This car needs a "Keep ICE Warm" mode

[jaapv]

Well, we buy a product for the design choices the manufacturer has made. If we don't like them, there are other products - In my experience complaining on Internet forums and trying to get a maker to change his mind is singularly unproductive and frustrating.
Only voting with your feet might help, if you can get enough people to join you, that is.
Anyway, I can quite understand Mitsubishi not being eager to allow users to fiddle with the basic settings - after all, they would be liable for the results of the inevitable user errors.

BTW, I've seen Apple computers going into an irretrievable spinning ball by users fiddling with the basic parameters.

 

[ThudnBlundr]

Agreed. They provide a car with the options that they want to support. And why should they spend a fortune designing access to a set of options that few people will use?

Mind you, there're so many pointless options on modern cars that few people bother to access more than once or twice :roll:

 

[Tipper]

These days drivers seem much more preoccupied with whether the wifi works or the telephone links or the stereo is any good.....and as for the 'app'! :roll:

I use none of these add-ons.

To me it's primarily a mode of personal transport and after over 3 years of ownership I think it's a very clever and excellent design and I'm more than happy with it as it is. Having looked at a 2019 model recently there has been very little change to the basic concept since first marketed.

 

[STS134]

Well THAT's annoying. I don't charge to 100% very often, and today, I wanted to go on the freeway almost immediately after charging to 100%. And when I push the Charge button with the battery SoC close to 100%, the ICE does NOT start!! So the only way I can warm the ICE is by commanding the vehicle to consume more than 60 kW?!? :evil:

 

[Trex]

Well THAT's annoying. I don't charge to 100% very often, and today, I wanted to go on the freeway almost immediately after charging to 100%. And when I push the Charge button with the battery SoC close to 100%, the ICE does NOT start!! So the only way I can warm the ICE is by commanding the vehicle to consume more than 60 kW?!? :evil:

Have you tried pressing the Charge button for more than 10 secs.

Brings up maintenance or service mode on my PHEVS and starts the ICE. Might work on yours.

I use it all the time when I drive long distances as I only live a couple of Kms from the on ramp to the freeway and do not like smashing a cold engine to merge with traffic.

 

[greendwarf]

Is there any real difference in wear to a cold engine being started by Charge and by flooring the accelerator?

 

[Trex]

Is there any real difference in wear to a cold engine being started by Charge and by flooring the accelerator?

Why hello Mr greendwarf Sir. How the bloody hell are you?

Well I would think that Service mode which only idles the ICE with no charging or Charge mode with a high idle RPM compared to "flooring the accelerator" with quite high revs with no time to circulate the oil and get up to pressure even with the coatings on the PHEV's engine "should" be better IMO. This is at slow speeds or stopped.

Or I could be just a old paranoid engineer. :roll:

Regards Trex.

 

[Trex]

By the way has anyone noticed at higher speeds when pressing Save or Charge or when the drive battery is "empty" the ICE goes through a small warm up phase before supplying drive power. It seems to on mine.

 

[anko]

By the way has anyone noticed at higher speeds when pressing Save or Charge or when the drive battery is "empty" the ICE goes through a small warm up phase before supplying drive power. It seems to on mine.

Well of course it does, Trex. Always has.

 

[Trex]

By the way has anyone noticed at higher speeds when pressing Save or Charge or when the drive battery is "empty" the ICE goes through a small warm up phase before supplying drive power. It seems to on mine.

Well of course it does, Trex. Always has.

Hey Anko how are you?

Knew you would have noticed it :lol: just asking others.

Seems to be a reason to warm up the engine before smashing it to me.

 

[greendwarf]

Hi Trex - shivering in our Northern Hemisphere mid-winter. Its these days I regret saving money and not buying the more expensive version with the electric heater :lol:

But to go back to the OP - you seem to have answered my query. "Flooring it" doesn't put an instantaneous full load on the ICE plus the electric motors have already taken the initial strain, unlike in a "normal" car driven from cold.

 

[Trex]

Hi Trex - shivering in our Northern Hemisphere mid-winter. Its these days I regret saving money and not buying the more expensive version with the electric heater :lol:

But to go back to the OP - you seem to have answered my query. "Flooring it" doesn't put an instantaneous full load on the ICE plus the electric motors have already taken the initial strain, unlike in a "normal" car driven from cold.

:lol: Bit cold eh? Snow on the Sarf alps yet?

"Flooring it" without warming it up goes against everything I have ever learnt about engines and the engineer in me hates it enough to avoid it like the plague if I can.

 

[greendwarf]

:lol: Bit cold eh? Snow on the Sarf alps yet?

Promised for this weekend - enjoy your summer Christmas, Trex

 

[STS134]

Well THAT's annoying. I don't charge to 100% very often, and today, I wanted to go on the freeway almost immediately after charging to 100%. And when I push the Charge button with the battery SoC close to 100%, the ICE does NOT start!! So the only way I can warm the ICE is by commanding the vehicle to consume more than 60 kW?!? :evil:

Have you tried pressing the Charge button for more than 10 secs.

Brings up maintenance or service mode on my PHEVS and starts the ICE. Might work on yours.

I use it all the time when I drive long distances as I only live a couple of Kms from the on ramp to the freeway and do not like smashing a cold engine to merge with traffic.

