked as normal.

Later the same day it happened again and putting it in reverse fixed it again... I have since only driven about 50km but it hasn't happened again.

I have left it with the shop for reading the codes, but I haven't heard from them yet. After reading this thread I'm not that hopeful, though...