Heater question

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mazzo

Member
Joined
Aug 11, 2019
Messages
7
Hi

It's now getting colder and as we bought the car in the summer, it is now showing some odd behaviour. At least I think it is odd and not expected behaviour but don't really know for sure.

Its a very late 2014model, GX4HS model.

If I put the heater on in the car (plugged in or not) the fan just blows cold air. Windscreen is covered by moisture and it doesn't clear at all (have to wipe it) with or without aircon on.

If I am not plugged in, the engine starts and after a while, the air gets tepid - still not enough to clear the screen. Even driving for 30 mins or more and the temp turned up to 29', it is basically slightly warm. Went for a drive tonight to pick up someone from the station and I'm still thawing out from it an hour later.


Question 1: how hot can the electric element heater blow and when should it work (ie does it not work at certain low temperatures)?

Question 2: Is this normal behaviour or do other people get red hot cars?

I test drove a new MG ZS EV last week and it was so hot in the car I had to turn it to cold. So even without an ICE, these cars must be able to produce reasonable heat???
 
Condensation on the inside of the windscreen at this time of year has been a perennial problem with the PHEV and no one has been able to explain why it is worse than on other cars.

However, the heater on my 2014 GX3H (i.e. no electric heating) still works fine, so yours sounds like a fault. There have been posts pointing out that Aircons develop faults if not used regularly, which might be the reason in your case.
 
greendwarf said:
Condensation on the inside of the windscreen at this time of year has been a perennial problem with the PHEV and no one has been able to explain why it is worse than on other cars.

You shouldn't ever be getting condensation on the INTERIOR of the windshield.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axI5Luw0Eos
 
My car is a 2015 (65) 3+ with electric heating, and it gets warm as toast. Other than the usual misting, I never get condensation inside my car.

Is the air recirculating button off? This should only ever be turned on for short spells, such as going through long tunnels, or driving into dust clouds; leaving it on means the car can’t dry the air properly as it becomes more and more saturated.

In terms of heat, you definitely have a problem that needs fixing before you freeze.

I have now been driving cars with air con for more than 20 years and 750,000 miles and I think a car has needed re gassing twice in that time because I never turn it off, ever. What’s the point? Keeping it on means the fluid circulates, the seals remain moist and the bugs can’t grow. And if it costs me 2 miles of battery or a fraction of a mpg, who cares, I certainly can’t be bothered to notice, let alone measure it. Being warm/cool and comfortable are far more important.
 
Sounds like a fault to me.
Here in the UK I used the remote app to defrost the windscreen for the first time, after 5mins or so perfectly clear and ready to roll :D
Mine is a 4H so I would have thought the 4HS would be at least as good...
 
Sounds like a definite fault. Just had our first frost of the year, but after a bit of pre-heating, I've just got out of a tropically hot car!
 
Basic models only had heating from the ICE's hot water.

If you crank up the heat setting on models with electric heating, the ICE starts, and once up to temp will supply loads of heat.

If not, then the ICE thermostat may be faulty, or the cabin temp sensor.

At lower temp settings the electric heating should be adequate, again the cabin temp sensor maybe faulty.

So the cabin temp sensor is a commonality of the electric and ICE heating.

Incidently there's a device ICEheaterStop that stops the ICE coming on at lower temp settings.
 
As stated above, I believe that in some countries at least the basic 2014 models didn't have an electric heater, so the car relied on the ICE for heating - so the first thing is to confirm whether your car has an electric heater or not.

In my case, when I bought mine (used), which *does* have the electric heater, I had the same problem - just blowing cold air until the ICE finally kicked in. The dealer initially diagnosed this as a common fault where a filter in the cooling/heating circuit that circulates water through the electric heater and the ICE heater matrix gets blocked, but in the end it turned out in my case to be a loose electrical connection to the electric heater.

Once they'd fixed it it was fine. The electric heater now warms up quickly and I get hot air pretty much straight away - better than my other ICE car on a winter morning which takes a while to warm up!
 
Sounds like you could have the same issue that's annoyed us for 2 years. It started with a coolant leak under the front passenger seat side after taking it to the dealer numerous times they said it needed a new pump this cost (with the other visits) over £500.00. I explained how dangerous this was with no fault light to no avail.

After 6 months the coolant leak and no heating started again, the dealer (after my insistence) took a closer look at the area and found a pin hole in the upper part of the pipe which was spurting coolant (which could not be seen without a camera). I stated that the coolant leak probably caused the pump to not work again to no avail or reimbursement.

In the end they pulled and stretched the flexible hose between the pipes over the pin hole, this seems to have resolved the problem, oh and this same problem happened with our other PHEV 6 months later again the hosepipe has been stretched over the hole.

The dealer said they would try and get a goodwill (as they're both out of warranty) permanent fix from Mitsubishi (they sent photo's of the pin hole) again to no avail.

