Car died at 3 bars and 15 miles on the RR

Mitsubishi i-MiEV Forum

Help Support Mitsubishi i-MiEV Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

robdaug704

Member
Joined
Aug 4, 2021
Messages
6
Hello Everyone,
I am a new Miev owner and have loved the car so far. However, this evening while driving home the car died on me with 3 bars on the gauge and 15 miles left on the RR. I was caught off guard and ended up pushing it with the help of some passers by to a charger and getting enough range to get home. However, it seems that these meters should be more accurate than that according to what I am reading on the forum. I see the stuff about recalibrating by bringing it down to two bars and recharging but since mine won't make it below three bars I am not sure how to accomplish this. Any recommendations would be much appreciated.
 
It sounds like the system needs to go thru one of those calibration cycles as you mentioned.

With the car at home and close to an easy charging location, you can start the car to READY and just let it sit there with the heater running, and that will put a load to drain the pack. If the charge level is much above 3 bars, then drive it around the block in a loop keeping close to home until it gets down to the cutoff level, then use the heater method to get it down below 2 bars blinking. Then you can do a calibration charge and see if it resets.
 
Robdaug704, welcome to the forum and congratulations on your purchase. Which year and model did you purchase? A 2012 i-MiEV should still achieve a range of over 50 miles, unless perhaps it has very high mileage (i.e., >75,000 miles).

A good rule of thumb is that after driving gently (i.e., not leadfootin') for at least 15 miles the Range Remaining (RR) display should show around 32 miles when the fuel gauge is at 8 bars (i.e., halfway). The reason for this is that the RR algorithm provides a prediction based on the how you drove the preceding 15 miles (i.e., a moving average). Turning on aircon reduces this number by about 10 % or turning on the heater reduces this number by about 20%.

It is possible to measure the car's battery capacity using a genuine OBDLink LX or MX Bluetooth adapter and an Android phone/tablet using, e.g., a free app named CaniOn, and there a a number of other apps as well.

BTW, it's always fun to know where in the world someone is located, as we occasionally find other i-MiEV owners close to us. You might consider updating your profile, the procedure described here: http://myimiev.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=3196
 
Thank you so much for the replies. I am located in Charlotte, NC. My Miev is a 2016. I tried to run it down to blinking bars yesterday but it cut out once again at three bars and wouldn't go any lower. I couldn't even get the ready light to come on. Any advice for getting it down to the two bars since it doesn't want to seem to get there. I have a 120 charger at home.
 
What happened when you tried running the heater as described by kiev?

The objective is to deplete the battery in order to get the gauge down to one or two bars blinking and then plug the car in and let it fully fully recharge in one long session until it stops charging by itself and hopefully it will recalibrate. I'd try to get it down to one bar blinking if possible, using the heater.
 
Sounds like a weak, old or worn out 12V starter battery might be involved.

And/or a weak out of balance cell in the main pack.

Does it charge up to the full 16 bars in the fuel gauge?
 
Thank you so much for all the advice. I had 30 days from CarMax to get anything wrong with it fixed. So I took it into the dealership to get them to take care of it. I tried draining the battery myself but couldn't get it to the point where it was blinking or even at two bars, it would cut off before it got there. The dealership hooked it to their machine and performed the recalibration and now the gauges seem to be reading correctly or at least it no longer says that it has 80 miles to go when fully charged. I haven't run it down yet but will probably have a better idea tomorrow. They did end replacing the starter battery which they said was bad. My 30 days is up in a couple of days so then I am pretty much on my own except for the warranty on the battery. I am glad to know this community exists and is so helpful because I will be looking to do everything that I can myself from here forward. Thank you so much. I will keep you all posted.
 
Wow, great! Hadn't been following CarMax and the benefits they offer, as this is good advertising for them.

Before those 30 days run out I'd be inclined to exercise the car to make sure you have full use of the entire battery pack, as well as testing all the other car features.

I tend to agree with kiev that the root cause of your problem was probably that 12v battery. If you ever lay the car up for a few weeks be sure to put a smart float charger on that 12v.

Once you settle down to living with the i-MiEV, you'll probably find that keeping the main battery around 13 bars max works for most of your daily uses and the only time you'll need to fully charge it is just before a longer trip. All this, in the interest of battery longevity.

Now, have fun with your 'new' BEV!
 
JoeS said:
Once you settle down to living with the i-MiEV, you'll probably find that keeping the main battery around 13 bars max works for most of your daily uses and the only time you'll need to fully charge it is just before a longer trip. All this, in the interest of battery longevity.

