Hey guys! Well, my ayc pump took a long walk off a short pier a couple of nights ago. The ambient temps around here dropped about 30-35 degrees from mid-afternoon to about midnight when I left work. Fine. I kind of figured this was coming anyway, seeing as these pumps take a dump pretty frequently. AWD service req'd lights, pulled c161e and f on my accessport.

At this point I'm pretty pissed because I don't really have $2000 to spend on a car that barely has over 18,000 miles(my car is an 08 so no more bumper to bumper). I called the dealership and they're not much help. They give me Mitsubishi's CS number and I make a claim. I also make an appointment for Monday at the dealership.

Then a funny thing happened yesterday. As on on my way to the bank, I look down at the display and I notice that service req'd (!) is gone and TARMAC is now where there was a blank space for days. My question is does temperature affect these pumps ability to flow? I searched on this topic and couldn't come up with anything. It seems my ayc pump has been working normally again for the past day and a half but I'm skeptical of how long it will last. I'm still going to the dealership on Monday but with the ambient temps up coming this weekend, I have a feeling they won't be able to replicate it.

Anybody else have this happen to them? Thanks in advance!

 

It's possible that the fluid could get thick enough to prevent proper flow, especially if the pump was dying.

You may still be in the woods yet though.

 

AYC should be covered under the powertrain warranty.

 

You would think so, but its not!

 

^this. Let this be definitive should it ever be searched again that its 100% not covered under power train warranty. Trust me, I argued with Mitsubishi and they were adamant.

 

You would think that but fluid once cold should be thinner. Than once its up to operating temp it gets thick. That's why I can't figure out why when the temps were lower I had a problem and now that its around 70-75 everything is gravy.

 

Fluids get thicker with colder temps and thinner with warmer temps.

 

Two points. First, while many dealers and regional reps have said the pump is not covered by the powertrain warranty, a few people have been very lucky and had their pump replaced after the bumper-to-bumper expires. If you have a great relationship with a certain dealer, it's worth a shot.

Second, I've not only seen others report a pump that dies and comes back to life, mine has done this three times in the last six months. The latest was two days ago. The pump died and the AWC service now! light came on after a brief trip down a gravel road. Next restart, all was fine again. In other words, paralleling Princess Bride, a pump can be "mostly dead," instead of "all dead." With that said, a mostly dead pump is effectively all dead, since, as soon as you ask for it to work, it conks out.

 

Lol^

Well said. Guess I'm just waiting for the inevitable at this point.

The question is will Inigo Montoya go to the dealership and avenge my pump?

 

I am Iowa999. You killed my AYC pump. Prepare to die.

 

I started picking up random 161e codes on my AP at somewhere around 40k miles on my '08 GSR (I can't remember exactly when I started to get the warning light). Generally it would stay on for a bit and then would reset when I parked the car over night or at work. At about 83k miles I had to have the ECU / pump replaced (luckily I had an extended warranty). It took it that long to actually DIE completely!

Note: I didn't notice any difference in function until it actually died completely. When at home, the car was always parked in a heated garage.

 

If you're on a gravel or snow-covered road, or pushing it on exit from a turn, then you will definitely notice. When it went out a few days ago, I didn't know that anything was wrong until I felt the car go "soft" on me. Then I looked down and saw the dreaded warnings.

Based on my rather limited data, a mostly-dead pump can achieve standard pressure on start-up and feed a little pressure every now and then (such as engage the AYC for one corner every few minutes). But as soon as you ask it to really work (such as staying on it down a gravel or muddy road), it will fail to keep up, throw the code, and take a fricken nap.

 

My pump is gone, but it was doing the opposite with the temperature. When it is below 50 degrees everything is fine. When it warms up the warning comes on. I found a post a while back where someone explained why but cant remember where. Im still so pissed about this stupid pump!!!

 

Same thing happened to me.
-The reason it is fine when it's cold, is the fluid viscosity is very thick. So it doesn't leak *as* much, (it still does leak).

-Then when it heats up, the viscosity goes down, and the liquid is thin enough to be pushed out of the cracks and crevices that had been corroded.

-This causes the pump not to be able to get a seal (because its just squeezing all the fluid out) so the pump runs constantly, which causes it to throw a C161E (fault within the pump, 99.9% it is due to being overworked)

-So it puts itself into a "safe mode" like the SST's "Limp Mode". It is on its way out if it is doing this.

Or it could also be low fluid in the resevoir

 

So after a couple of days at the dealership, to which they couldn't get the problem to resurface(figures), yesterday morning it pops on again. My AP say its the E code again. So we can definately assume that ambient temp and humidity contribute greatly in these failures as well. Here in the Boston area it's gone from mid-high 70's down to the upper 40's and low 50's.

Why the hell after 20 years of making this car is the pump made the same way? My answer is they're destined to fail and it really sucks that a car company would treat it's customers this way. If they're not making money off of sales, they're def making up for it in their service dept.'s across America.