Tow rating of New Zealand Vehicles

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The time I had trouble with a really steep incline, was solved with a longer run up with a bit more speed and following a certain driving line, avoiding ridges in the track that changed the wheel geometry. The traction controls seemed to be fighting the car a lower speeds, and pulled the car up before reaching the top. The track was slippery, and not smooth, and I though I would certainly be stuck with no way to get up, as my PHEV was not towing anything. BTW mine is an AUS shipped PHEV.
 
That is exactly what traction controls do, reason to (and I think it is even in the manual) switch them off when tackling slippery inclines. That goes for all cars with traction control BTW.
 
It still does not explain what happened. The car should be able to pull 1100 Kg up just about anything short of a goat track.
 
That's what I would have thought but it just won't do it. And at the risk of repeating myself, Mitsubishi NZ warned me of this. I'm not making it up.
 
I think you're missing information that has already been provided here.

Traction control works by applying the brakes to wheels that have no traction. This is to stop your car from spinning out when going through a corner. It is not for hill climbs.

Traction control CAUSED your problem.

Try the same load with traction control turned off and you should be fine.

Andy
 
Same thing happened to me when i drove off a cliff with my mother-in-law sat next to me (not joking!).

This wasn't in an Outlander, but a Citroen C8 (front-wheel drive). I had one wheel hanging over the edge and I couldn't reverse because the traction control kept killing the power when it realised that one of the wheels was spinning freely.

Turning the traction control off solved the problem straight away.

(and my mother-in-law was fine).

:D

Emmet
 
nzdriver said:
After much research I purchased the VRX model last week, and pick it up next Wednesday.
One thing I noticed is that the vehicles purchased in NZ only have a tow rating of 750kg. When all other countries tow rating is 1500kg. The salesman said that is because Mitsubishi are wary of kiwis overloading their trailers.
Anyone have any thoughts on whether that is true or not?

The issue is; if you drive the Outlander PHEV like a standard IC powered vehicle with a 1500 KG trailer up some of those long steep hills in NZ with a battery that is down to less that 4 kwhr you will eventually go into Turtle mode and then stop. I have driven my Outlander PHEV over 6000 kms with a 1400kg caravan over some of the steepest main roads in the North Island NZ (including the Desert Road) without an issue. The key to this when the battery is down to its minimum level is to use the Energy Monitor and ensure that you do not exceed 60 KW output to the electric traction motors. You will slow down a bit but you will find that you do go faster than the big trucking rigs that are grinding their way up these big hills.

The key thing to remember is that the generator output is 70KW so when the battery is low you cannot let the traction motor output exceed this. So the engine gets a bit noisy as you climb these steep long hills but you get there soon enough.

Have done 75000 km now and very happy with the Outlander PHEV. It actually tows quite well but you just have to understand the basic Engineering principles involved. Once you get to your destination you can charge your Outlander via the Caravan power outlets and get back to full EV driving.
Mitsubushi NZ need to revisit the 750 kg braked towing limit. I can understand why they did it based on the poor instructions and explanations in the user manual but with special instructions based on the above there is no reason why they cannot allow the full 1500 Kg towing as per Australia and the rest of the world. What I have done is not illegal in NZ as the towing limit is not based on Manufactuers ratings but on braking distance which is absolutely not an issue for my rig. Misubushi NZ are aware of my experiences and views on the matter.
 
Countries like Switzerland and Austria have a 1500 Kg towing limit, and one can find a hill or two there... Nor do we see any Turtle complaints from those parts of the world, I can recall just one report in the forums.
 
greendwarf said:
I know it is said that you should use Charge on hills - otherwise you run out of battery too quickly. In this situation is there a conflict with telling the car to replace battery losses at the expense of providing motive power? Perhaps you should be aiming to use both to drive the wheels on short steep inclines and let the battery run down :?:
I think the idea is to select charge to maintain the battery charge when you anticipate hilly terrain rather than when you encounter it. The idea is to have a good charge in the battery before you hit the bottom of a hill to assist the engine to get the vehicle up the hill. I towed a 1200kg full height caravan through the Flinders Ranges without issue, the battery was showing it was exhausted most of the time even though I had selected charge mode, it still performed perfectly.
 
Patsparks said:
I towed a 1200kg full height caravan through the Flinders Ranges without issue, the battery was showing it was exhausted most of the time even though I had selected charge mode, it still performed perfectly.
Let me guess, this is mostly at speeds below 40 MPH?
 
This thread has mostly focussed on the electro-mechanical aspects of the car (which, for such a short journey I really think should not have caused the loss of power stated). Moving back to the statement in the starting post, I think any reduction in specified towing capacity would be more related to New Zealand’s excellent consumer law – our Consumer Guarantees Act requires all retailers (not manufacturers or importers) to meet the promises they make, so vendors take a lot of care with advertising here.

Having said that, I see that the current model of the Outlander PHEV is specified to 1,500kg towing in New Zealand now anyhow:
https://www.mmnz.co.nz/spec/full/cp9vrx45
 
I bought MY20 VRX in December - can confirm the tow rating is still 750KG from the dealer - despite it being advertised as 1500KG in other regions with the newer higher power generators on the MY20 version I can't quite understand why.
 
Radionut50 said:
...

Having said that, I see that the current model of the Outlander PHEV is specified to 1,500kg towing in New Zealand now anyhow:
https://www.mmnz.co.nz/spec/full/cp9vrx45

Having checked the specifications on your link, I can see that it is saying:

Towing Braked 1,500 kg
Towing Unbraked 750 kg

It is the latter that people are complaining about.
 
Note.

I've had a bit of a poke around, and those restrictions look pretty standard for this kind of vehicle. (i.e. a soft-roader)
 
I don’t know about oz or nz, but in the U.K. the maximum unbraked towing capacity is 750kg by law and has nothing to do with the vehicle.
 
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