Cold weather observation

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adric22

Well-known member
Joined
Apr 23, 2010
Messages
2,488
Location
Fort Worth, TX
Well today was the first day to dip into freezing temperatures here in Texas since I got my Leaf earlier this Spring. I used my iPhone to turn on my heater about 10 minutes before we left the house. Of course the car was still plugged into the L2 EVSE. This is the first time I've done this. The car is garaged and it was great having the heater running without having to open the garage door (like I would have had to do with previous cars)

Second observation- which I find to be rather annoying. About a mile down the road the car beeped at me. I thought something was wrong. Eventually I realized it had displayed a message on the screen "vew low outside temperature." I mean REALLY? What is the point of that? I mean, how could a person not know it was cold outside, and why do they need the car to warn them about it?

Third observation- when sitting in traffic I noticed steam rising from all of the tailpipes around me. My car being the only one not doing that.

Fourth observation- When I left the garage I turned the heat off. The car was plenty warm plus I had a coat on. I arrived at work about 15 minutes later and the car was still warm. There was no need to actually run the heater while going down the road. Sure, if my commute were longer that might not hold true. It rarely gets much colder than this in Texas, sometimes in the 20's but rarely below that. So I'm fairly confident I will not need to use my heater in the car except for pre-heats.
 
Thanks for sharing. Good to know that the pre-heat works as well as it does, and I had not thought about not having to open the garage door while warming up the car. Nice.

I assume you do not have the cold weather package...will be interesting to know how well the heated seats reduce the need for running the heater even further.

Not excited about the car telling me it is cold outside. If it's saying 'very low temperature' in the 20's, wonder what it is going to tell me here in Minnesota when it's 20 below? 'Very f%$@ing cold out there?" :)
 
I had a Nissan Pathfinder that would beep when the temperature would go below freezing. I liked the fact that I was being warned about the possibility of there being black ice on the road. Nissan gets an a+ for that one. :idea:
 
the low temp warning can be turned off. there are instructions in the manual and a choice of having that feature on or off.

turn it off

there are no instructions in the manual on how to fix the "no steam from the tail pipe problem" :p
 
adric22 said:
Second observation- which I find to be rather annoying. About a mile down the road the car beeped at me. I thought something was wrong. Eventually I realized it had displayed a message on the screen "vew low outside temperature." I mean REALLY? What is the point of that? I mean, how could a person not know it was cold outside, and why do they need the car to warn them about it?
Click to expand...

Haha, I'm in TN and it's been below 30 degrees F several times in the last week and I have observed the same thing. The annoying part is that it will stay on the display for quite a while (long enough for me to have to manually turn off the warning).

I'm not sure if its an industry thing, or if it is just a Nissan thing, but on my 350Z there is a constant "ICEY" indicator on console dash instruments when it is below 30ish F. Kind of annoying, but I suppose the purpose is to make you aware of the possibility of ice on the roads... rather than "it's cold outside".
 
adric22 said:
Well today was the first day to dip into freezing temperatures here in Texas since I got my Leaf earlier this Spring. I used my iPhone to turn on my heater about 10 minutes before we left the house. Of course the car was still plugged into the L2 EVSE. This is the first time I've done this. The car is garaged and it was great having the heater running without having to open the garage door (like I would have had to do with previous cars)

Second observation- which I find to be rather annoying. About a mile down the road the car beeped at me. I thought something was wrong. Eventually I realized it had displayed a message on the screen "vew low outside temperature." I mean REALLY? What is the point of that? I mean, how could a person not know it was cold outside, and why do they need the car to warn them about it?

Third observation- when sitting in traffic I noticed steam rising from all of the tailpipes around me. My car being the only one not doing that.

Fourth observation- When I left the garage I turned the heat off. The car was plenty warm plus I had a coat on. I arrived at work about 15 minutes later and the car was still warm. There was no need to actually run the heater while going down the road. Sure, if my commute were longer that might not hold true. It rarely gets much colder than this in Texas, sometimes in the 20's but rarely below that. So I'm fairly confident I will not need to use my heater in the car except for pre-heats.
Click to expand...

Just alittle FYI watch your air recirc button. I have noticed that when i turn my heat off , it defaults to outside air and then the car cools off faster. just change it back to recirculation inside air. I left the garage warm but 10 min later I was cold and then I saw the car had moved to fresh air setting and blowing cold air in the car. Hope this help you stay warm. I am in East TX and hopefully want have to use the heater often.
 