Yesterday I saw your post, and charged to 100% before leaving work. I tried it and lo and behold, it worked! Thanks! So now I know how to warm up the ICE even if I'm fully charged, whether for heat or for use on the freeway. I didn't see it go into maintenance/service mode though. It actually started the ICE and then went straight to Save mode.

 

[Trex]

Well THAT's annoying. I don't charge to 100% very often, and today, I wanted to go on the freeway almost immediately after charging to 100%. And when I push the Charge button with the battery SoC close to 100%, the ICE does NOT start!! So the only way I can warm the ICE is by commanding the vehicle to consume more than 60 kW?!? :evil:

Have you tried pressing the Charge button for more than 10 secs.

Brings up maintenance or service mode on my PHEVS and starts the ICE. Might work on yours.

I use it all the time when I drive long distances as I only live a couple of Kms from the on ramp to the freeway and do not like smashing a cold engine to merge with traffic.

Yesterday I saw your post, and charged to 100% before leaving work. I tried it and lo and behold, it worked! Thanks! So now I know how to warm up the ICE even if I'm fully charged, whether for heat or for use on the freeway. I didn't see it go into maintenance/service mode though. It actually started the ICE and then went straight to Save mode.

Hi STS134,

So it works on the NA model PHEV, nice to know and my pleasure.

Yea, it says the same on the dash on mine as well but it is a mode used mainly in the service department to run the ICE without charging or having to turn on the heater etc,
so maintenance or service mode. But it is not the what I would call "normal" Save mode because on my PHEVS and it seems yours Save and Charge will not start the ICE when the battery is full. Around less than 85% SOC from memory is where Save and Charge on my PHEVS start bringing in the ICE to allow for some regen presumably.

Regards Trex.

 

[Trex]

:lol: Bit cold eh? Snow on the Sarf alps yet?

Promised for this weekend - enjoy your summer Christmas, Trex

Thanks and enjoy your white Xmas Mr greendwarf Sir.

 

[STS134]

Hi STS134,

So it works on the NA model PHEV, nice to know and my pleasure.

Yea, it says the same on the dash on mine as well but it is a mode used mainly in the service department to run the ICE without charging or having to turn on the heater etc,
so maintenance or service mode. But it is not the what I would call "normal" Save mode because on my PHEVS and it seems yours Save and Charge will not start the ICE when the battery is full. Around less than 85% SOC from memory is where Save and Charge on my PHEVS start bringing in the ICE to allow for some regen presumably.

Regards Trex.

I think what's happening here is that holding Charge just puts it briefly into Maintenance/Service mode (which starts the ICE) and then it immediately drops into Save mode after staying in Maintenance/Service mode for a matter of 1 second or so. Due to the behavior of the emissions control system, once the ICE is running, it will continue running until the coolant temp reaches at least 70-80C. The behavior for the rest of the trip was as expected based on the mode I was in: Save mode did the usual thing, Normal mode consumed battery power, etc. I guess the way to really test this is to start the car with a warm ICE *and* with 100% SoC. In this case, I would expect holding Charge to start the ICE briefly and then it should immediately stop as soon as the vehicle moves into Save mode.

 

[Trex]

I think what's happening here is that holding Charge just puts it briefly into Maintenance/Service mode (which starts the ICE) and then it immediately drops into Save mode after staying in Maintenance/Service mode for a matter of 1 second or so. Due to the behavior of the emissions control system, once the ICE is running, it will continue running until the coolant temp reaches at least 70-80C. The behavior for the rest of the trip was as expected based on the mode I was in: Save mode did the usual thing, Normal mode consumed battery power, etc. I guess the way to really test this is to start the car with a warm ICE *and* with 100% SoC. In this case, I would expect holding Charge to start the ICE briefly and then it should immediately stop as soon as the vehicle moves into Save mode.

Sorry do not agree. Another way of looking at this mode is its just a run the petrol motor unloaded mode ie no generator load on the motor (with the proviso of my last paragraph).

This is from the training manual for dealers where I found this hidden feature (not in the owners manual) initially:

"Switch on Ready and then press and hold the charge button for 10 seconds, now the motor runs unloaded."

I think it would run as long as you liked until cancelled ie not temp controlled.

But I think I also remember it turns into a quasi "Save" mode around 85% SOC ie starts to load up the generator onto the ICE to keep the same SOC but unlike "normal" Save the ICE never turns off ie it unloads itself again and keeps running.

 

[anko]

I think what's happening here is that holding Charge just puts it briefly into Maintenance/Service mode (which starts the ICE) and then it immediately drops into Save mode after staying in Maintenance/Service mode for a matter of 1 second or so.

I agree with Trex. It stays in Maint mode.

Due to the behavior of the emissions control system, once the ICE is running, it will continue running until the coolant temp reaches at least 70-80C.

Where do you get this from? It is definitely not true for my car. Might stop at much much lower temp.

The behavior for the rest of the trip was as expected based on the mode I was in: Save mode did the usual thing, Normal mode consumed battery power, etc.

Of course. As soon as you hit a button, you cancelled Maint mode.

 

[ThudnBlundr]

Don't forget that there may be a difference if the mode is started when the PHEV is stationary. I imagine it is for use during servicing, when they want to start the ICE in the garage. It may change to another mode if the PHEV is moving at the time.