Contantly cooling while charging and driving

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finnurb

New member
Joined
Apr 4, 2015
Messages
1
HI,
I have a 2013 SL and recently it started to constantly run the coolant fan in the hood while charging and also when I start the car. The battery heat indicator has never gone above three bars so it is not a heat problem I assume. Any ideas ?
 
There is no cooling of the battery pack so battery temperature is not a consideration... The best guess is that it is the radiator fan for the liquid cooling loop. If it is running constantly, there is a problem.

finnurb said:
HI,
I have a 2013 SL and recently it started to constantly run the coolant fan in the hood while charging and also when I start the car. The battery heat indicator has never gone above three bars so it is not a heat problem I assume. Any ideas ?
 
You always hear the coolant pump running when it is charging but the fan should cycle on and off. It is a very different and much louder sound.

69800 said:
I have heard that too. I am guessing it is to keep the converter inverter cool while charging.....
 
TomT said:
You always hear the coolant pump running when it is charging but the fan should cycle on and off. It is a very different and much louder sound.
Yep, I've heard the coolant pump always running when charging but have never observed the radiator fan (or any fan) running while charging. Then again, I hardly charge at home and mostly charge at work. But, I have sometimes checked on my car while it's charging.

As for radiator fan running while driving, yes, it ALWAYS comes on for me if I either turn on the AC or heat on my '13 SV. OP, what if you turn those off or simply turn the HVAC to off?
 
I did not know it was water cooled. I see now that they are running a coolant line all the way to the rear of the car where the charger is located. Seems like it would have be easier to air cool it back there somehow.
 
I'm sure that running a couple of small coolant lines was actually much easier than providing the amount of air and ducting that would have been necessary to cool it by that means. It also makes for a smaller and more reliable charger.

69800 said:
I did not know it was water cooled. I see now that they are running a coolant line all the way to the rear of the car where the charger is located. Seems like it would have be easier to air cool it back there somehow.
 
Hi have exactly the same problem, I have a 2015 Leaf SV with 5000 miles on it, they decide to change the VCM, i had to wait 1 month before receiving the part, they change it monday and unfortunately this have not solve the problem, so they ordered an other part yesterday and suppose to change it today. So im driving a stupid Micra for over than a month now.

The Nissan service is very very bad, they never call for feedback, yesterday I open a complaint at Nissan Canada, I hope they can fix an arrangement for me.
 
Is this the same pump used for the car heater? If this pump failed would the computer know to stop the charging process in order to protect the charger?
 
godtian said:
Hi have exactly the same problem, I have a 2015 Leaf SV with 5000 miles on it, they decide to change the VCM, i had to wait 1 month before receiving the part, they change it monday and unfortunately this have not solve the problem, so they ordered an other part yesterday and suppose to change it today. So im driving a stupid Micra for over than a month now.

The Nissan service is very very bad, they never call for feedback, yesterday I open a complaint at Nissan Canada, I hope they can fix an arrangement for me.
I have the same car and I have the same problem, cooling fan is constantly running when charging. What was the part they changed to fix it? Thanks.
 
Likely problem with temperature (too high) or temperature measurement.
ELM bluetooth adapter can read codes. This would most likely show something.
You sure FANS are running? Blowing air under the hood?
Latest LeafSpy app shows some temperature readings, depending on Leaf year.
 
Do/can the radiator fans actually cool the battery? It got up into the 80's a couple of days last week and I saw 6 battery temp bars for the first time. But it cools down into the 40's, sometimes 30's at nights. I was thinking of hooking up the fans directly to a 12V battery (not necessarily the Leaf's 12V battery) and charging that battery with an automated battery charger. I was thinking of using a simple thermostat and relay to turn the fans on at temps lower than 50F and hopefully cool the battery down all night so it will have a hard time getting hot during the day.
 
Motor, inverter and onboard charger. Logic board does not get hot. Only power electronics (like inverter and charger,
both have losses, therefore lots of heat generated).
Well if your battery is like 10C above ambient, blowing air onto it would speed up cooling, but that only helps when
stationary and no charging/discharging/AC happens. And it's actually pointless.
 
arnis said:
Motor, inverter and onboard charger. Logic board does not get hot. Only power electronics (like inverter and charger,
both have losses, therefore lots of heat generated).
Well if your battery is like 10C above ambient, blowing air onto it would speed up cooling, but that only helps when
stationary and no charging/discharging/AC happens. And it's actually pointless.
Temperatures vary as much as 25*C between night and day.

Why would cooling the battery be pointless? Apparently the battery temp hovers around 25-30C. So when it's 3 or 5*C and the battery is 25*C or hotter I'd think it would help. Possibly.
 
It is extremely unlikely to get anything more than 10 degrees above ambient (without DC charging).
I've tried. So if it is 5C outside, battery might get to 15C at most (without DC).
After DC battery will cool down within 3-5 hours to levels mentioned above.
 
At what approx temps should the cooling fan come on while charging on level 2? It was in the mid 90F here and I was driving a lot and charging a lot. I can hear and feel the coolant pump running and the radiator is warm, the top of the stack is too hot to touch, the laser thermometer has it at 130F with the coolant lines going to the radiator about about the same. Shouldn't that fan be running?

The pack temp was 110F via Leafspy.

Granted this is unusually warm for us, I know in winter I am lucky if it is 10F above ambient in the garage at 30F and the stack at 40F while charging.
 
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