Battery Replacement Under Warranty, New Warranty Time

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.

centex

Member
Joined
Apr 28, 2014
Messages
23
What is the warranty on a new On Board Charger and the traction battery replaced under warranty. Is it 1 year as typical for parts or is it longer. I know some of the members have had theirs replaced and wondered what you learned.

Mitsubishi is replacing the OBC and the traction battery under the 2012 warranty extension. No issues at all. Japan came back in 2 days with approval on the traction battery. The service manager shows new batteries in stock in the US. That will save time of coming from Japan.
 
Normally you only get the original warranty and the clock does not restart on any replaced parts. That way they don't replace a battery at 7 years and get obligated for another 8 years and another 100,000 miles of warranty.
 
Thanks for the info. My 2012 has a 10 warranty, includes the 2 year extension.
Got the car back today from local Mitsui dealer, new traction battery, on board charger and a new vacuum pump. No cost. Both service reps stated it was the most expensive warranty claim they have seen in their careers.

Nice to have the new battery. More miles per KW used than the old battery.

Another benefit is all the cooling hoses have been replaced along with new coolant.

Dealer was exceptional. No hassle and kept me posted at least once a week on progress. I would think the early Nissan Leaf owners would be jealous.
 
centex, congratulations! This new battery most probably contains the "new, improved" LEV50N cells - you're easily good for another ten years!

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
 
I’m curious, how you go about getting a new battery. My charging of my car is sporadic at best. Some days I get half a charge, which can go up during use. Other days I get more but it runs down really quickly. I have a 2009 used iMiev which I got from my wife about a year and a half ago. It is very special to me. I had an mot in jan and had some work done to ensure it passed but they claimed the battery was fine, even though I had charging problems prior to the event. The car has been running though and as I only use it for short journeys that is fine, but the inconsistency in charging and length of charge is worrying. If I can get more life out of the car I would love that. I’m not sure of the right questions to ask though or if Mitsubishi could even do the work. I have already changed the starter battery but the traction (!?!) battery seems to be the problem. Wouldn’t even charge at a chademo station
 
As Joe said earlier - It really helps to know where you live

Since you have a 2009, that means you're not in North America, so you only had an 8 year battery warranty and that expired in 2017 or 2018, depending on when the car was sold new. North America cars came with an 8 year warranty too, but a couple years later, Mitsubishi extended our warranty to 10 years or 100K miles, but for some reason, they did not do that for cars in Europe

Don
 
I got mine replaced under warranty - took the dealer 4 months to get an approval from corporate (Thanksgiving- Late February 21).
Not as much range increase as I expected, but no more turtle at 50% charge. The dealer was amazing.
 
I suspect your range probably will increase gradually as you drain and recharge your 'new' battery dozens of times over the next several months. The car will eventually figure out that the new battery is 'bigger' (more amp hours) . . . . I think. That is, assuming you actually did get a brand new battery from Mitsubishi and not a 'reconditioned' one that they made up of used cells. I have no proof that Mitsu is actually doing that to honor their warranty on 6 or 8 year old battery packs . . . . but if I was the one at Mitsu who made those decisions, that's for sure what I would be doing. Why give away a free brand new battery when all you need to do is honor your 10 year warranty by installing a good, used, fully functioning battery?? A reconditioned pack would make much more sense to Mitsu

Don
 
Don,
My 12V battery replacement seemed to force a relearn on the system, but I'm not sure. It could just be me thinking range increased. When I first got the vehicle back from the dealer, I did drive it to "empty" and did have the turtle pop up as I was returning home, so I'm guessing I did use all the available range, maybe the battery had a break-in period.

BTW, I don't trust the mileage range gauge, it seems to change too much for me. I think the ammeter on the left is infinitely more useful.

I truthfully don't care if they gave me a refurb or a new battery, I'm just happy to have a full warranty replacement. I'll have to run some data on CANION soon to see what the changes look like - I haven't even plugged in my adapter since I got it back since the car is pretty bulletproof.

