Fast Clicking Sound Near Passenger Side Front Headlight

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vrwl

Well-known member
Joined
May 15, 2012
Messages
846
Location
Northeastern PA/Poconos
My husband went out to the garage a little while ago and told me that the car is "clicking". So I went out there, and yes, there is a fast clicking going on and the sound seems to come from the area of the passenger side front headlight.

Some history: Car was plugged in and has been plugged in since Wednesday late afternoon. We had a thunderstorm Wed night. Do not believe we lost power during the storm, because computers were not reset and our household electronics that normally need to be reset after a power outage were all still ok.

I unplugged the car from the EVSE and the clicking continued. The clicking stops when I open up the driver's side door. But then if we leave the garage and come back a few minutes later, the clicking resumes. I just took it out on a short errand (4 miles R/T) and will see if the clicking starts back up again in a few minutes now that I'm back.

Any ideas on what the clicking sound might be?

Edit: Well, the drive appears to have resolved the problem. No more clicking for now. But I'd still like to know what the heck that was. Fast clicking... almost like machine gun fast.
 
Adding the comments from the Using clone ELM327 Bluetooth OBDII adapter with Leaf thread

nogajim said:
This happened to me a week or so ago. I was monitoring charging on the ELM. I think it had just finished charging and I heard the clicking, so I unplugged the EVSE and the Leaf continued to click. I was about to reach for the ELM when the clicking stopped. It hasn't repeated, but I don't recall exactly what I was doing at the time.

QueenBee said:
Has anyone had an issue of clicking a few times a second from the passenger side wheel well? This happened while connected watching the car charge with the car off, after the charging completed. The ELM green light was blinking to the clicking and it stopped when I unplugged it.

This actually happened twice in the matter of 30 minutes. The first time it was similar circumstances and I forget exactly what it was that I did to get it to stop but it immediately stopped when I did something like close the door, etc. Then the second time I attempted to better troubleshoot it.
 
Since that episode on Friday, it hasn't happened again. I have been leaving the ELM327 plugged in full time, so I'll just continue to keep an eye out for any further incidents.
 
infounlim said:
I just had this happen to me as well, with my brand new 2013 SV.

Can you give us some more data about the conditions when it happened and what caused it to stop? Are using the Bluetooth CAN bus reader?
 
QueenBee said:
infounlim said:
I just had this happen to me as well, with my brand new 2013 SV.

Can you give us some more data about the conditions when it happened and what caused it to stop? Are using the Bluetooth CAN bus reader?

No not using bus reader, I've barely used the car, only had it 3 days. The only thing I did was start the climate control remotely, however it wasn't on when I got in the car. The noise seemed to stop once I turned on the car.

It was plugged in when it was making the noise and the noise continued after I unplugged it.
 
This is a normal, if scary sounding artifact of the LEAF's VCM. (Vehicle Control Module AKA "Main Brain") There are multiple paths the VCM can use to derive power, and when a CAN bus request comes in for multi-frame data, one of the relays that delivers power to the VCM attempts to insure that it will be "kept alive" until the CAN transmission completes.

This will only happen when the LEAF is not powered on normally, but when the VCM is powered up for some external event, such as charging, remote climate control, telematics, etc. It will also not happen unless some foreign device on the CAN bus is requesting multi-frame data.

The noise is just a relay clicking, and it is not harmful, but it may cause someone to think there's a bomb under the hood about to go off! =)

-Phil
 
Ingineer said:
This is a normal, if scary sounding artifact of the LEAF's VCM. (Vehicle Control Module AKA "Main Brain") There are multiple paths the VCM can use to derive power, and when a CAN bus request comes in for multi-frame data, one of the relays that delivers power to the VCM attempts to insure that it will be "kept alive" until the CAN transmission completes.

This will only happen when the LEAF is not powered on normally, but when the VCM is powered up for some external event, such as charging, remote climate control, telematics, etc. It will also not happen unless some foreign device on the CAN bus is requesting multi-frame data.

The noise is just a relay clicking, and it is not harmful, but it may cause someone to think there's a bomb under the hood about to go off! =)

-Phil

Thanks clearing this up and for the reassurance! I have no doubt that it's a relay, it's just a very odd behavior and I thought maybe something was confused and turning on/off quickly.
 
Ingineer said:
This is a normal, if scary sounding artifact of the LEAF's VCM. (Vehicle Control Module AKA "Main Brain") There are multiple paths the VCM can use to derive power, and when a CAN bus request comes in for multi-frame data, one of the relays that delivers power to the VCM attempts to insure that it will be "kept alive" until the CAN transmission completes.

This will only happen when the LEAF is not powered on normally, but when the VCM is powered up for some external event, such as charging, remote climate control, telematics, etc. It will also not happen unless some foreign device on the CAN bus is requesting multi-frame data.

The noise is just a relay clicking, and it is not harmful, but it may cause someone to think there's a bomb under the hood about to go off! =)

-Phil

Thanks for the explanation Phil. One more question... since this continued on for quite awhile, is there a good/best way to get it to stop clicking? I really didn't want it to go on and on for hours, figured something might break or wear down if it continued indefinitely.
 
vrwl said:
Thanks for the explanation Phil. One more question... since this continued on for quite awhile, is there a good/best way to get it to stop clicking? I really didn't want it to go on and on for hours, figured something might break or wear down if it continued indefinitely.
It will continue as long as you are running CAN queries from the OBD2 port. Simply shut down the app or unplug the bluetooth dongle and it will stop the clicking. You can temporarily stop it by "waking up" the LEAF, such as by opening the door. In any event, The clicking won't hurt anything, and will not wear out or break the relay. In fact, it will probably outlive all of us!

-Phil
 
Ingineer said:
You can temporarily stop it by "waking up" the LEAF, such as by opening the door. In any event, The clicking won't hurt anything, and will not wear out or break the relay. In fact, it will probably outlive all of us!
Mine stopped when I opened the door. :shock: You are the EV Zen-meister!
 
So if I may ask, which specific part is making the clicking noise? And where is it physically located? Like if you need to replace it what would need to be replaced?
 
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