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I'm consistently being able to get both defrost and feet to work with recirculation. I'm just not sure how I'm doing it. I think that since it has been down below 0*F/15*C (it's been around -20*F all night) that when I turn on the heater to Auto it automatically selects defrost and feet. If I get defrost and feet by doing that then I can push the recirculation button and get recirculation and defrost and feet, or partial recirculation too if I hold the button down for a couple of seconds.

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-20F :shock: thats cold! At that temp have you noted the screens on the dash are veeerrrrrryyyyyy slow to switch? When it got down to -10F here earlier in the winter(we can get -20F or even -30F here but it's extremely rare, I haven't seen -20F since I got my Leaf) I noticed the screens had a large lag, like they were moving through molasses :lol: once the car warmed up the dash was back to normal but if it was that way at -10F I'm wondering how things worked at even colder.....
Interesting trick about the recirc + defrost, I'm not sure I've even tried AUTO as I never really use that mode(I dislike the fast fan speed it uses) but are you saying this trick doesn't work on more reasonable temps? I'll have to try it.
 
From what I can tell, Auto not only selects between heat, A/C and fan speed, it also selects which vents it will use. If the cabin temperature is close to the selected temperature it selects bi-level. If it's much colder it selects feet. And if it's much colder than that it selects feet and defrost.

Once you get feet and defrost you can turn on full or partial recirculation and then choose whatever fan speed or temp you want.

I'm going to play around with it a bit more to see if what I think is right. I'm guessing that turning the temp up to 90*F will make it more likely to go to feet and defrost on Auto.
 
IssacZachary said:
From what I can tell, Auto not only selects between heat, A/C and fan speed, it also selects which vents it will use.
Yes I believe that is true, it's why I don't really ever use AUTO because it selects a fan speed much higher than I prefer. Once you manually change something, whether it be fan speed or where the air goes, it turns AUTO off and goes into manual mode.
 
jjeff said:
Once you manually change something, whether it be fan speed or where the air goes, it turns AUTO off and goes into manual mode.
Yes but using Auto before pushing the recirculation button seems to be the only way to get the defrost and recirculation mode to work at the same time. And once it's recirculating it's back in manual mode again.

I have the habit of hitting Auto then selecting fan speed as a quick way to get out of defrost and not having to look to see if I'm selecting feet or not as I scroll through the different vent modes.
 
IssacZachary said:
jjeff said:
Once you manually change something, whether it be fan speed or where the air goes, it turns AUTO off and goes into manual mode.
.....
I have the habit of hitting Auto then selecting fan speed as a quick way to get out of defrost and not having to look to see if I'm selecting feet or not as I scroll through the different vent modes.
Sounds like a good tip, I'll give it a shot and report back how it works. I'll try it on my '13S I'm driving today and later on my '12SL who's dash looks just like your photo.
 
Yes, let's get this documented! If it works consistently we have a great new Tip/Trick for frigid weather. I never use Auto either, because it rarely selects a mode and speed with which I agree. Well done, Issac. Zachary?
 
Ok. So this is what I have so far. Mind you I had a thing or two backwards.:

2013 SL. Testing done between -20°F and 6°F. The following conditions, so far, need to be met:

  1. The ambient temperature needs to be very cold. I'm not sure how cold. I do know that if it's cold enough for the heat pump to not come on it's cold enough for this to work.
  2. The actual cabin temperature can't be too much colder than the climate control "thermostat" temperature. This means the cabin must be preheated somehow, or the heater left on for quite a while. Also the climate control "thermostat" can't be set too high.
  3. Use the Auto button. If the previous conditions are met, then when you use the Auto button you will see it automatically adjusts the vents to defrost and feet, as well as adjusts the fan speed automatically.
  4. Turn on recirculation or partial recirculation. After you get the defrost and feet option from using the Auto feature you can now turn on recirculation and still have feet and defrost. You can also adjust your fan speed and "thermostat" to whatever you want because it will be out of Auto mode once you touch the recirculation button. I do believe you have to also turn full recirculation one once to switch from Auto to manual mode before pressing it for a couple seconds to get partial recirculation.

What seems to be happening is this. Normally when Auto is used it selects the vents to be used depending on the cabin temperature, namely; dash vents when A/C is on, bi-level (feet and dash vents) when it needs to slightly warm the cabin air, and feet vents when the cabin is much cooler than the desired temperature.

But when the ambient outside temperature is extremely cold it does this; defrost and feet vents when it needs to slightly warm the cabin air, and feet only vents when the cabin is much cooler than the desired temperature.

Basically, at very cold ambient temperatures the Auto function replaces defrost where it would normally use dash vents along with the feet vents. And for some reason when it does that it also allows you to chose recirculating air.
 
So, with the outside temps colder than 15F? 10F? if we first heat the cabin to about 72 (that alone might be hard - are you sure the actual cabin temp has to be that mild? - then engage Auto, it should switch to Floor+Defrost and then let us use Recirculate. We aren't expecting any frigid temps here for a while, so I won't be able to experiment. I have a thermometer/hygrometer for the cabin, though, and it's usually reading in the forties or fifties (F) even when the cabin feels ok in very cold weather...you may want to pick up a cheap thermometer for the cabin.
 
To preheat the inside at -20°F in the mornings I have the preheat timer come on automatically which is set to 70°F. I also had another 1,500W heater I place on the rear seat this morning. It's also been sunny all day for the past few days, which also helps keep the interior warm.

When I drive around I have the heat set at 60°F. So when I first get into the car and press Auto it goes to heat, floor/defrost mode with the fan speed about middle. But if I keep increasing the thermostat to 70°, 80° or 90°F the fan speed increases and at some point it goes to floor vents only. If I lower the thermostat it goes back to floor/defrost.
 