Can you tell me a little bit more about the idea of not fully charging the car? I have read about this a few times but am still pretty new to everything EV.
 
robdaug704 said:
Can you tell me a little bit more about the idea of not fully charging the car? I have read about this a few times but am still pretty new to everything EV.
A good place to start is Battery University

To answer your question regarding state of charge, look at Figure 6 in this article, BU-808 "How to Prolong Lithium-based Batteries"

https://batteryuniversity.com/article/bu-808-how-to-prolong-lithium-based-batteries

Be aware as you comb through the literature, some of the battery data presented represents test results of the worst-case scenario of 0%-100%SoC (State of Charge), something that doesn't happen in real life. Instead, with an electric car over its life we have a few thousand partial charges/discharges depending on our daily use in addition to the hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of small charge/discharge cycles while we're driving.

Regarding charge level, as you get used to a daily driving pattern (the US average for a car is around 30 miles/day) you'll be able to determine your typical settings. In my family we typically charge up to 12-13 bars and rarely drop below four bars. There is a 'turtle' that pops up if you drop below zero, but in over a combined150,000 miles of i-MiEV driving my wife and I have never seen it.

Finally, since our i-MiEV does not allow us to pre-set the upper limit to stop the car charging, we can get skilled at using the Remote, put a mechanical timer on our home charging station (EVSE - Electric Vehicle Service Equipment), or get get a charging station that can be programmed. All new i-MiEVs came with a Remote, but they seem to disappear over time and are way too expensive to replace new - if you have one, now is a good time to learn it -

http://myimiev.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=2780

Do you have 240 vac available or do you use the original Level 1 (120vac) Mitsubishi charging station for your 2016 i-MiEV? It has two current settings: 8A and 12A. If you home wiring is old and iffy, 8A is a safer bet. Trial and error will show you how many bars you can charge over what time, but for starters on the 8A setting figure 4 bars/5hours of charging.

Have fun exploring your new car and suss out the public charging stations in your area. If you haven't already, be sure to get onto https://www.plugshare.com and get their app for your phone/tablet and maybe subscribe so you can provide feedback as well as see all the private stations that people are offering in your area in case you are ever in trouble..
 
JoeS said:
robdaug704 said:
Can you tell me a little bit more about the idea of not fully charging the car? I have read about this a few times but am still pretty new to everything EV.
A good place to start is Battery University

To answer your question regarding state of charge, look at Figure 6 in this article, BU-808 "How to Prolong Lithium-based Batteries"

https://batteryuniversity.com/article/bu-808-how-to-prolong-lithium-based-batteries

Be aware as you comb through the literature, some of the battery data presented represents test results of the worst-case scenario of 0%-100%SoC (State of Charge), something that doesn't happen in real life. Instead, with an electric car over its life we have a few thousand partial charges/discharges depending on our daily use in addition to the hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of small charge/discharge cycles while we're driving.

Regarding charge level, as you get used to a daily driving pattern (the US average for a car is around 30 miles/day) you'll be able to determine your typical settings. In my family we typically charge up to 12-13 bars and rarely drop below four bars. There is a 'turtle' that pops up if you drop below zero, but in over a combined150,000 miles of i-MiEV driving my wife and I have never seen it.

Finally, since our i-MiEV does not allow us to pre-set the upper limit to stop the car charging, we can get skilled at using the Remote, put a mechanical timer on our home charging station (EVSE - Electric Vehicle Service Equipment), or get get a charging station that can be programmed. All new i-MiEVs came with a Remote, but they seem to disappear over time and are way too expensive to replace new - if you have one, now is a good time to learn it -

http://myimiev.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=2780

Do you have 240 vac available or do you use the original Level 1 (120vac) Mitsubishi charging station for your 2016 i-MiEV? It has two current settings: 8A and 12A. If you home wiring is old and iffy, 8A is a safer bet. Trial and error will show you how many bars you can charge over what time, but for starters on the 8A setting figure 4 bars/5hours of charging.

Have fun exploring your new car and suss out the public charging stations in your area. If you haven't already, be sure to get onto https://www.plugshare.com and get their app for your phone/tablet and maybe subscribe so you can provide feedback as well as see all the private stations that people are offering in your area in case you are ever in trouble..


Thanks for all the information and yes I do have the remote. I actually watched the video you posted about using it. It was very helpful! My car however did not come with original charger and instead one from Clipper Creek 120V that seems to work wonderfully. Our house is less than 10 years old and the car is easily charged from almost empty to full overnight.
 
Back
Top