Georgesb2
George Borrelli
My outside temperature is stuck and remains on 68F no matter what the real temperature is. I don't know what causes this to be broken. I scheduled Tesla service to fix it. If there's a DIY fix, I'd like to know.
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Wrong outside temp reading
- Thread starter ACAG
- Start date
Georgesb2
George Borrelli
It just happened to my 2022 Tesla Model 3P.
Rodents got inside the frunk from the wheel openings under the plastic.
The temp sensor is centered. The wiring passes through and runs inside behind the front "grill" area. It's in a wiring harness there.
The rodents ate that wiring harness and another in several places.
Ouch!
I posted several videos on YouTube on the subject.
Shawn Woods does excellent experiments and proves what works and what doesn't work.
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Georgesb2
George Borrelli
I have a 2022 Model 3, so this is my understanding.
The temperature sensor is located “inside” what I call the radiator box. That box is sometimes alsocalled a heat exchanger. It's in a a box called and labeled Active Grill Shutter Assembly.
I believe there are motor controlled shutters to external air access to that box.
To access the temperature sensor, remove the funk plastic. You'll see a rubber boot center towards the front. That's t he connection to the temperature sensor. How do I know this? Rodents ate that wire and I had to replace the entire wiring harness involved. If that wire is chewed through, the temperature will be “stuck” and will not change at all. If the temperature changes but it's slow, that's likely kind of normal.
Consider that the box that the temperature sensor is locate inside of is inside the car, surrounded by heat producing components such as front motor (if you have one)and tires and wheels which get quite hot. Even as important is that the box has a lot of metal and fluids. That tends to slow the rate of change of the temperature there. That's a collection of heat producers and thermal mass. Thermal mass greatly slows down the rate of change of temperatures.
That temperature sensor isn't really a true reading of external temperature, instead it's a reading of the air in the box housing the radiator or heat exchanger. You can expect variations in there from the true external temperature. But if the car is moving through the air rapidly and the louvers are wide open, the temperature should be quite close to external ambient.
If your car is inside a garage for many hours, there's still residual heat in the box and the garage will tend to influence the overall temperature. It will take some time driving outdoors for the reading to be closer to the air ambient outside.
Also note that from my experience working on cars, in older cars, temperature sensors were thermistors. They have an inverse relationship to temperature. That is as the temperature goes down, the ohms or resistance goes up. The computer handles the rest. But I've found many old thermistors get out of calibration and eventually fail, often failing open.
While I wouldn't expect the temperature to be lower than ambient, it can be if the conditions are right for that. If the car was outside in colder weather when parked is one such condition. If the battery needs to be heated, it may have the effect of cooling down the radiator box. That might happen during overnight charging. These are guesses. But I'm not surprised to see initially that the external temperature is different from true ambient, either higher or lower until the car gathers enough air to bring the box closer to ambient.
A pretty good expose of that radiator is in this video:
Every car I have had does that. It takes time for the sensor to accommodate temperature changes. Especially if you keep it in a garage.
Better get used to it. When Elon removes your external sensor to save 25 cents, it's only going to get worse. I'm not happy about that. I have a long list of things I'm looking forward to in my next (last) Tesla, and removing things is not making that choice easy. Things I don't want to lose: steering wheel stalks, radar and temp sensors, tho maybe radar is coming back.
Sorry, my question was "Did you send your car in for repair before this temperature things happen?" Thanks for your response!
Thanks for your response! My question was "Did you send your car to the shop for repair?”
The outside temperature was 80F, but my car read 73F. My car was outside for hours.
Georgesb2
George Borrelli
I don't know if there's confusion. To clarify.
I only knew I had a problem after my outside temperature stayed stuck at a too low and wrong temp. So I had Tesla service to my home. They found the wiring was eaten. I had it replaced by them.
Now the outside temperature behaves more as I'd expect. To clarify, I scheduled service after the temperature issue. After the repair, no more issues for me.
I only knew I had a problem after my outside temperature stayed stuck at a too low and wrong temp. So I had Tesla service to my home. They found the wiring was eaten. I had it replaced by them.
Now the outside temperature behaves more as I'd expect. To clarify, I scheduled service after the temperature issue. After the repair, no more issues for me.
zumoney515
Member
Garage parked (around 55-65F all year round).
Outside temperature: 20F
Car shown: 51F for 15 minutes driving. Then, it dropped down to 22F very quickly after 15 minutes driving. I guess after reading all the posts, it's normal, just delayed.
Outside temperature: 20F
Car shown: 51F for 15 minutes driving. Then, it dropped down to 22F very quickly after 15 minutes driving. I guess after reading all the posts, it's normal, just delayed.
This has been my experience as well, but I’ll be honest…I never noticed it behaving this way until the last few updates. Prior to this, it was always fairly quick to update in my experience.
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