In the last year I noticed my car running the cooling fans a lot more often excessive and often even activating the AC compressor. In normal conservative Los Angeles city driving even in moderate temperatures the car would start running the fans full speed and AC every 40-60 minutes. It got worse and worse and even extra careful driving didn't help. Monitoring all kinds of data and temperatures via SanMyTesla I couln't figure out what was going on. I did notice the car was letting the battery go pretty hot, definitely hotter than in the years before. But the fans and AC would also kick in a lot even if when the battery was not hot or needed cooling. I could see on the data, many times the car was not cooling the battery but something else. It kind became almost embarrassing to have my car make so much noise.
I finally had Tesla's service take a look last year. They couldn't find any error messages and replaced one actuator that was working OK but was sending out an error. As expected it didn't help at all. The car was still running full cooling cycles every 45-60 minutes.
Just recently I replaced some underbody parts on my car and it required to take the front facia off. When it's off you get a good look at the three radiators. There is one long one in the center and there are two in front of each front wheel. What I saw was pretty sobering. The center one had been beaten so much by debris and small rocks from the road hitting it, that aprox 60% of the surface won't let air through any more. The thin metal fins between the cooling lines were bent so much that the airflow is partly blocked.
The two side radiators were in much better shape. During normal driving the loovers cover them so they don't get bombarded with dust and small rocks. But both had collected a good amount of dirt basically blocking the airflow to a degree. Especially the passenger side. Apparently the side closer to the shoulder (of the road) gets a lot more dirt and dust.
I cleaned out the radiators as much as I could from the dirt. I wasn't able to do much about the bent metal fins in the center radiator. With a small and thin screwdriver I was able to bend the metal back in place and clear the airway of a small area, but it's a very tedious process that would take hours for the entire radiator. I didn't have the time and left it as is for now.
It's been two weeks now since and I have already noticed a big improvement. The full blown (literally) cooling cycles with the fans running full blast is almost gone. Here and there the car still starts running the fans and a little AC but it's far less than before and far less frequent. Maybe once or twice a day. Before it was 6-10 times a day.
Unfortunately there is no easy way to clean the radiators without removing the front bumper. the center radiator can be hosed from the front pretty good. But the two radiators in the wheel arches are hard to reach.
If anyone has some ideas how to fix the damaged center radiator, please let me know. I'd hate to replace it.
On a different note, it shows once again (at least that's my experience) that Tesla's service people are not good. They just rely on the car's self diagnostic features. They only check for errors the car might report. If it doesn't, then that's all they are going to do and from their point of view, everything works fine. How can you not check the radiators if a customer says the car is showing excessive cooling activity? They don't even do a basic visual inspection. They don't trouble shoot issues.
I finally had Tesla's service take a look last year. They couldn't find any error messages and replaced one actuator that was working OK but was sending out an error. As expected it didn't help at all. The car was still running full cooling cycles every 45-60 minutes.
Just recently I replaced some underbody parts on my car and it required to take the front facia off. When it's off you get a good look at the three radiators. There is one long one in the center and there are two in front of each front wheel. What I saw was pretty sobering. The center one had been beaten so much by debris and small rocks from the road hitting it, that aprox 60% of the surface won't let air through any more. The thin metal fins between the cooling lines were bent so much that the airflow is partly blocked.
The two side radiators were in much better shape. During normal driving the loovers cover them so they don't get bombarded with dust and small rocks. But both had collected a good amount of dirt basically blocking the airflow to a degree. Especially the passenger side. Apparently the side closer to the shoulder (of the road) gets a lot more dirt and dust.
I cleaned out the radiators as much as I could from the dirt. I wasn't able to do much about the bent metal fins in the center radiator. With a small and thin screwdriver I was able to bend the metal back in place and clear the airway of a small area, but it's a very tedious process that would take hours for the entire radiator. I didn't have the time and left it as is for now.
It's been two weeks now since and I have already noticed a big improvement. The full blown (literally) cooling cycles with the fans running full blast is almost gone. Here and there the car still starts running the fans and a little AC but it's far less than before and far less frequent. Maybe once or twice a day. Before it was 6-10 times a day.
Unfortunately there is no easy way to clean the radiators without removing the front bumper. the center radiator can be hosed from the front pretty good. But the two radiators in the wheel arches are hard to reach.
If anyone has some ideas how to fix the damaged center radiator, please let me know. I'd hate to replace it.
On a different note, it shows once again (at least that's my experience) that Tesla's service people are not good. They just rely on the car's self diagnostic features. They only check for errors the car might report. If it doesn't, then that's all they are going to do and from their point of view, everything works fine. How can you not check the radiators if a customer says the car is showing excessive cooling activity? They don't even do a basic visual inspection. They don't trouble shoot issues.