Josh
 
otedawg said:
BTW, I don't trust the mileage range gauge, it seems to change too much for me. I think the ammeter on the left is infinitely more useful.
Once you come to understand how the estimated range remaining (RR) meter works, it will be lots more useful for you and you'll trust it more - The changes you're seeing are there for a good reason

The RR meter computes your remaining range by tracking what has happened over the last 15 miles and then it assumes you'll be driving pretty much the same for the remaining charge left in the battery, so it's 'guess' of how far you can go is actually quite accurate assuming you will be driving the same for the rest of your charge

We all know if you drive very carefully around town at 25 or 30 miles per hour, you can probably go 75 or 80 miles or more on one full charge, and that if you're driving on the freeway at 70, you can maybe only go 45 or 50 miles. If you start out doing either of those on a full charge and keep doing the same until empty, the RR meter will tell you pretty accurately how many miles you have left. But if you leave town after using half your charge and hit the freeway, you're going to run out before the number on the RR gauge says you should, because it has calculated that number based on the previous 15 miles when you were doing 25 or 30 around town

Similarly, if you drive on the freeway for the first half of your charge and then get to town, your RR number may show 20 or 30 miles and as you slowly drive around town, you will see the RR number actually go up as it recalculates based on the past 15 miles and now part of that 15 is around town and not all freeway speeds

Just keep in the back of your mind that it's predictions are based on the last 15 miles and then realize if you're now doing a different type of driving, the number won't necessarily be accurate, but at least you'll know which way to fudge it so you can trust what it's telling you

When you do a full recharge, the RR number you'll get is also based on how and where you drove the past 15 miles - Fast or slow, uphill or down etc. It's kinda fun to predict what the number will be after thinking about how you drove those last 15 miles and you can get pretty good at guessing what it will be. The numbers are never lying to you once you understand where they come from and they're never jumping around without good reason and when you understand the calculation behind what it's telling you, the RR gauge is a much better range predictor than using the ammeter

If you drove slowly around town for 15 or more miles, recharged and got a new RR of 70 miles on the gauge . . . . and then you head for the freeway to do 70 mph, you know beforehand that you're never going to make anything close to the 70 miles it was predicting when you left home. As you drive, you'll see that 70 number dropping like a rock until you've gone 15 miles or more and then the number it's showing you will be pretty accurate. The reverse is also true. If you come off the freeway and then recharge, your new RR number may only be 45 or 50, but as you drive around slowly for 15 miles, the number will actually rise until after 15 miles when it will be pretty accurate

Make sense . . . . or have I thoroughly confused you??

Don
 
I am wondering what needs to be done to have my battery replaced under warranty.

I have power train until March 2023 and had a capacity test done in April 2021 which came back at 32.4 Ah, which seems extremely low that’s like 2/3rds of original capacity by my numbers (330x32.4=10.7 KWh); but they assured me it was within specifications.

Everything still seems to be working, but I would probably like to start the process towards getting it replaced if it is malfunctioning.
 
Mitsubishi has been very good about replacing battery packs that contain a failure, typically one or more cells. On the other hand, they will not replace a battery that has simply degraded. Here is the process they use at the dealership to determine if the battery is ok or not:
https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/tsbs/2017/MC-10116253-9999.pdf

In a nutshell, if you can still charge to 16 bars, the battery is deemed usable, no matter what the RR says.

BTW, a brand-new battery usually measures around 45Ah.
 
Damn that’s not good.

So it’s basically at 2/3rds capacity and there is no way to get them to replace it without a catastrophic failure.

I thought I had one in the summer but it turned out to only be the 12v battery.

I guess I’ll get it tested again in the spring and see what kind of additional degradation I saw over the year.
 
KangaRod said:
...I guess I’ll get it tested again in the spring and see what kind of additional degradation I saw over the year.
Unless you're having charging issues, such a test might just depress you as Mitsu won't do anything about it. How much did the dealer charge you for the test? If you really must know, do it yourself as all you need is an OBD2 adapter and an app - follow this thread:
http://myimiev.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=4950
 
I’ve been trying to do as much as the scheduled maintenance as possible and one of the things it’ll be scheduled for is the capacity test.

It was part of the recommended maintenance so I can’t speak to the cost of the test specifically.

As for that specific maintenance package I had last spring iirc it was around $500 Canadian dollars.

I’ve been trying to purchase some good will from the dealer, but tbh I have no idea where else I’d get it maintained (or even repaired) to begin with.
 
Back
Top