No Heat - brrrr

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hilts50

Member
Joined
Sep 3, 2021
Messages
9
Location
Minnesota
This is my first winter with my recently purchased 2022 Leaf S Plus. Things have been going really well until the last two days. We have had a little cold spell, the first of the winter and it's going to get much colder through the winter so this has me concerned.

Yesterday I woke up to -10ºF temperatures and I unplugged my fully charged pre heated to 73ºF car that was parked in my unheated garage. This really helps keep temperatures quite a bit warmer than outside, but still cold in the garage. On my 40 mile drive to work the fist 6 miles was through 8" of new snow on the un plowed road. This did cause snow to blow into the motor compartment. Other than that everything was fine. Temps in the car held up okay.

I parked the car outside at work not plugged in for about 8 hours and the temps warmed up to a high of about -1ºF during the day. When I got in the car to go home I set the heater to 75ºF and for the 45 min drive home it never produced any heat. I was a chilly ride for sure.

I got home and put the car in the garage and plugged it in. I also fired up a wood stove I have in the garage to warm things up thinking it would melt out any snow that had been compacted into the front due to driving through the snow that morning. After I went inside and got warmed up I came back out about 45 min later and turned on the car and checked the blower. It started to produce heat.

This morning on my way to work I had the same experience where I had heat on the way to work. Then I had to run to a meeting mid morning and i didn't have any heat on the way to that meeting.

Anyone have an idea what might be causing this?

One thing to note is my battery temperature has been low, but not in the too low markings.

Thanks,

Bill
 
Are you using ECO mode? ECO mode limits how much power the heater uses and that limit might be too low to be comfortable at sub-zero temps.

The S only has a resistance heater and they have been know to break but I'd assume that if broken it would never work at all. I've never heard of one being intermittent.
 
No matter what the problem is, the car is obviously still under warranty...so a trip to the dealer would be advised. You can always come back to the forum and do a post mortem (for others).
 
We also have an S plus without the heat pump and only the resistance heater but even in Eco mode it always has worked (so far). It is true that switching the car out of Eco mode allows the resistance heater to draw more power (per LeafSpy) but even at ten below F ours has always been sufficient in Eco- and, the power draw from driving at ten below not using Eco and using the heater means that you never actually get where you are going. These cars do not shine at these temperatures....
 
hilts50 said:
I parked the car outside at work not plugged in for about 8 hours and the temps warmed up to a high of about -1ºF during the day. When I got in the car to go home I set the heater to 75ºF and for the 45 min drive home it never produced any heat. I was a chilly ride for sure.
That's certainly not normal for anyone here. The S Trim (someone correct me if I'm wrong), has no heat-pump, so other than the blower fan, it should be a quiet heat up for the climate control. Since it can use up to 6 kW of power for heat, I can't see any situation where the cabin would not be warm and toasty on the inside unless one was driving on the dark side of the moon. It would almost have to be a heater element failure in this case.

Since this is your first post, you will probably get a lot of "obvious" questions, but don't feel bad, a lot of times, newbies to the EV have to find out about the "quirks" when they encounter them. :D
 
goldbrick said:
Are you using ECO mode? ECO mode limits how much power the heater uses and that limit might be too low to be comfortable at sub-zero temps.

The S only has a resistance heater and they have been know to break but I'd assume that if broken it would never work at all. I've never heard of one being intermittent.

I believe it is on eco mode, I can try that tomorrow. Thanks!
 
Stanton said:
No matter what the problem is, the car is obviously still under warranty...so a trip to the dealer would be advised. You can always come back to the forum and do a post mortem (for others).

Unfortunately I live 4 hours from the dealer. I called them and they said bring it in if it continues to be a problem, but with that distance, Im trying to figure out what might be the issue to see if I can maybe resolve it on my own.

Fun times. :)
 
Hi, I just saw this thread so I registered to comment.

This morning (Dec 8) I got no heating in our leaf.

It's a SV+ 2022...

-20 degree Celsius.

I preheated the car via the app. The app is a real nightmare by the way (coming from a Tesla X before the leaf).

When leaving, the car was not preheated (but acting like it was) and I got zero heating for my 20 minutes trip. Only the 2/4 bottom of the windshield was defrosted (heat from the electric motor I think).

I will let it in a heated garage and check back tomorrow.

In the same time the other leaf when have (2014 SV) lost power brakes and steering. The dash is illuminated like a Christmas tree. Really dangerous driving. It's now in a heated garage with the acc. battery unplugged and charging.

I did not try the third leaf (a 2012 SL) since at this point I'm becoming paranoid.

I think the heater problem is probably cause by the heat pump on the 2022. I'll check tomorrow if it's still not working. The car has 3000km...

I already had cold weather problems in 6 years of ownership with the 2014 who where fixed by maintenance on the ACC battery and a night stay in a heated garage.
 
