Traction battery replacement US MY2018 GT

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2018gt

Member
Joined
Jan 12, 2023
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9
Hi everyone, my name is Phil, I’m in Seattle. I’ve been lurking here about a week, and have watched some of the the 3-year-old videos by Andy/bert in Australia. I own an iPhone, not Android, cellphone, so do not have PHEVWatchdog, nor have I ever held a MUT in my hands, only seen pictures of it.

In April 2018 I bought a GT trim level PHEV new, to put into service as my fulltime Uber vehicle. I have driven it approximately 60,000 miles per year, so it now has 264,000 miles on the odometer. All maintenance has been done on schedule by Mitsubishi dealerships except for a handful of oil changes at WalMarts when traveling. The car is still in very good shape mechanically and cosmetically.

A year ago, at about 200,000 miles, EV range was only 3 miles and 5 bars maximum, and the car would go into turtle mode throwing amber-text ACC/ABS/EV errors on the instrument cluster if I drove downhill at 60 MPH in Charge mode, and a senior dealership mechanic diagnosed my car’s traction battery as being in need of replacement. I continued to use the car, making sure to do all my downhill freeway driving in Save mode. Then, 5 months ago, I located a wrecked (but not too badly) same-year (2018) PHEV with only 16,000 miles on the odometer and obtained its traction battery. It then took the last 5 months for the dealership closest to the wrecking yard to obtain from Mitsubishi the necessary bench and forklift to swap the new-to-me battery into my car. This was done 6 days ago on Friday, January 6th, 2023 by the dealership’s senior mechanic.

He then performed the capacity estimation and control information resets using his MUT, and then tried to do a DBCAM, but the DBCAM failed, throwing an error code which escapes me at the moment. He then tried again, this time doing a cell smoothing/leveling after the two resets, as per the “triple procedure” of Andy’s unplugged EV episodes circa Ep. 190. No joy, same error code during the DBCAM.

Coming here and searching, I found the information in Section A.4 at https://www.richi.uk/p/mitsubishi-outlander-phev-faq.html?m=1#phevfaqA that, after the two resets but before the DBCAM, one must use the MUT to write the new(er) traction battery pack’s age value (from a code on a label on the left side of the battery pack) and odometer value (odometer reading of the donor vehicle) into the BMU.

Question: is the age code itself from the label the data which should be entered into the appropriate entry field on the MUT, or rather should there be entered the date of the battery pack’s manufacture in some other format? Does anyone here happen to know where in the MUT’s menu tree one finds the age code entry field?

Question: The richi.uk instructions say to write the odometer value in kilometers. But that instruction is from a UK site. Does anyone happen to know if a US vehicle should have the odometer reading *in miles* written? Or, should the new(er) battery’s 16,000 miles be converted (divide by 0.62) to 25,800 kilometers and thus the value 25800 written in? And, where in the MUT’s menu tree is the odometer entry field?

Thanks to anyone who can supply these answers.
 
I can't help you with those questions, but there are also a couple of other things to consider.

1. While you have two traction battery packs in hand, you should select the best individual cells from both packs.
2. You may be better off finding a company that refurbishes battery packs for electric cars to do this job.

I know that this kind of service has sprung up on the East coast of Australia, so I'd be very surprised if they didn't exist in the USA.

Let us know how you go.
 
Thanks very much for replying.

Choosing the best 80 of the cells might have been a good idea, but the new-to-me
battery pack is already installed. The dealership charged me US $903 for performing the swap. I do still have the old battery pack.

There is one company locally which supplies refurbished lithium battery packs. It’s called Greentec Hybrid Batteries. Unfortunately, the re-building work is not done locally, rather about 1500 miles away in Kansas City, Missouri. The manager of the local facility told me today that his shop has never replaced the battery in an Outlander PHEV. He is going to check with the Kansas City shop and see if they have ever done one. Their website lists all the makes they serve. Mitsubishi is not among them.
 
Wow, 5 months for bench and forklift to change a battery! I imagine if it was the trans-axle. That's rally something from a dealership.
It can be really done with few manual jacks and few wooden planks. :roll:
Regarding the Dbcam... I did it by myself here is some description.

https://www.facebook.com/1270628447...zBfrshmFXqwVzerYXSAkNAChq1xl/?mibextid=Nif5oz

Not really a big deal but if you have to ask those questions here ob behalf of the dealership... that's sad.
The only issue I had was exactly with manually entering battery age and mileage. When you enter the value it doesn't appear in the field when you continue. It is not very intuitive software.

The age of the battery is in months. Regarding the mileage I believe should be like the vehicle is set, so miles. It doesn't really mater so much if you put it wrong.
 
Outside of North America and specifically the UK, the traction battery had a degradation warranty on it. Once it got below 60% SOH it was replaced under warranty by authorized dealers. I follow an Outlander PHEV - UK group and constantly read of battery replacements taking place. I would check out that group, ask questions and get referrals to dealerships over there that maybe your dealership can link up with as it seems they do them regularly.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/outlanderphevuk
 
Thanks very much for your replies.