Don't let the dealer talk you into getting Mitsubishi call out cover for this for £29.99 as they can't come out if there is no fault light

Hope this helps
 
I have a 2015 Gx4h where last week this problem started that no matter what temp I set the climate control to, it blows out cold air. However a little while later (20 mins or so of driving) I started getting a little hot air, which made it slightly bearable to sit in the freezing cold car. However over a couple of days no matter how long I drive for, I get freezing cold air. I checked the coolant levels and they were ridiculously low hence I topped up the reserve tank immediately. Thinking that would have solved it, I went for a drive, but it didn't help at all. Any tips on what is going on and what I could do?
 
Sorry to say your coolant pump could now be burned out due to trying to pump little or no coolant.

I can't understand why the PHEV has no warning light for low coolant level on its heating system. If there is no heating clearing the windscreen, this could result in a major accident.
 
Thanks for the replies. It does seem odd but I also know from reading other posts on here that the heater does not work when plugged in and the start button pressed twice (without foot on brake). All settings work, including the fan blowing, but no heat is produced. So what I find odd is that the timed heating doesn't seem to do anything and when driving the car, it just never really gets past tepid.

So thanks for your advice and comments. It is going to go into the dealers for investigation.
 
2phevs said:
Sorry to say your coolant pump could now be burned out due to trying to pump little or no coolant.

I can't understand why the PHEV has no warning light for low coolant level on its heating system. If there is no heating clearing the windscreen, this could result in a major accident.

But even if the engine water pump has failed, would I still not have a functioning electric heater that uses an external pump which I can see working well and circulating the coolant. I'm getting no heat at all - electrically or mechanically. Yeah I really don't get how there is not warning light when the coolant level is ultra low.
 
My 2014 GX4h heater works just fine - toasty hot very quickly if needed - set temp. to 29C, windscreen doesn't steam up but side windows do sometimes, whether aircon is on or off. My GX4h has an electric heater as presumably that's how the cabin pre-heat facility works (which it still does) as the engine doesn't come on to achieve pre-heat. Although if I'm stationary and a bit cold and set the heater on to 29C to warm the cabin the engine starts. Sometimes it stops for a while but then starts again.

I'm not sure how the electric part of the heater actually works? Is it like a household 'fan' heater - has glowing elements inside powered by the battery? Mine only seems to work on entirely electric heat if set on the pre-heater timer. I don't seem to be able to make it give heat from entirely electric heat (ie. no petrol engine running) from the normal dash heater controls if I'm sitting in the car. I was going to try and set the timer to go-off when I'm in the car but I'm not sure if it works under those circumstances. I'm sure I read somewhere on the forum that if you open the door the pre-heater stops.

The gas keeps dissapearing from my aircon and have been unable to detect how and where it goes. It has dye in it and I've got a 'black' light to highlight any obvious leaks. I think the Mitsubishi garage has a wand type device that should be able to detect if gas is coming out of any of the vents? Nothing has been found though. Lasts about 10 months before the aircon symbol starts flashing. I've left aircon all the time since the last time it was re-gassed but it's now low again and I'm guessing will need re-gassing. Wish I knoew where it all goes.
 
As I understand it, the 2014 gx4h and gx5hs that we have, has a heater system that uses a type of element to heat up the coolant which the air passes over. This system uses the ICE only in temperatures below 5 degrees Celsius (as long as you have the ECO button on and the heating set on 21.5 degrees Celsius otherwise the ICE will kick in to help the heating earlier).

Ultimately the heating system relies on this separate coolant and heater pump to heat the car (apart from the gx3h which actually seems the better option now), unfortunately this system has NO warning of impending failure (as its not imperative to the general running of the car), which could result in a serious "unavailable view of the road ahead" situation.

Again we can't emphasise how dangerous it is to try and drive a car in the middle of winter with no heating.
 
Just have to say we purchased our first PHEV in July 2014, we licked it so much that we got another. We still like the cars apart from this serious fault management defect/poor heating system.
 
2phevs said:
Again we can't emphasise how dangerous it is to try and drive a car in the middle of winter with no heating.

I do it most of the time - so keep out of my way :lol:
 
Hmmm, something else to throw into the mix - again, my lack of winter experience with the Outlander may be the issue.....

All the above threads are interesting (and funny :lol: ) but I also have another conundrum which may be related to this.

If I set the timer heating via the MMCS, leave the car, go to it whilst it is in the 10 min window of operation - there's nothing. No fans, no noise and certainly no heat. I have the car locked, plugged in or not makes no difference. I did this repeatedly thinking I must be mucking up the timer, but no, it simply doesn't do anything. To confirm, my car is the 4HS so has the heater/remote heating/AC.

So, just like avsaf, I get nothing for ages and then a tiny trickle of tepidness after driving for about 15-20 mins. Never gets any hotter and seems to only get hot because it is running the engine.

Incidentally, it starts the ICE if it is on anything over 18'C - and even at 18'C it sometimes comes on. Yes, I am in ECO mode.

I can handle the cold, but like a few of you have said, it's the ability to clear the screen that concerns me most.
 
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