Welcome to Tesla Motors Club
Discuss Tesla's Model S, Model 3, Model X, Model Y, Cybertruck, Roadster and More.
Register

Help Me Fix My S85

This site may earn commission on affiliate links.
Hey all. I recently (2 days ago) purchased a 2013 salvaged S85. I know what you're thinking. "Tesla won't service that." "You don't have any warranty." "You'll never be able to use it on a Supercharger". "You're an idiot, why did you buy that?" The simple answer is I paid next to nothing for the car. It was a crime of opportunity. It runs and drives just fine and doesn't look like it's been in an accident but it has mechanical details that still need help.

I know very few have been down this road before so I'm not expecting a bunch of people to chime in with help but if you do have experience here or you're aware of someone that does, I would love it if you'd point them to this thread.

Here's the main problem I'm up against. My air conditioning doesn't work. The display says it's turning on and the louvers in front of the AC condensers open up but the compressor never comes on and the air doesn't get cold (obviously). Now I'm not too concerned about the cabin temperature but what I am concerned about is the battery cooling and the batteries use the AC system as either a primary or secondary cooler in addition to the radiator at the front of the car. I haven't run into any battery cooling issues yet and it's been pretty hot here in Socal but I'd still like to have this fixed.

From what I can tell my system has a charge. That's good. But the compressor simply isn't turning on.

Now if anyone has read up until now and wants to offer a guess or tell me where they'd look I'd love that but if you don't know or aren't sure, let me pose a question. My ambient air temperature sensor is missing. On the touchscreen the temperature just shows as three dashes because there's no signal. I have the sensor on order but what I'm trying to figure out is if the model S has a temperature at which it will not turn the AC compressor on at all and perhaps my problem is simply that missing sensor. So, those of you with a few Model S winters under your belt, are you aware of a temperature at which the AC does not turn on in the Model S?

Any other help/ input is appreciated.
 
Thanks guys. I did just contact Otmar, so thank you for that.

I can at least confirm that my compressor came on when it was 50 deg when I demisted my windscreen the other night.


I know on past cars it's been about 25 - 40 degrees as the threshold. I'm not even sure this is the problem as I imagine if the battery needed the compressor turned on to cool it, it would over-ride any sensor data but it's just a guess at this point.
 
Alright, two problems solved for the price of one!

I put a potentiometer in the ambient air temperature circuit and once the car registered an outside temperature the AC compressor kicked right on. Problem solved. I already ordered the ambient air temperature sensor from Tesla yesterday so I'll have that problem fixed permanently as soon as that arrives. What's odd about all this is that there doesn't appear to be a situation where the car will turn the AC on without input from this sensor and it doesn't give you a warning light or anything to tell you the system isn't working.

The car also had an air suspension light on though the suspension worked just fine. That disappeared when it started registering a temperature as well. I can only assume that system uses ambient air to determine how long to keep the air compressor on.

Now I just have an airbag light to chase down but I'm missing a knee airbag so that one is pretty obvious.