The "low temperature" warning comes on when the outside temperature drops to 38° F. It hasn't bothered me. When I had a rental car in Germany around 10 years ago, it did the same thing, though the threshold might have been lower, like 34° F. I recall the car displaying a message in German urging caution.
 
My Jetta beeped at me the other day here in NH. I wondered what was wrong now! :roll:

I looked at the dash and saw the outside temperature was 39 deg. I said to myself, "Oh yeah. the temp is lower than 40." The cars do this to alert you to the fact that ice could form on the road at the current temp. At least it does it only once... well once each time the temp crosses from 40 to 39. :roll:

Hoping to place my LEAF order next month! :D
 
Did the exact same thing this morning (pre-heat). The other "benefit" is that--when you charge to 80%--it bumps the car up to 90% by the time you leave. In other words, you get a warm car with a little extra charge for the cold weather (which I seem to be needing). I'm beginning to think I may pre-heat BEFORE WORK in winter and pre-cool AFTER WORK in summer; good thing the A/C isn't quite as energy hungry as the heat (since I'm not plugged in after work).
 
Stanton said:
The other "benefit" is that--when you charge to 80%--it bumps the car up to 90% by the time you leave.
Click to expand...

How long do you let it preheat to get it to 90%? I'm ordering heated seat cushions from Wagan so I won't have to use the heater this winter. Contrary to what people may believe, it does get below freezing here during the night a couple days in Dec. and a lot of 40's (in the morning) during the winter months.
 
That low temperature warning came on for the first time in my Leaf just last week and I was actually a little scared that it might be some sort of warning that the car was about to shut down due to the batteries not liking the cold!
For a perfectly functioning vehicle, I've never had one that threw up so many warnings! Now if the message said, "Caution: Icy Roads Possible", well that I can understand - and it wouldn't scare me so much. ;)

Now as to the preheat feature, I find it very useful. The car has such excellent thermal insulation that after leaving with it preheated, I can actually travel for a good half hour and the car will remain at a comfortable temperature without needing to use the heater :D
 
Both my former 02 Maxima and 04 350Z had (non-audible) ICY warnings on their trip computers if the OAT got to 37 F or below.

One of my former coworkers mentioned BMWs (with a 3 series, pretty sure it was an E46) making a ding when the temp hit a certain cold threshold w/no context. It sounded like nothing was displayed anywhere as to the reason for the ding.
 
I had an E46 and, yes, it does ding to warn of possible black ice at 37F but it also illuminates a small snow flake on the dash as an indicator.
cwerdna said:
One of my former coworkers mentioned BMWs (with a 3 series, pretty sure it was an E46) making a ding when the temp hit a certain cold threshold w/no context. It sounded like nothing was displayed anywhere as to the reason for the ding.
Click to expand...
 
johnr said:
Now as to the preheat feature, I find it very useful. The car has such excellent thermal insulation that after leaving with it preheated, I can actually travel for a good half hour and the car will remain at a comfortable temperature without needing to use the heater :D
Click to expand...

How long did you preheat? I know only 5-10 minutes max is necessary. My SOC% never changed even a tenth after preheating for ten minutes and the car stayed warm for 30 minutes.
I did buy two Homedics massager/heat cushions ($20 each on sale at Kohls) for the cooler temps. The massage keeps my back from hurting while driving on moderate to long trips. I drove over a hundred miles RT Friday and for the first time, my back wasn't sore at all.
 
My Beetle had a snowflake indicator on the outside temp gauge to indicate potential icy conditions (it didn't beep, so you actually had to be looking right at the thermometer to see the snowflake--kind of redundant if you ask me).

However, like just about everything else on that "finely engineered" car, even a simple thing like that had its flaws. The snowflake didn't just appear (or disappear) when the temperature was below or above a certain temperature, but rather when it crossed that threshold (I guess that makes a little more sense when warning of icy conditions, since if it's 10 degrees out, yeah, it's pretty obvious that it might be icy!) Anyway, the problem is this: in the spring you get home on a cold evening when the temp is in the low 30's and the snowflake is showing. A heat wave arrives and by the time you leave the next morning the temp is 55 degrees. When you start the car the thermometer instantly reads 55, but it never actually rose past the threshold temp, so the snowflake doesn't disappear. This happened one spring and the temps never did go back down so I drove around all summer with the stupid snowflake on!
 

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