Thanks for the very interesting video and look forward to the diagnostic one. We’ve got the Peugeot version of this and really do love it as it feels like a modern Ciroen 2cv, so basic and so easy to use and costs almost nothing to run, normally charged off our solar panels. Big drawbacks are rust (I waxolyed ours from new) and longer term electrical issues as so few about. Ours has been perfect so far at 7 years old but very keen on seeing how you approach this issue - hope it goes well!

 

Diagnostics video below. Have been working on the repair today but all my spare CMUs are bad, doh! Have asked around and there are some available, but will delay the repair a bit (and the fact that im on holiday next week...)

Cheers

 

Tempted to buy one of these as they are now pocket change.... Grew up messing with 2cv's so this seems like the natural next step for a summer runabout.

 

There's a lady that lives near me that's been running an i-MiEV for many years now. She certainly owned it when I was building the house about ten years ago, as she stopped for a chat when she saw my car plugged in to our temporary building supply when this place was still a building site. Got to be an ideal cheap car for local running around.

 

There's a lady that lives near me that's been running an i-MiEV for many years now. She certainly owned it when I was building the house about ten years ago, as she stopped for a chat when she saw my car plugged in to our temporary building supply when this place was still a building site. Got to be an ideal cheap car for local running around.

The reality is a bit less appealing than the theory unfortunately. I agree they're a cool little car on paper and I had one for three years, however...

1) They suffer from severe underbody rusting, hidden by the battery pack - there is no rust proofing / underseal, just thin paint on the exposed under body. Rain water also finds its way down through the bolt holes that mount the battery pack onto the body causing this area to rust out. The motor bay is not protected with an under cover so equipment in the motor bay is badly affected by salt spray - I had to replace the vacuum pump on mine - it looked like it had been dredged up from the sea floor it was so badly rusted. Very common occurrence with these and you won't find many that haven't needed the vacuum pump replacing. (In fact there were two recalls for it) Severe rusting of the rear brake lines in the motor bay area is also very common for the same reason.

2) Heavy cell degradation - mine needed 4 cells replacing by 50k miles as they had high internal resistance that slashed the rapid charging speeds in half and by 60k miles it was down below 70% SoH again and falling fast. Battery degradation is much worse even than a Leaf. (Roughly twice as bad judging by comparing my Leaf to my Ion over the same mileage)

3) There are three very common known problems with the drive electronics in these.

(a) The onboard charger fails. (when, not if, if the car is pre-2016) If you're lucky (like me) it's only a special high voltage fuse and a couple of high voltage disc capacitors deep inside the charger (and someone who knows what they're doing to do the repair) and you're back in action again. If you're less lucky considerable damage is done when the capacitors fail shorted and sometimes that is repairable, sometimes not.

(b) The circuit that monitors the pre-charging process seems to fail causing incorrect voltage readings that trigger fault codes and prevent the car starting. There are various repair / kludge options for that particular issue, some better than others but success isn't guaranteed.

(c) The CMU (cell monitoring unit) boards suffer from a failed surface mount chip that puts the whole BMS system out of action. This one can be repaired but is pretty nasty as you have to drop and split the pack open to even get at these boards, (and then it's a surface mount chip replacement) vs the onboard charger which you can access and remove relatively easily through the hatch in the boot. There are 12 CMU's inside the pack, I've heard of people who have repaired one then a few years later had to do it all again when another CMU has failed.

Not trying to be a Debby downer but anyone buying one of these needs to be aware of some of the common faults you may run into and some of them will write the car off unless you can do high voltage electronic repairs yourself or have a friend that will do it for you as there are few people that will tackle these component level repairs and swapping an entire charger etc is too expensive. (I repaired the charger myself, one week before the first lockdown in 2020 no less... )

Many people will run these and have no problems at all, and I'm sure all the people who haven't had any of these problems will jump on me, but there are a lot of people who have experienced these issues including myself. (Rust, failed vacuum pump and failed onboard charger, all in the space of 3 years) They're cheap enough now that they might be worth a roll of the dice as a local runabout, but be prepared to lose everything if you are unlucky enough to be hit by one of the Charger/CMU faults.

Someone really needs to design and sell a modern replacement for this car. It fit a certain market segment that to this day is still not filled by something better.

 

There's some interesting limited editions of the iMievs knocking about. There's one with a blue dashboard and seats I think. Quite fancy one of those.

I've recently noticed that Halfords sell a type 2 to type 1 adaptor for a reasonable amount which is the main sticking point for any of these older EVs on type 1. Makes it easier to even consider having one and as Halfords sell it and it has a 3 year warranty hopefully it's a reasonable item not a short route to disaster.

 

I am still kicking myself for missing out on one of these with a probable OBC fault for £400! Sadly SHMBO didn't approve!

 

The E-up etc is probably the closest. It's a lot bigger but has a similar profile and was surprisingly cheap (relatively)

 

SHMBO wasn't super excited about the E-up! either, but I bought one anyway!

 

I liked mine very much. However this was the first proper EV introduced in 2009 ? ie it is 15yr old tech so what do you expect. I live on the South coast where very little salt gets used in winter and charged it on the Granny cable for 4yrs.

Ideal for Islands where range is irrelevant.

The vast majority of these battery will have lasted over 10 yrs and full remember people expecting them to only last 2-3 yrs like mobile phones. I wonder if this old battery packs are being repurposed.

