Air Con - too humid & not chilling

[PC__LoadLetter]

For the last 2½ years, I've parked my SR+ under a gum tree one day a week. A few leaves always accumulated around the wipers. Little did I know that they were also accumulating and wrapping around the air conditioner condenser, driving power consumption through the roof, and making the air con struggle to clear condensation in humid weather or to chill in warmer weather. Also my Wh/km has been getting steadily worse. For the last 4500km I was up around 173Wh/km. The lifetime average kept creeping up and I thought I really needed to get this looked at when it ticked up to 161Wh/km a few days ago.

I dropped the car off late yesterday. The Service Centre guys had already done their homework half a day before I was meant to show up. The logs showed the condenser was drawing more power than it should. This morning they fixed it right on schedule. They lifted out the frunk out and cleared out the gunk. $135+GST. No big deal. I also got them to do a few other things since they had the car anyway. Can't complain. At all.

 

[moa999]

Assume you had the filters replaced as well.

Some people have fitted additional filters to the top of the air intake to stop leaf matter going in.

Personally think this seems unnecessary, but I try and avoid parking under trees. At least in my 2020 there is a large hole at the bottom of the air intake box which should get rid of leaf matter. The actual air intake is above this.

I do find that the box does collect dust however so I give it the ocassional clean with a wet wipe.

 

[thesmokingman]

^^I did the airbox mod as well. The opening is so large it sucks in everything.

I used medium/large stainless mesh cut to fit the opening and then I had an extra sheet of carbon from our indoor hepa filter and cut that to shape and laid it on top of the mesh. It works well and I don't notice a loss of flow.

 

[PC__LoadLetter]

Is the air box mod up the top of the frunk near the wipers, or under the front bumper?

 

[jamesgo]

The cabin air comes in from a box on top, under the wipers, its in front of the driver.

I've put a air filter in the frunk in air box entry space and given how dirty it gets it evidently blocks quite a bit coming in. It literally sits on top. I guess without it junk will probably just hit the back of the in-cabin air filter. It was like $20, just google Model 3 Air Intake Vent Cover