AC has a mind of its own

AC started acting up @ 3200 miles.. Last night on the way home from work at midnight and a outside temp of 95, I started to get warm and noticed that the AC changed from recirculation to direct outside air and the air vents went from top to bottom for air circulation..
I kept hitting the recirculation button but the car would not budge, it wanted to keep the direct air coming into the car instead..

Should I bring this in for service or is there something that I should do to correct the issue ?

Is the AC in the Auto mode?

The LEAF has a scent sensor that redirects air from the outside when there is something outside worth smelling, perhaps you were near a flower garden. You can set some favorite smells in the NAV or choose from categories like, fast food, cut grass, etc.

You forgot the ever popular "Eau of Manliness", for the diesel aficionados among us.

mark13 said:

AC started acting up @ 3200 miles.. Last night on the way home from work at midnight and a outside temp of 95, I started to get warm and noticed that the AC changed from recirculation to direct outside air and the air vents went from top to bottom for air circulation..
I kept hitting the recirculation button but the car would not budge, it wanted to keep the direct air coming into the car instead..

Should I bring this in for service or is there something that I should do to correct the issue ?

Click to expand...

Something's busted. Pushing recirc should always override the auto mode.

I know this is not an answer to your problem since you said it was 95 outside, but for others...

A little bit similar situation - and it goes with the title of this thread:
One morning when it was about 75 outside I turned the A/C on because the car was stuffy. I was surprised when the car told me turn off Climate Control for +8 miles - because even when it is over 96 outside I can get "turn CC off for only +2 or +3 miles. Then noticed that the air was coming out the bottom vents and figured out the heater (not A/C!) was on. I keep temp. set to 78 for the hot afternoons. This is going to be a pain if I am going to have to keep turning the temp. setting down in the mornings to keep the heater from coming on.

ecoobsessive said:

This is going to be a pain if I am going to have to keep turning the temp. setting down in the mornings to keep the heater from coming on.

Click to expand...

I got bad news for you. That's exactly what you have to do as far as I can tell. In coastal SoCal I virtually never need Heat and only want AC occasionally. I usually just want the fan to run. The only way I can reliably get that effect is to manually turn off the AC, turn the temp way down, and control the fan speed myself. It takes quite a few presses, too as the AC has a tendency to turn back on when I change the fan speed the first time. My other cars, turning off AC also killed the heater, so turning off the AC was all I had to do. This car really needs an ECO mode or something that JUST uses the fan.

I get the same sort of thing in SoCal. The outside temp gauge is always way off as well, which makes it even worse. Today I hit the big AC button and was able to get just the fan to go and stay on recirculate. Any time you turn off the air, it always switches to outside. However, this isn't as bad as our 70K audi that just switches back to outside every time you turn off the car no matter what. Although it would suck to blue screen all the time (especially while driving in traffic!) , I'd rather drive a PC than an Apple in this regard. :mrgreen:

Don't make me come over there and slap you! :lol:

EVDRIVER said:

The LEAF has a scent sensor that redirects air from the outside when there is something outside worth smelling, perhaps you were near a flower garden. You can set some favorite smells in the NAV or choose from categories like, fast food, cut grass, etc.

Click to expand...

Could it be the inside cabin scent sensor went into an alarm state, due to a rapid rise in methane, and was attempting to ventilate to avoid battery damage.

EVDRIVER said:

The LEAF has a scent sensor that redirects air from the outside when there is something outside worth smelling, perhaps you were near a flower garden. You can set some favorite smells in the NAV or choose from categories like, fast food, cut grass, etc.

Click to expand...

Now that it's hot outside (high 90's) my A/C has stopped blowing cold air. It does blow slightly cooler than the cabin, but I doubt that over the 30 miles driven my temp inside the car never went below 80 with a/c set at max 60.

davewill said:

ecoobsessive said:

This is going to be a pain if I am going to have to keep turning the temp. setting down in the mornings to keep the heater from coming on.

Click to expand...

