Coolant sytem issue

[ViperDoc]

I was driving to work today, and suddenly the vent started blowing hot air. Not warm, hot. The rheostat was turned all the way to the cool side (eg, the heat was not on). Pushing the AC button didn't help. Turning off the fan didn't really help, hot air was till coming up, with a bit of an almost burning smell. I checked the PEM/Engine/Battery heat indicator and all were firmly in the blue and not budging towards the right. I could not get this to stop. About 5 miles later, I started getting warnings from the system that there was a coolant system problem and service was required. It gave me this message 3 times in quick succession (I kept clearing the screen to watch the temps). Of course, when I finally parked at work, I could not get those errors to come up to record the actual code...

Looking under the hood, nothing seemed ununsual. There was coolant running in the system in the trunk by the battery as there should be.

Any ideas?

 

[im4uttx]

Compressor? Is it running? You should be able to hear it when it comes on (if stopped in quiet environment).

 

[ViperDoc]

Compressor? Is it running? You should be able to hear it when it comes on (if stopped in quiet environment).

I will check on this tonight. The weird thing is that I didn't have the AC even running when this started. I should just be venting in cool Vermont morning air...

 

[im4uttx]

I will check on this tonight. The weird thing is that I didn't have the AC even running when this started. I should just be venting in cool Vermont morning air...

ha! It will be another couple months before I see "cool morning air" ...
So, another thing would be the damper (?) that goes between cool/hot air. If for some reason it is stuck on the hot side, or if the heater is stuck on, would be the only reason the air should be warmer than vented air...

 

[ViperDoc]

ha! It will be another couple months before I see "cool morning air" ...
So, another thing would be the damper (?) that goes between cool/hot air. If for some reason it is stuck on the hot side, or if the heater is stuck on, would be the only reason the air should be warmer than vented air...

Yes, the weird thing is the heat wasn't on so it shouldn't have been stuck on. I haven't had the heat on in months. This all stared with the temperature setting cranked all the way to the cold side. Very strange. I don't get the error message about the coolant system but whenb I drive home tonight, I will get ta photo if it does it again.

Thanks

 

[gregd]

Sounds like a proverbial "glitch" on the CAN bus, hopefully transient and unlikely to reoccur. Maybe time for a reboot if it does.

 

[ViperDoc]

Sounds like a proverbial "glitch" on the CAN bus, hopefully transient and unlikely to reoccur. Maybe time for a reboot if it does.

Well I just went out to drive home from work and got the dread Powertrtain Problem Service Required ID:278 error...won't let me start. Sigh.

 

[hcsharp]

Sorry you had problems. If you pull the logs you can recall the cooling system messages and get the codes. Send me an email if you need help with that.

What seems strange about this is the heater has no connection to the coolant.

 

[X.l.r.8]

Can you get to diagnostic screen and see if you have coolant/refrigeration pressure. Or compressor speed. I wonder as you could smell it, it was the compressor cooking rather than the battery coolant. The battery would have turned the AC in regardless of your settings if it wanted cooling. If the compressor is shorted it may be backfeeding high voltage.
The ray of light is I know Tesla Mississauga have a compressor on the shelf.
Can you plug in at work and see if it allows it to charge?

 

[ViperDoc]

Can you get to diagnostic screen and see if you have coolant/refrigeration pressure. Or compressor speed. I wonder as you could smell it, it was the compressor cooking rather than the battery coolant. The battery would have turned the AC in regardless of your settings if it wanted cooling. If the compressor is shorted it may be backfeeding high voltage.
The ray of light is I know Tesla Mississauga have a compressor on the shelf.
Can you plug in at work and see if it allows it to charge?

I have PMed you on diagnostic screen. I had the smell before I ever had the AC on. It was just on the vent without the AC button pushed. I did try the AC button, but that was after all the hot air started rushing out of the vent.

I will see if I can find a nearby outlet or push the car to one. I am trying to figure out how to tow the car out of the garage so I can get it on a flatbed. I can clearly hook a chain to the tow hook and presumably be towed around in Tow mode, but there are tight right angle corners, so getting the chain length right will be the trick.

I tried to download the logs today. The first time I did it with the flash drive I have always used. It seemed to go fine. When I saw the message regarding download in progress had disappeared. I removed the drive. Strangely, no new log file was there. I took the drive back and sat there through the whole thing. It stopped the download in the middle someplace with an error. The message said to remove drive and try again. So I did. But strangely that drive will not light up in the car any more. It lights up just fine in my laptop, but not in my car. So I got a new flash drive, 2 gb, formatted the same way. Copied over the folder with the old logs, so I know I have the folder name correct (eg, "VehicleLogs") at the top of the directory. That drive lights up in the car just fine, but the message that the log is being downloaded doesn't come up, so I don't think it is actually doing the download...sigh. I love this car, but...

 

[X.l.r.8]

Did you delete the old file on the flash drive so just the folder remains

 

[X.l.r.8]

But the ac would come on without you ever knowing because it’s done behind the screens by the battery management. Thats why I’m wondering why you get a precharge error showing the voltage is present prior the the precharge resistor.
While my HVAC stopped it from charging it still drive but it depends where the fault lies. I also have no ability to smell so wouldn’t have known it a burning smell came beforehand.

 

[hcsharp]

Did you delete the old file on the flash drive so just the folder remains

why would he need to do that?

 

[X.l.r.8]

In case it got corrupted the first time it failed to download. Just a wild thought.

 

[hcsharp]

But the ac would come on without you ever knowing because it’s done behind the screens by the battery management. Thats why I’m wondering why you get a precharge error showing the voltage is present prior the the precharge resistor.
While my HVAC stopped it from charging it still drive but it depends where the fault lies. I also have no ability to smell so wouldn’t have known it a burning smell came beforehand.

His commute isn't long enough to have the AC come on for battery management, especially with the cool mornings we've been having. The whole thing with the heat coming out the vents is so bizarre that I wouldn't rule anything out. In other words, it still could have had something to do with the AC. I'm leaning towards gregd's idea - glitch on the CAN bus; time for a reboot. Might also explain the difficulty pulling logs.

 

[hcsharp]

In case it got corrupted the first time it failed to download. Just a wild thought.

I've had log downloads fail part way through. It always worked on the next try. In this case I can't help but wonder if it's related to the other problems. Time for a VMS reboot.

 

[Roadster]

That drive lights up in the car just fine, but the message that the log is being downloaded doesn't come up, so I don't think it is actually doing the download...sigh. I love this car, but...

Try rebooting the VMS. That did the trick for me to get the logs to copy onto the thumbdrive:

How and where to pull plug / power to the VMS?

 

[X.l.r.8]

My bad. I assume that everyone drives the same as I do lol.

 

[gregd]

For what it's worth, my VMS got locked up / crashed / whatever some time ago, and I had to pull the cables to get it back. It was a near-death experience for me. Not sure about the car. But anyway, after that, the log downloads seemed to occur a lot faster than before.

 

[ViperDoc]

Did you delete the old file on the flash drive so just the folder remains

I tried a completely new drive too. No luck.