It is now Friday night, 30 minutes after the dealership’s closing time. The last DBCAM failed, throwing PHEV error codes P3026 (“Each Cell VOLT.difference [038]”) and P0A80 (“Cell fail”), and BMU error codes P3026 (“Each Cell VOLT.difference [038]”) and P1AC6 (“Each Cell VOLT.diff.(Hi side)”). I took back my PHEV for the weekend. I will bring it back to the dealership on Monday and they will try doing the DBCAM again. The mechanic refuses to give up.

kpetrov: Thanks very much for the info. I will inform them on Monday that the age value is in months. When you say “trans-axle,” do you mean the differential?…I did indeed also buy the differential from that 16,000-mile wrecked PHEV. My original diff was beginning to grind. The same dealership which has done the battery pack swap did the diff swap in less than a day, and the new one is silent. The wrecking yard charged me US$450 for the diff and the dealership charged US$1,900 to swap it in. I also bought the behind-the-radiators dual cooling fan from the wrecked one, for US$110, because the right-hand fan of mine was dying (turning too slow). I forget how much the dealership charged to swap it in, but I do remember it was not cheap, something like US$7-900 if memory serves.

IslandLife: the idea did occur to me that, at only 5 years old and 16,000 miles, the wrecking yard battery pack might still be under warranty. But Mitsubishi said no, because an accident which results in an insurance writeoff (the vehicle is considered totalled) voids the warranty.

More info: The donor vehicle had visible damage only to the left rear door, which was pushed in about six inches in its center 2/3 of the way down; it looked for all the world as if the wrecked Outlander was t-boned in the door by a motorcycle or snowmobile. Or maybe it was hit in the door at high speed while the door was open, slamming it shut. The sill underneath the door was straight, it appeared undamaged. I wonder if the impact killed one or more cells in my new-to-me battery?

If the new-to-me battery won’t complete the DBCAM…then I must settle for living with the end result that, for US$1900 (wrecking yard price) plus US$900 (dealership installation) I have obtained a battery pack which charges to 7 bars/6 miles range, and does provide like-new highway acceleration and like-new regenerative braking. But I will keep my old battery pack, and will continue to explore the idea of swapping good cells in, to replace the new one’s bad cells. If anyone in the Seattle area (other than Greentec) has experience in swapping-in cells, please feel free to contact me.
 
Another idea has occurred to me. If the donor car was, as it appears, t-boned in the left rear door…and, if the impact made the rear of the car violently rotate counterclockwise…I wonder if that sudden jarring might have disconnected a harness connection inside the lithium battery pack? Does anyone happen to know what the MUT error code(s) would be, if one of the ten cellpacks had its management module disconnected in the collision from either the car’s CANBUS network, or else from one or more of the cellpack’s eight individual Yuasa LEV 40 cells?
 
This is good thinking.

There are a lot of controller cards inside the battery pack, any of those cards could now be misplaced or damaged.

There are videos on youtube showing how to disassemble a PHEV battery pack.

I DO NOT RECOMMEND THAT YOU DO THIS.

The currents and voltages inside the pack are dangerous.

However, you could pass that info on to someone who is used to refurbishing batteries.
 
Update, Thursday January 19 2023. The dealership mechanic has given up. The DBCAM fails because cell # 38 refuses to charge beyond 3.892 volts.

Question: can anyone point me to a diagram of the 2018 PHEV’s lithium battery pack, which will show me which cell # 38 is?
 
Phil- In addition to being well-informed, you also seem quite patient! Would you mind revealing which Seattle - area dealer joined you on this voyage of discovery?

Good luck
 
You may have bad cell battery and it sounds you do. I am considering swapping the drive battery with the newer one from wrecker. 13.4kW battery from 2022. Someone in UK has swapped the 12kW battery with 13.4kW few yrs ago and he seems to be happy with it after much trials... He did say the temp sensor units on the battery had to be moved from the old to new... (I do not remember the details...).

But I overall, you're on the right track. You'll need to swap out the bad cell. You can measure the voltage on the individual cell with a volt meter and see which one it is...

I am not sure where you can get the schematics for the battery layout.

Good luck...
 
Someone in UK has swapped the 12kW battery with 13.4kW few yrs ago and he seems to be happy with it after much trials... He did say the temp sensor units on the battery had to be moved from the old to new... (I do not remember the details...).
I think a lot of people would like to learn more about this.

I haven't heard of successful replacements with the different size battery pack. I would think everything will have to be changed, not just he battery, but also it's software.
 
I think a lot of people would like to learn more about this.

I haven't heard of successful replacements with the different size battery pack. I would think everything will have to be changed, not just he battery, but also it's software.
Check out the FB UK group. Search for Franken Battery.
 
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