Heater Questions

[guinn]

I took my 2021 MachE to the dealer because creating a departure time was not heating the interior as it should. I did not have any good way to tell if the battery was being conditioned. (This has worked fine for about 2 years.) The dealership's service department said it was working fine for them. I've been getting some charger fault indications on the car, so I thought I would take the car home and try using the 240V charger that came with the car.

After I left the dealership, I noticed that the heater did not appear to be working. There was no warm air coming out of the lower outlets. I drove about 5 miles and then returned to the dealership. Today they told me that was because the car was sitting out in the cold (20's overnight) and not plugged in, so it would take a while to heat up. I've never had it take more than a few seconds for the heater to start putting out warm air from the lower outlets (by your feet). I tried both manual and auto modes, but there was no heat. (I don't recall using the E-heat function.)

They then told me that they have a document that discusses how the heating system works. I was under the impression that the heater was purely a resistive electrical heating system. But they told me that the car actually uses a fluid which is heated (or cooled) using energy from the battery. That's why it would take some time to generate hot air.

This seems completely at odds with my experience over the last 2 years, but I thought I would see what the folks on this forum thought. Not having heat when it is cold outside doesn't really work! Thanks for any help.

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[tannerk89]

The same resistive heater is used to heat both the battery pack and the passenger compartment. If the pack is very cold the car will direct most of the heaters energy into conditioning the battery, heating/cooling depending on ambient temp. That greatly reduces the heaters effectiveness in the cabin.

Departure heat cool not working correctly could be tied to the settings for your car. I know for auto start there’s a setting for auto or use last hvac settings. If you have use last selected and you had the heat/ac off when you turned off the car, it won’t heat it up when the auto start is used. You could try switching the auto start climate setting to auto and see if that helps.

 

[Mach-Lee]

Shut off the HVAC and then touch the AUTO button to turn it on again in AUTO mode.

Hopefully you know this, but a reminder there will be no heat produced if E-heat is off. E-heat is the ONLY heat source.

The coolant is heated by a PTC heater using power from the battery. It should only take a minute or two to produce heat. If not then you don't have E-heat on or have a broken PTC heater.

If your car is displaying errors, those need to be addressed. Your car should not be having charge faults, do not ignore those. You may need a new EVSE.

 

[guinn]

Shut off the HVAC and then touch the AUTO button to turn it on again in AUTO mode.

Hopefully you know this, but a reminder there will be no heat produced if E-heat is off. E-heat is the ONLY heat source.

The coolant is heated by a PTC heater using power from the battery. It should only take a minute or two to produce heat. If not then you don't have E-heat on or have a broken PTC heater.

If your car is displaying errors, those need to be addressed. Your car should not be having charge faults, do not ignore those. You may need a new EVSE.

The car is at the dealership right now, so I can't check out some of these things. If I go to AUTO mode and the temperature setting is 72 degrees, and it's cold outside, I would expect the car to turn on the heat. Are you saying I would have to manually turn on E-heat? I've never had to do this before.

Thanks for the info.

 

[Mach-Lee]

The car is at the dealership right now, so I can't check out some of these things. If I go to AUTO mode and the temperature setting is 72 degrees, and it's cold outside, I would expect the car to turn on the heat. Are you saying I would have to manually turn on E-heat? I've never had to do this before.

Thanks for the info.

No, if you turn it off/on and use AUTO it should automatically turn on the E-heat if it needs to.

 

[guinn]

That's what I thought.

With respect to the charger faults, I have a ChargePoint charger that has always worked well, but I started getting a red flashing on the button/lights next to the port when I unplugged. The dealer said the car showed a fault from the charger. Of course, it seems to charge the car just fine. When I get the car back, I will check out the charger that came with the car and see if the same thing happens.

Thanks.

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