Motor Temp

[Botbldr45]

My roadster #992 is displaying a "Motor Fan Fault" over the past few days. Lucky the VDS is in debug mode so I can read the motor temp in C but the green to yellow to red indicator lights don't seem to be doing anything. OVMS gives me temp in F and it is up around 130 during short trips but I don't know if motor cooling fan is faulted or not. I can hear the PEM fans when I get out of car. To complicate things....... before I left MD for AZ the car had it's yearly service and the tech said I had a loose wire on "a fan" so he tightened it. No I didn't drive it .......it way shipped.

My question is ....... with an uncertain "fan" situation, what is the normal yellow line temps for a 2.5 Sport?
What is the redline temp for the motor?

Trying to decide if I can drive the car the 125miles to Scottsdale or have it towed.

Thanks for any opinions given.

 

[gregd]

You might try to pull the logs and see if something else is going on. If nothing else, it will show the history for the motor temp (at least, what the car thinks the motor temp is), and you can judge if the curve matches your driving and outside temps.

I've got a sensor that according to the SC is apparently going out, with a lot of 1116 errors that don't show up on the VDS. What I do see is a very infrequent "power limited" message on the dash, when the car thinks the motor is overheated. Looking at the graph, I once saw the motor temp going up while I was parked, and this after a leisurely down-hill commute in the early morning.

 

[hcsharp]

130 deg F is not very hot for the motor. I have the temps associated with each color bar on the temp display screen on my computer at work. I'll look it up tomorrow.

 

[bolosky]

I had the same thing happen a couple of weeks ago. I got the fault, then watched the temp go up, though not to an amount that seemed dangerous, maybe to something like 109C, which wasn't even in the yellow, IIRC. (I find it hard to believe that people are saying 103F is hot; I suspect you've got your units confused.)

I used to get the motor much hotter tracking the car; motor overheating would limit my runs. Nothing obviously bad ever happened from that.

I took it in to service the next morning (with the temp climbing, but never getting even that high). They told me that the fan is in fact dead, and that they need to replace it for something like $1500.

The bad news is that a connector from the PEM (presumably to the motor, though they weren't all that clear) melted (!) and needed to be replaced. This entails sending the PEM to the Tesla factory, and I'm still waiting for it to come back after a couple of weeks.

So, you should certainly take your car in to at least get it checked.

 

[Botbldr45]

@hcsharp thanks for helping ..... Again ...... Those temps would be helpful in my decision to drive or tow to SC.
@bolosky truly a horror story to be remembered..... I will go to SC in Scottsdale without a doubt........ Just how is the question?

 

[bolosky]

Yeah, that is a good question. I drove in about 15 miles gently, and the motor didn't seem to get hot at all (at least less than it did the night before when the failure happened and I was on the freeway a couple of miles from home, but with an already warm motor). I don't know whether the connector melted the first or second day. Other than the failed fan warning, the car was running fine when I dropped it off, so the melting hadn't yet affected the function of the car.

 

[BartJ]

My roadster #992 is displaying a "Motor Fan Fault" over the past few days. Lucky the VDS is in debug mode so I can read the motor temp in C but the green to yellow to red indicator lights don't seem to be doing anything. OVMS gives me temp in F and it is up around 130 during short trips but I don't know if motor cooling fan is faulted or not. I can hear the PEM fans when I get out of car. To complicate things....... before I left MD for AZ the car had it's yearly service and the tech said I had a loose wire on "a fan" so he tightened it. No I didn't drive it .......it way shipped.

My question is ....... with an uncertain "fan" situation, what is the normal yellow line temps for a 2.5 Sport?
What is the redline temp for the motor?

Trying to decide if I can drive the car the 125miles to Scottsdale or have it towed.

Thanks for any opinions given.

I had same issue over and over since a year.
SC was not able to diagnose the issue ( they proposed a new PEM , but i could not believe that)

After many research I was able to permanently fix this issue myself by replacing the motor/pem fan connector underneath the PEM ( see thread : #1146 DMC Motor Fan Problem? )

These connectors are crap , the are underrated for this amperage, resulting in errors and even in burned wires/plugs...

 

[Botbldr45]

That makes tons of sence because the last thing the Rockville SC did before I left Md was " tighten a connector to one of the fans"! Well, guess what ...... Possibly not tight enough or something is getting smoked under there. Still in the diagnosis phase myself ........ Sun just coming up in Sedona so temps are in low 70's........ Heading out to see what lower temps do to the fault.

 

[BartJ]

That makes tons of sence because the last thing the Rockville SC did before I left Md was " tighten a connector to one of the fans"! Well, guess what ...... Possibly not tight enough or something is getting smoked under there. Still in the diagnosis phase myself ........ Sun just coming up in Sedona so temps are in low 70's........ Heading out to see what lower temps do to the fault.

The bad connection is not temp related.
Higher temperatures just make the fans come on more often , thus resulting in more frequent errors...

 

[gregd]

The bad connection is not temp related.
Higher temperatures just make the fans come on more often , thus resulting in more frequent errors...

Exactly. But do get the problem corrected. A burned contact on the cable is a relatively easy fix. The mating one on the PEM, not so much.

 

[Roadster]

Bumping this thread and hoping to expand it a bit to include the PEM and battery temps since we're about to get up into the 90s here in SoCal...

130 deg F is not very hot for the motor. I have the temps associated with each color bar on the temp display screen on my computer at work. I'll look it up tomorrow.

@hcsharp, do you happen to have those color bar temperature ranges associated with each bar for the motor? Do you also have the same for the PEM and batteries? They'd be great to document here, thx.

Some addl. questions for the board...

1. Does anyone know what the optimal operating temperatures for all three key components shown on the temp display should be?
2. More importantly, is there any major concern if the gauges move into the yellow as long as they eventually slide back down to the blue?
3. Finally, what are the "Danger, Will Robinson!" temps for each component?

Thx in advance for the replies.

 

[Curt]

do you happen to have those color bar temperature ranges associated with each bar for the motor? Do you also have the same for the PEM and batteries? They'd be great to document here, thx.

You can find a discussion of these here: Vitals: What do those temperature bars mean?

 

[Roadster]

Ah, perf, thx @Curt. Thoughts on the other questions?

 

[gregd]

Thoughts on the other questions?

Cooler is always better ... If you're just driving around town, even on the freeway (level, not climbing a steep hill at warp speed), I've never seen any of the three bars get into the yellow region. At worst, right below. During our summers (which peak into the low 100's here), the A/C will definitely come on to cool the battery (to the sufferment of the passengers), and the motor and PEM might just peek into the yellow, but shouldn't stay there. If the PEM climbs right to the top blue even when doing city driving, you're probably due for a cleaning. I also found out last fall that there was a wiring change for the PEM Fan at one point (or an error in wiring my car at some point in the past). My PEM is running a lot cooler now that it has been corrected. It used to zip up to the top blue within a minute or two of starting out in the morning, which seemed a bit weird.

In general the car will try to protect itself by limiting power if things get too hot. The "Power Limited" indicator on the dash will come on if so, and you will notice a significant and sudden drop in power, as a warning to back off a bit. But especially if you have a 2.x car, do get the air channels cleaned out at least yearly. Best time is in the Spring, after the pollen has fallen, and before all the heat. I think the 1.5's did a better job at breathing clean air, though not as efficiently. The 2.x's tend to double as street sweepers, vacuuming up all the debris off the roads, packing it chipmunk-style into the motor and PEM as we drive. Think of it as a community service...

 

[Roadster]

Thx @gregd. Sage advice to schedule the annual service and PEM cleaning in late Spring just before the heat of Summer. Noted!