Seb34567 said:
I think the heater problem is probably cause by the heat pump on the 2022. I'll check tomorrow if it's still not working. The car has 3000km...

Like mentioned above, this car is also covered by the warranty and I'd bring it into the dealership if only to start a paper trail with Nissan about a problem.
 
Seb34567 said:
Hi, I just saw this thread so I registered to comment.

This morning (Dec 8) I got no heating in our leaf.

It's a SV+ 2022...

-20 degree Celsius.
Where do you live that it's -20 degrees C?
I'm actually curious if a 12v disconnect (how do you charge with the 12v battery disconnected??) "fixed" the power brakes/steering problem on the Gen1 Leaf. Sounds like there may be issues with the Gen2 heaters as well.
 
Stanton said:
Seb34567 said:
Hi, I just saw this thread so I registered to comment.

This morning (Dec 8) I got no heating in our leaf.

It's a SV+ 2022...

-20 degree Celsius.
Where do you live that it's -20 degrees C?
I'm actually curious if a 12v disconnect (how do you charge with the 12v battery disconnected??) "fixed" the power brakes/steering problem on the Gen1 Leaf. Sounds like there may be issues with the Gen2 heaters as well.

Quebec, Canada. It will go easily to -40 in January lol.

I disconnected one battery post and put a smart 10amp charger on it. Each time I've done this one the gen1 it fixed the trouble. I'm looking for a lithium battery replacement right now.
 
jlv said:
Seb34567 said:
I think the heater problem is probably cause by the heat pump on the 2022. I'll check tomorrow if it's still not working. The car has 3000km...

Like mentioned above, this car is also covered by the warranty and I'd bring it into the dealership if only to start a paper trail with Nissan about a problem.

Yes, thx for the input. Since dealer is far I already texted them to state the trouble. I will of course drop them the car if still problematic tomorrow.
 
After a night in the garage the problem was gone...

Strange.

I'll drop it to the dealer anyway if problem goes back.

If not I'll ask them to check it at the next maintenance.

The 2014 lost heating this morning, but the other problems are gone after the same treatment.

Like another user told me, I ordered a lithium replacement battery to end these trouble
 
Like another user told me, I ordered a lithium replacement battery to end these trouble

Unfortunately, extreme cold is the Achilles Heel of lithium starter batteries. I really hope that the battery you ordered is LiFePo4/LFP, and incorporates a self-warming system. My advice would have been to go with an AGM battery...
 
LeftieBiker said:
Like another user told me, I ordered a lithium replacement battery to end these trouble

Unfortunately, extreme cold is the Achilles Heel of lithium starter batteries. I really hope that the battery you ordered is LiFePo4/LFP, and incorporates a self-warming system. My advice would have been to go with an AGM battery...

I can only vouch for mine down to roughly 6F (-14C) as that is the coldest temperature my battery had to endure (and that was only for several days, not weeks/months)

Maybe I should do an experiment and freeze a Lithium starter battery (without the self-warming) down to -40F/C for a few days and then rush it out to my Leaf with some quick connect leads and see if it can turn it on. If it can, watch how much current tries to go back into it, see if the battery melts or fails, etc. Anyone got an extra 12V Lithium battery to send my way? ;)
 
knightmb said:
Maybe I should do an experiment and freeze a Lithium starter battery (without the self-warming) down to -40F/C for a few days and then rush it out to my Leaf with some quick connect leads and see if it can turn it on. If it can, watch how much current tries to go back into it, see if the battery melts or fails, etc. Anyone got an extra 12V Lithium battery to send my way? ;)
I wouldn't advise that as most of these Lithium starter batteries have operating temps 0 degrees C and above, and storage temps -20 degrees C and above. Before you go freaking out, it is possible to warm them a bit by running a small amount of current (like turning on the headlights) if they become too cold. However, it will be interesting to see if they do better in the "low-cranking" environment of an EV.
 
Stanton said:
knightmb said:
Maybe I should do an experiment and freeze a Lithium starter battery (without the self-warming) down to -40F/C for a few days and then rush it out to my Leaf with some quick connect leads and see if it can turn it on. If it can, watch how much current tries to go back into it, see if the battery melts or fails, etc. Anyone got an extra 12V Lithium battery to send my way? ;)
I wouldn't advise that as most of these Lithium starter batteries have operating temps 0 degrees C and above, and storage temps -20 degrees C and above. Before you go freaking out, it is possible to warm them a bit by running a small amount of current (like turning on the headlights) if they become too cold. However, it will be interesting to see if they do better in the "low-cranking" environment of an EV.

Neither of us would :lol: , but in a controlled test environment, if something goes bad, at least it could be caught on video as a warning to others not to do that. ;)
 
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