I got bad news for you. That's exactly what you have to do as far as I can tell. In coastal SoCal I virtually never need Heat and only want AC occasionally. I usually just want the fan to run. The only way I can reliably get that effect is to manually turn off the AC, turn the temp way down, and control the fan speed myself. It takes quite a few presses, too as the AC has a tendency to turn back on when I change the fan speed the first time. My other cars, turning off AC also killed the heater, so turning off the AC was all I had to do. This car really needs an ECO mode or something that JUST uses the fan.

Click to expand...

I have said this before but did the Nissan folks decide to ignore any practical learnings from all previous models built or is it that Nissan is clueless on many levels? It seems that anything that is accessed from the center of the dash is completely counter intuitive and frustrating. I have never owned a car more backward functionally then the LEAF in almost every regard. As a disclaimer, I have never owned an auto made by a US maker only "imports". I hate to say this but Nissan needs to hire people that drive cars and use the features. What's the deal with these issues on fully vetted technology, nothing new here

@EVDRIVER: +1

I never use "Auto" mode for the CC and I keep the Target Temperature very low so that the heater does not come on.

-----------
WARNING:
Somebody without the new firmware had "strong" A/C on 2 days ago, and had to re-boot the car yesterday morning to get going. He felt good that he knew what to do.

Then, after using the car today (another hot day), the car refused to enter "Ready", and even a long re-boot did NOT work!

So, ... a tow to the dealer and "now" getting the "fix-firmware" (along with New-Bars to learn).

SO, those WITHOUT the new firmware, BEWARE!

I don't worry about the heater any longer. I disconnected the PWM signal to the heater. (It came on a couple of times when I was running air conditioning and it really sucks the range.) I've been running this way for over a month without issue. I'm probably going to install seat heaters and never connect the water heater again until I'm ready to sell the car.

palmermd said:

I don't worry about the heater any longer. I disconnected the PWM signal to the heater. (It came on a couple of times when I was running air conditioning and it really sucks the range.) I've been running this way for over a month without issue. I'm probably going to install seat heaters and never connect the water heater again until I'm ready to sell the car.

Click to expand...

Any details on how to disconnect the PWM signal to the heater?

I have to wonder if that will eventually set an error code...

palmermd said:

I don't worry about the heater any longer. I disconnected the PWM signal to the heater. (It came on a couple of times when I was running air conditioning and it really sucks the range.) I've been running this way for over a month without issue. I'm probably going to install seat heaters and never connect the water heater again until I'm ready to sell the car.

Click to expand...

tzzhc4 said:

Any details on how to disconnect the PWM signal to the heater?

Click to expand...

It's pretty easy to do for somebody with the technical skills and the maintenance manuals. So far no error codes. I've run the temperature setting fairly high a few times to see if I could trigger an error. So far it just shows power consumed by the climate control going down to zero as I go from strong ac to what should be heating.

My car is still in the shop "surrounded by the engineers". AC unit is bad...we will see how long it takes to repair. The offered me a car, but right now I'm refusing to go back to the ICE age...I'll take bus/train home and to work for now.

davewill said:

ecoobsessive said:

This is going to be a pain if I am going to have to keep turning the temp. setting down in the mornings to keep the heater from coming on.

Click to expand...

I got bad news for you. That's exactly what you have to do as far as I can tell. In coastal SoCal I virtually never need Heat and only want AC occasionally. I usually just want the fan to run. The only way I can reliably get that effect is to manually turn off the AC, turn the temp way down, and control the fan speed myself. It takes quite a few presses, too as the AC has a tendency to turn back on when I change the fan speed the first time. My other cars, turning off AC also killed the heater, so turning off the AC was all I had to do. This car really needs an ECO mode or something that JUST uses the fan.

Click to expand...

It gets worse. This morning it was 58 degrees out, but the sun was shining, making it a bit stuffy in the car. All I wanted was a notch or two of fan to bring in some outside air, so I turned OFF auto, turned OFF A/C, set the temp to 60 and added a notch of fan. Even in that mode climate control was pulling a few hundred watts, so the heater was running with no way to turn it off. My only option was to live with the heater or crack the windows. There really ought to be a heater OFF button somewhere...