Delica Canada | Mitsubishi Van Club

Title explains it all. I can shut the van off, remove the key lock the doors and leave but the van will run for exactly another 60 seconds. I did find that if I turned the van off while in gear (Drive or Reverse) the van shuts off immediately and I can then shift to park.

Anyone know where I should start looking for this gremlin? Did some searching but wasn't finding anything that matched this.

...sounds like you have a turbo timer installed. Check if you have a "mystery" box attached with some wires leading to your ignition. Most timers are small units with green, red, or yellow led's with 30/60/90 settings on them.

You have a turbo timer installed, a small box somewhere, that will keep the engine running to allow the head temperature to calm down, and for the turbo to spin down before the oil feed is shut off.

Turbo x3

So is it just coincidence that this just started? It has never done it before and I've owned the van for 2 years. I guess it is related to the temperature outside? Still strange that it wouldn't have done this last year when it was hot either.

I just had my Turbo Timer removed because it acted the same as yours. It worked twice in the year and a half I have owned my van, both times kind of freaking me out. I don't think these timers are "professionally" installed. I decided it was better to just rip it out. I am the timer now

Craig

Nope, nothing fancy on mine. Can't think of anything that would have triggered it to start either. Hadn't done any work or replaced any parts. Totally random. Anyway, it will be in the shop Wednesday and I'll have the mechanic confirm that this is what is happening and see if he can find the little gremlin which caused it to start working.

Just throwing this out there... it is conceivable that a turbo timer COULD have a temperature sensor as part of the logic of the timer function. It wouldn't be rocket science to have a system that only operates above certain temps. Just a thought...

Or it could be as simple as a loose connection that connected.

I believe they are called turbo timers as they are there to allow the turbo to spin down before the oil feed to the bearing is shut off, thats not temperature dependant. As above, its dodgy wiring.

There are lots of different types of turbo timers. The more expensive and sophisticated ones base the cool down run time on engine temp, what rpm the engine was at for the last few minute before shutting it of, and a lot are hooked up to the speedometer. If you just got off the freeway, doing 110kph, and shut it off, the timer might let it cool down for longer than if you were just going 30kph etc. A lot of turbo timers are programmable to do pretty much anything you want.
It is very possible the turbo timer only works on hot days, when your engine temp is higher than the rest of the year.