No start in cold weather due to faulty relay
#1
No start in cold weather due to faulty relay
This pasted Sunday the outie did not want to start at all after trying a few time during the day and letting it sit in the sun all day I manage to get it going later in the day. Got to the dealer this morning and after they scan the outie it's due to the faulty relay issue in cold weather. In the TSB it say to replace it with a Green one which they found out is faulty too so they have to wait for a new black one that does not freeze up in cold weather apparently but is on case basis so when one show up with the problem then they have to open a service call with mitsu Canada. They should send a bunch to the dealers instead of letting the owner wait for it! It just amaze me that it happen like a year and a half after I got the outie and it did not happen at -40c/-45c like we had a couple week ago it happen at -10c. Anyway now the outie start as normal with the old relay but will get the new one in a couple of day's when they get it.
#2
RE: No start in cold weather due to faulty relay
Just a suggestion:
There were 4 relays replaced in my fusebox under the hood when this happened to me last winter. They are green. They are all the same. If you get stuck like that again, try changing them around and see if things go. I would think if something like a fuel pump relay gets stuck, one of the others probably still works and you can change them around and try again. Might help for the short term. Knock wood, I haven't had any issues since last winter with the green ones. There must be a relay rated for high humidity and low temperatures that they can install here...other cars don't have this problem.
There were 4 relays replaced in my fusebox under the hood when this happened to me last winter. They are green. They are all the same. If you get stuck like that again, try changing them around and see if things go. I would think if something like a fuel pump relay gets stuck, one of the others probably still works and you can change them around and try again. Might help for the short term. Knock wood, I haven't had any issues since last winter with the green ones. There must be a relay rated for high humidity and low temperatures that they can install here...other cars don't have this problem.
#3
RE: No start in cold weather due to faulty relay
The reason that you have to wait for the relays to come to the dealership is beacuse this is an ongoing problem and the engineers simply cant figure out why. So they are constantly making minute little changes to the design of the relay and they are sending them out all over the place. This is why they dont want to send a bunch to one dealership, its because we are now a test market. They are always changing the design of the relays that they send out. This comes to me directly from the dealership service manager who is a friend of mine.
Hopefully they will find the real source because it does not seem to me, that its the relay that is the problem. It has to be something else.
Hopefully they will find the real source because it does not seem to me, that its the relay that is the problem. It has to be something else.
#4
#5
RE: No start in cold weather due to faulty relay
I don't have a problem believing that the relays are the problem.
I work on Seismic acquisition systems and some of them used to use relays to dotests or aquire data. There would be a bank of 20 relays inside that would sit on the ground around the world (think temps from -40C to 60C) and the relays would get finicky at low temps. The type of grease used inside would cause issues as would the gas used to fill them. I think we eventually had ones made that had no grease and used argon gas to keep things as inert as possible.
The only problem I have is that relays are used on other vehicles by other manufacturers without issue. It probably has more to do with where the relays for these functions are housed...inside a non-sealed fused box outside in the engine bay, where humidity canget high as cold/warm cycles from the engine starting and stopping can cause more issues than if they were tucked inside the vehicle.
I work on Seismic acquisition systems and some of them used to use relays to dotests or aquire data. There would be a bank of 20 relays inside that would sit on the ground around the world (think temps from -40C to 60C) and the relays would get finicky at low temps. The type of grease used inside would cause issues as would the gas used to fill them. I think we eventually had ones made that had no grease and used argon gas to keep things as inert as possible.
The only problem I have is that relays are used on other vehicles by other manufacturers without issue. It probably has more to do with where the relays for these functions are housed...inside a non-sealed fused box outside in the engine bay, where humidity canget high as cold/warm cycles from the engine starting and stopping can cause more issues than if they were tucked inside the vehicle.