2018 Canadian PHEV wont run in ev.

Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV Forum

Help Support Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
I have had the car in twice to address the problems. Both times the "mechanic" has said " no fault found" when clearly the car has changed its operating parameters. MMCanada has a customer service desk staffed by a individual that has no idea how a PHEV works and they will not put you through to anyone who does know how the car operates. My car is under warranty and the dealer has no intention of addressing any of the issues.
From Facebook this seems to be a common issue, but MMCanada is not interested in addressing it. They will not even tell us if it is as a result of a engine start relay recall and software update. The mechanic at the dealer says he has never seen the problem before, says I do not have a problem and says he does not know the origin of the problem . I would not have bought the car if I had known that I would have no support or warranty.
 
There is a person on Facebook that is suggesting a class action against MMCanada for this unnecessary cold starting of the car. I feel that this is warranted by the fact that MMCanada sold us cars that performed as per the manual and now have reduced the functionality of the product that I purchased. In addition I, and I am sure other owners were very careful to ensure that their cars did not start with a roar when cold. We were minimizing the wear and tear on the engine by minimizing the number of high rev engine starts under cold conditions. Now the car fires up at high revs just as I turn onto the 100km/hr road at the end of our laneway. I have a 10 year 160,000 warranty on the drivetrain, but If MMs behaviour of not doing any work to solve my problems so far is any indication, they are unlikely to do any warranty work going forward.
I would love to hear from others having similar problems in Canada and if they have been able to overcome these problems.
 
I'm in the same boat. First winter in 2018 was fine, EV most of the time, I just had to make sure not to turn on the heater. Now it's lots of cold starts where the ICE barely warms up. It's at 56,000 km and 78% battery SOH. I read an article where someone in Europe was claiming PHEV's contribute more pollution due to all the cold starts. I bet it was based on the Outlander!

The ICE does a brief fast idle at first to warm up. Maybe if you are getting onto a busy road right away, you don't hear the idle and only hear the roar when it starts to respond the accelerator. You need a light foot to avoid it.

A class action would be interesting but I'm guessing there may not be enough owners. The most frustrating thing is that not all the cars have this issue. Gary Reed in northern Ontario did another video on YouTube last month to review EV performance of his PHEV after three years of use. His car (also a 2018 PHEV) still runs in EV just fine in the cold.

https://youtu.be/fSeE_KtCpS4.
 
As European users don't seem to have this "cold start" problem, I doubt that the Outlander is the source of any pollution claim. Also whilst very successful, Mitsu sales are eclipsed by the Prius - most models of which continually go through an ICE stop-start cycle in urban traffic.
 
Hi Msmatt: I assume if Garry is still not having trouble with his PHEV it is because he has not taken it in for the engine start relay. I will watch the video and perhaps attempt to contact him. He is well versed on the Outlander PHEV. I am still trying to sign up for the Canada outlander phev group that is talking about action against MMCanada. Our mechanic in London does not really understand the car and lacks the analytical skills to diagnose without his computer. I may have to search out a dealer who really understands the car. The Vtech box is an alternative and perhaps a resistor in the ambient air sensor is also something to look at. Our dealership is not interested in doing any warranty work. In addition to the ice start issue, our door locks do not work reliably and the steering is like playing a game of pong. The drift is down the road is now to the point that it is dangerous. 1" play in the steering wheel. It has always drifted but is now a challenge to drive.

As the ice problem renders our car very inefficient for 6 months of the year, I would like to have it adjusted to return it to its "as new" operating perameters, which meant you could keep it in EV mode as long as you didnt turn on the defrost. I hope others will raise the flag as well. I am sure that I was much gentler on the car when I controlled it, than how it controls itself.

As to the roaring engine, laneway is 1km long and uphill, so it stays in ev until we turn onto the highway at which point it revs up to about 3000 rpm on a cold engine ( just guessing )
 
Just a minor note.

3,000 RPM doesn't sound like 'roaring' to me.

I've had a car that idled at 2000 RPM.

And my last car before the PHEV used to redline at 7,000.

Others have commented before that some drivers are stressing about engine noise which is actually quite mild, it's only the comparison with the nearly silent electric drive that makes it seem loud.

:D

Please note that the PHEV engine has ceramic coated bearings because it is designed for cold starts.
 
Hi Andy: It was just a guess as far as RPMs go. We used to drive a CRV and it sure is louder when I pull onto the highway. I dont know; I am a farmer and I would never run a bone cold engine i.e. 0C at much more than an idle until the oil was circulating. Just sayin!
But my main problem is the inability to hold the car in ev when it is under 10C. That is half of the year here, which renders the car largely as a ICE car for half the year. I am better able to baby the engine than the computer is and am also very conscious of the charging and discharging regime. I want the battery to last the life time of the car.

MMCanada has changed the car that they sold me and will not do anything to rectify the matter.

Thanks for your input though.
John
 
As far as the relay upgrade goes, it is my understanding that is just a beefier relay and should not make a difference. They also had to replace the fuse/relay compartment cover with one which was a bit taller since the new relay bumped against it. Do you know for sure there were software changes with this?

You still have a very good HYBRID EV ... even with the ICE coming on when you don't think it should. After your next trip have a look at the power usage screen on the display ... it will show the percentage of EV vrs ICE driving. Even on long trips though the mountains with no recharging I get 50/50.
 
Hi Mellobob, No I am not really sure what happened to my car when the relay was changed out. I do not know if they installed new software. The mechanic at the dealership tells a different story every time so I am sure that I do not know the truth. One time he says that they have changed the software to protect the battery, the next time he says the car is working as it did as sold. He even asked me to provide him with the sections of the manual that says our car should behave differently.
Most of our trips are to the local Y or just into town and average 10 km. Of the 10 km maybe 1km is done on ev. The other concern is the number of unnecessary cold starts.