 

I liked mine very much. However this was the first proper EV introduced in 2009 ? ie it is 15yr old tech so what do you expect.

That was kind of the whole point of my post - to set realistic expectations for people that might be looking at one of these cars.

There is a perception among many that EV's are just reliable and there is nothing to go wrong but that couldn't be further from the truth. The things that go wrong are just different to ICE cars and until they reach a decent age we don't know what those things will be for any given model.

We now know what those issues are for the i-Miev and clones - CMU boards, Onboard charger, Vacuum pump, and much worse than typical underbody rust due to lack of protection.

I live on the South coast where very little salt gets used in winter and charged it on the Granny cable for 4yrs.

Ideal for Islands where range is irrelevant.

The issue with rust is that the car was made for the Japanese domestic market which does not require underseal. Cars sold in the UK and many other markets are supposed to have a layer of rubberized bitumen underseal protecting the body - the i-Miev clones have nothing like this, it's just bare painted steel.

So as soon as you get a few stone chips underneath it starts rusting. It's the only car I've ever owned or seen that does not have underseal and it is never going to last more than about 10 years in a country with salted roads.

The vast majority of these battery will have lasted over 10 yrs and full remember people expecting them to only last 2-3 yrs like mobile phones. I wonder if this old battery packs are being repurposed.

I would strongly dispute that "the vast majority of these batteries will have lasted over 10 years", I doubt that is based on any data on your part.

From data on my own car and many others belonging to members on myimiev.com I would say the realistic lifespan of these batteries is 60k miles or 10 years whatever comes first. To put it frankly, the battery in mine was perfectly normal when I bought it at 28k miles (around 86% SoH) and was knackered before 60k miles at around 8 years old. (Four faulty cells with high internal resistance, not just one, and SoH plummeting quickly below 70% even after replacing the failing cells)

Part of the reason they only last around 60k miles is because the capacity is so small that the battery is cycled much more heavily than a larger capacity battery would be for the same mileage. The Leaf battery is not much better in terms of cycle life but because it is twice the capacity you're going to get around twice the mileage from the same number of cycles. (So around 100-120k miles should be achievable on something like a Leaf 30)

 

I would strongly dispute that "the vast majority of these batteries will have lasted over 10 years", I doubt that is based on any data on your part.



[/QUOTE]

"Strongly dispute" and "doubt" as much as you like but you could be just plain wrong perhaps.

MITSUBISHI I-MIEV - How Many Left?

Statistics for MITSUBISHI I-MIEV.. See how many cars of any make and model are left on Britain's roads.

www.howmanyleft.co.uk

Max no. registered in 2012 229 and max no registered in 2024 162

PEUGEOT ION - How Many Left?

Statistics for PEUGEOT ION.. See how many cars of any make and model are left on Britain's roads.

www.howmanyleft.co.uk

Registered at 2014 352 2024 SORN 39

 

I would strongly dispute that "the vast majority of these batteries will have lasted over 10 years", I doubt that is based on any data on your part.

"Strongly dispute" and "doubt" as much as you like but you could be just plain wrong perhaps.

MITSUBISHI I-MIEV - How Many Left?

Statistics for MITSUBISHI I-MIEV.. See how many cars of any make and model are left on Britain's roads.

www.howmanyleft.co.uk

Max no. registered in 2012 229 and max no registered in 2024 162

PEUGEOT ION - How Many Left?

Statistics for PEUGEOT ION.. See how many cars of any make and model are left on Britain's roads.

www.howmanyleft.co.uk

Registered at 2014 352 2024 SORN 39

What does that prove ? That they're parked in cosy garages with 30 miles of range left ?

Just because it's still registered doesn't mean the battery isn't severely degraded.

 

Dacia spring is probably the most likely successor I would think…

 

If you need any SMT rework on these then drop me a DM. #dayjob

 

In some ways replacing the failed voltage measurement SMT chip is easier (if you have the facility to do that) than swapping the whole board - each board is coded with an ID number 1 to 12 for the position the CMU is in the battery stack, which means you can only do a direct swap from CMU3 to CMU3, CMU5 to CMU5 etc without reprogramming their ID, and unless you removed a CMU from the pack you don't know what number is currently assigned to it without an EEProm reader and the right software.

If I recall there was some reverse engineering of the EEProm where someone claimed to have worked out how to reprogram the EEProm to change the ID number but in my opinion this is risky business and I haven't really seen many if any reports of actual success with this. (I think they have successfully read the ID but I haven't seen any confirmed reports of altering it and then having success fitted back in the pack)

Replacing the LTC chip is just a straight swap of a generic off the shelf chip with only SMT soldering and no programming needed. (And also preserves the dwindling supply of boards as you're repairing a board without sacrificing another)

 

Much easier to swap the eeprom over from the failed cmu board. It will be easily identifiable.

 

Yes but then you're sacrificing a board to save another, vs fixing the original board. Eventually we're going to run out of these boards.

It's always the same voltage measurement chip that fails and it's a generic part used in a lot of devices.

 

If it’s a generic 93c46 device then it’s easy enough to clone..

 

But....... if you're going to SMT solder the eeprom, why not just solder the faulty part (LTC voltage measurement chip) which doesn't have any programming on it and is readily available ?

I don't understand why swapping the eeprom from one board to another is a better solution.