Regarding cold weather driving --

I'm pretty happy with low setting seat heating and enough outside air ventilation to keep the humidity down so that the glass does not fog up. The car stays at ~ 4.5 miles/kWh.

Admittedly I've only tried this down to the mid 20s F for trips under 30 minutes, my climate is dry, and I am not cold sensitive so long as I am wearing gloves. YMMV
 
A problem that I'm having that this feature (or glitch) solves it's that when it's this cold (it's -27°F/-33°C right now) is that any sort of moisture, including breath, doesn't fog the window windows, it freezes to the windows. So instead of scraping the inside of the windows this gets the inside air blowing onto the windshield hot enough to melt and blow it off. If I turn on the normal defroster the inside air temperature drops instead of rises because it's trying to heat up -27°F air.

I'm actually tempted to build some sort of auxiliary heater for my Leaf because of the super cold temperatures we experience here in Gunnison. I'd prefer it to be electric powered, but even if it were fuel powered at least fuel heating can be +90% efficient.
 
I've noticed the "cold spot" in my Leaf is about 18-22F, this is cold enough that the heat pump can't really make any heat. Even at full it's probably only 75F maximum. Add on that driving at night with no sun and it's at the point where the heater isn't really heating the car any more.

Once you drop below 18F then the restistive heater kicks in, you'll see your CC power consumption go from 1.5kw to over 3kw. My question; has anyone found a way to "force" the resistive heater to come on at higher temperatures? I would like to be warm on journeys I'm not range limited.

And yes, if someone finds a way to override recirculate in defrost mode you win the thread.
 
jjeff said:
IssacZachary said:
jjeff said:
Once you manually change something, whether it be fan speed or where the air goes, it turns AUTO off and goes into manual mode.
.....
I have the habit of hitting Auto then selecting fan speed as a quick way to get out of defrost and not having to look to see if I'm selecting feet or not as I scroll through the different vent modes.
Sounds like a good tip, I'll give it a shot and report back how it works. I'll try it on my '13S I'm driving today and later on my '12SL who's dash looks just like your photo.
Well I tried to use AUTO and recirc to work on both my Leafs but on both when I pushed the recirc button while in auto it wouldn't go on, just like I didn't push the button.
Now admittedly it wasn't that cold when I tried it, 20s to low 30s and it sounds like later in this thread you mentioned it had to be colder but I think for now I'll just stick to my normal floor + windshield, fan set to either 1 or 2 and temp set to 77, or any high number and I'll just have to pay the price in running 100% fresh air. I know others have had luck with floor only keeping the windshield clear enough but whenever I've tried that it starts fogging over within several minutes :(
 
jjeff said:
Well I tried to use AUTO and recirc to work on both my Leafs but on both when I pushed the recirc button while in auto it wouldn't go on, just like I didn't push the button.
Now admittedly it wasn't that cold when I tried it, 20s to low 30s and it sounds like later in this thread you mentioned it had to be colder but I think for now I'll just stick to my normal floor + windshield, fan set to either 1 or 2 and temp set to 77, or any high number and I'll just have to pay the price in running 100% fresh air. I know others have had luck with floor only keeping the windshield clear enough but whenever I've tried that it starts fogging over within several minutes :(
When you push Auto does it automatically chose defrost? If you hit Auto then manually select defrost it won't work.
 
IssacZachary said:
jjeff said:
Well I tried to use AUTO and recirc to work on both my Leafs but on both when I pushed the recirc button while in auto it wouldn't go on, just like I didn't push the button.
Now admittedly it wasn't that cold when I tried it, 20s to low 30s and it sounds like later in this thread you mentioned it had to be colder but I think for now I'll just stick to my normal floor + windshield, fan set to either 1 or 2 and temp set to 77, or any high number and I'll just have to pay the price in running 100% fresh air. I know others have had luck with floor only keeping the windshield clear enough but whenever I've tried that it starts fogging over within several minutes :(
When you push Auto does it automatically chose defrost? If you hit Auto then manually select defrost it won't work.
No when I push auto it only goes to floor......again probably because it's not cold enough out?
When in AUTO if I push any button(manually select direction, fan speed, A/C, etc.) auto immediately goes off. Other buttons like recirc just don't do anything, like I didn't push the button.
 
Here's a little tip: check out your front undertray. I was just looking at mine and noticed that it had torn from its mounts and the front corners were hanging down under the car. The undertray is made from some kind of fiberboard and simply tore. Most likely caused by the previous owner pulling too far into parking barriers or curbs and scraping it repeatedly. Just throwing away kilowatts with this not fastened correctly.

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After

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Leaf that have HEAT button on CC panel:
AUTO engages partial recirculation if heat is needed.
No need to hold recirculation button, it just defaults back
recirculation mode into AUTO (aka third-recirculation if heating engaged).

AUTO almost always keeps airflow setting at defrost+feet in cold (sub-freezing) weather.
Only if there is a lot of sunshine and cabin is fully warmed up, it might switch to feet.

PS! Selecting FEET actually keeps defrost vents active with limited airflow.
To save energy (and it's not very damp) you can manually select FEET, glass will not fog up.
To have more air to the feet or defrost while in defrost+feet or feet mode, close left and right face-went.
To save even more manually stuff up rear passenger foot ventilation.

Selecting face+feet will totally block airflow to windscreen, same with face only.

Also full recirculation is possible with defrost only on newer CC panels with HEAT button.
Just select defrost with MODE button and push recirculation. Useless mode, it fogs up.


TIP: if you want to keep Leaf running with heater working and also want to save juice, push
recirculation button when you exit the vehicle (and there is nobody inside). It will not fog up
as there is no moisture buildup. Except if everything inside is wet :lol:
 
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