When we bought the car it operated as per the manual for the 2018 PHEV. It no longer operates this way, the EV button and ECO buttons are all but ineffective. So 6 months of the year we have an ICE vehicle, for our type of driving. This is not what we were sold.
It is enough of a frustration that we will probably get rid of the car and hopefully replace it with a RAV 4 Prime, which I understand operates as per the manual. Dealing with Mitsubishi has been an absolute nightmare, with no technical expertise at the dealership and no mechanism to escalate your concerns. MMCanada does a very good job of preventing you from talking with anyone who knows anything about the car.

I am glad that you are happy with the PHEV. We were very happy with it for the first 2 years. We highly recommended the car and told many potential buyers that it was awesome. I am hoping that MMCanada will read some of these comments here and on other sites and resolve this issue.

Thank you for your input
John Wilson
 
Hi Kpetrov: Thank you for your input. I am desperate to talk with people who have some insight into this problem and clearly you do. I am trying to get into the Canadian PHEV group on facebook, so far with no luck. I would like to lend my support to a class action or at least get names and addresses of people at MMCanada who can do something about this problem.
Our car has been rendered useless and is no longer the car we bought. I am sure there must be a resolution because there are other people in other countries of similar climate who do not have this problem. This problem did not exist ( as you know) when the 2018 was sold and I suspect was a conscious decision of MMCanada's to modify my car.

Any info to resolve this issue is appreciated.
John Wilson
 
Hi Kpetrov: Thank you for your input. I am desperate to talk with people who have some insight into this problem and clearly you do. I am trying to get into the Canadian PHEV group on facebook, so far with no luck. I would like to lend my support to a class action or at least get names and addresses of people at MMCanada who can do something about this problem.
Our car has been rendered useless and is no longer the car we bought. I am sure there must be a resolution because there are other people in other countries of similar climate who do not have this problem. This problem did not exist ( as you know) when the 2018 was sold and I suspect was a conscious decision of MMCanada's to modify my car.

Any info to resolve this issue is appreciated.
John Wilson
 
Well, they have finally agreed to take my car in and put it through the three day test. I presume it will be a DBCAM and smoothing and BMU reset. What an effort. After 1 year of denying anything was wrong with the car, the mechanic at our local dealer contacted me and asked that I bring it in. This was after several letters to MMCanada , the last one copying the CEO. No one from MMCanada has contacted me to assume culpability.
I owe thanks to the people on the Canadian Facebook outlanderphev website who have been relentless in getting their PHEVs repaired under warranty.
The battle will still continue because I understand the BMU screws up annually so we all can expect to have to go back after MMCanada every year.
Sales of Outlander phevs in Canada have been very good since 2018 so I am sure MMCanada will have quite a lineup for warranty repair.
We loved this car for the first 2 years and recommended it to everyone who asked about it. I think the car is still a good car but the support is just terrible. I would never buy another car from MMCanada and I hope that others heed the advice on Facebook. I knew when we bought the car that Mitsubishi was recognized as an inferior brand in Canada and I thought I could avoid warranty issues by doing the work myself. I never thought that that Mitsubishi would deny that anything was wrong with my car, when clearly it was not able to function as a PHEV.
 
Hello All,
I realize that this discussion is an older thread, but our 2018 Outlander PHEV has the same issue. Temps under 10C will result in ICE running even if with not heat or defrost on. Given that cars that are fully EV run on batteries at any temp, I cannot understand why this car cannot due the same.

We live in Vermont USA and bought this car used. Loved it all summer and used mostly just battery (mostly drive very short trips). Once temps started to drop recently, it mostly runs ICE and does not get great mileage. I would be grateful if anyone can tell me how to overcome this issue and use battery only in lower temps. Thanks!
Jon
 
See this thread

https://www.myoutlanderphev.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=2914&start=160

It might be possible to put a CAN widget in the system to tell the engine not to start if it's based on the temperature coming from the HVAC ECU, but if it's based on a temperature measurement by the engine ECU and that is coded regionally based on those parameters then it's going to be more difficult. You could potentially flash a calibration from a different territory, e.g. Europe, Australia, Japan that would change the behaviour, but it may have other unintended negative consequences, e.g. engine damage through fuel quality (although I suspect that is not a genuine concern).
 
Last fall my 2018 was acting the same way. Under 5C the ICE was starting with full battery and HVAC off. The spring it was happening even over 10C. It was very annoying for a short, few miles trips, even harmful for the engine. I was forced to install an remote switch disabling the ICE that worked like a charm all winter. (there is a write up you can search).
The following spring one of the owners forced the dealership to do something and finally they did BMU reset and DBCAM procedure that fixed the issue.
I did myself an reset and DBCAM and currently no ICE startups but the temperature never dipped under 7C yet. Gained 5% battery capacity from it.
 
We are having the same issue here on Vancouver Island BC with our Mitsubishi Outlander 2020. Any cold weather under around 8 degrees Celsius and it likely won't work. Also Today it even reported my ev distance from my charge was 65km. Took a photo of it.

We are pretty upset by this limitation we are experiencing as we avg 25km a day in use.

I forced it a few times by, I think, putting it into cruise control while driving then hitting the ev mode button which it then reports you can't do both, then I cancel cruise then hit EV Mode and it worked. Sorry I can't exactly remember how I fooled it but If I figure it out again I will post it as it my have been charge mode then cancel.

Anyway if you read these posts and you are having the same issue, post here, it is important to share if this is a common issue as the product does not perform as advertised and it wasn't cheap.
 
Back
Top