Air conditioner failure, anyone experience this and no drives until fixed

[ACofNY]

Hi, took a moderate trip on my M3, 90 miles. My in-laws wanted to check my car out. Took it for a short drive and did couple of short accelerations 0 to 40/50 MPH. When he stopped, white mist came from the hood near the vents. Thought it might been moisture from A/C. On the way back, there was no more white mist. I didn’t think much of it until I started our trip back home the following day when I found out we had no more cooling. At least it was only 84 degrees out instead of 90 the day before. With no A/C my power consumption was 190 watts per mile. I made the earliest convenient appointment at Tesla s after Labor Day, a whole month of summer! Then a was reading the Tesla forum and was reminded and checked the manual, the battery is cooled by the A/C! Now that means I can’t take any trips with it. I’m surprised there was no message to me when driving, the only message appears in the climate screen that I can’t turn on the Dog, etc cooling mode due to a system failure.

Anyone experienced this? Should I be able to get higher priority service if I could or should drive it? I get no message saying so, even on the 90 miles back. Or I just didn’t drive hard to heat up the battery too much?

Thanks.

 

[SomeJoe7777]

I'm not sure about the Model 3's cooling system, but the Model S and X are able to passively cool the battery with the circulating coolant even if the A/C compressor is not working. I would suspect that the 3 has similar capability.

However, if I remember correctly about the S/X, that passive cooling capability was enough to drive the car normally, but not enough to supercharge or do repeated acceleration runs. You will probably be restricted to slower AC charging. However, if you're not getting any warning messages, the car is probably OK to drive until you can get the A/C fixed.

 

[ACofNY]

I'm not sure about the Model 3's cooling system, but the Model S and X are able to passively cool the battery with the circulating coolant even if the A/C compressor is not working. I would suspect that the 3 has similar capability.

However, if I remember correctly about the S/X, that passive cooling capability was enough to drive the car normally, but not enough to supercharge or do repeated acceleration runs. You will probably be restricted to slower AC charging. However, if you're not getting any warning messages, the car is probably OK to drive until you can get the A/C fixed.

I spoke to Tesla service rep. he confirmed the same information that you stated for my M3. I did not see any issues on standard charging, but expect some effect on SC. I have no desire to travel far with no A/C at this time. Thanks