HVAC - no cooling when car is not moving

I have an appointment in Natick a week from today for them to look at this. But I thought it was worth bouncing it out to the forum in case there’s some easy fix that I’m overlooking. My car is a 2025 air touring, with the heat pump.

This summer, I noticed that the car was not pre-cooling, nor was it maintaining the cabin temperature when I use the “hold” setting when leaving the car. (both worked fine last summer) When the car is not in motion, the HVAC ends up circulating air that’s effectively the outside ambient air temperature. When the car IS in motion, the car cools in its typically underpowered way – if it’s over 83 or so outside, it can take quite a while (20min +) to bring the temperature down, but eventually it does (tolerably) and can be maintained.

The fact that there is cooling when in motion makes me think the heat pump isn’t completely dead; when it’s under 80° it cools quite effectively and relatively quickly—air coming out of the vents at as low as 62° at times, as long as I’m in motion. It’s very clear that the faster I’m driving, the cooler the air is coming out of the vents. When I stopped, the air flow quickly warms up to outdoor ambient, changing notably even at a traffic light.

I’ve been monitoring the temperature of the air coming out of the vents, using a instantaneous probe thermometer (designed for measuring the temperature of food, but I have confirmed that it reads within 1 to 3° of what a normal thermometer reads for air temperature).

I’ve played with all the settings: the recirculate/auto circulation at the top of the heating pane of the pilot panel, toggling the “auto“ setting on beside each of the seats controls on the pilot panel, using Max AC as compared to a slightly more moderate temperature and or fan setting. Similar results with everything I’ve tried.

Natick Service says they don’t remember seeing this problem before. Has anyone encountered something like this? My guess is something must be wrong with an intake fan on the heat pump, or some such. Or maybe it’s a simple as some fuse?

It sounds like the outside condenser fans are not running. Can you hear any outside fans running at all?

Yes or check your air intake slates in the lower front bumper. Those should open and close when AC and fan cooling is requested. I don't know those have been totally fixed as a issue, but some cars are affected where they get stuck, or the motor actuator sticks.

The intake louvres are opening and closing as expected when I turn on the HVAC (I followed a recent tip on another thread to confirm, toggling MaxAC).

I’m not sure how to differentiate “outside condenser fan” noise from other sounds when the AC is on, or the car is otherwise busy doing its various thermal things…. I can hear the fans in the dash from outside too. (You may be echoing my guess that something’s up with the heat pump intake fan….if so, yeah, likely no easy fix I’m overlooking)

There is definitely air blowing through the vents at the fan-setting speed, even when stationary. It’s just not cooled unless I’m moving.

Tangent: I’ve never figured out how to reference another owner with the simple “@handle” text…???? Above I copy/pasted their handle from the post side-panel, but that’s not it!!

jedwin said:

Tangent: I’ve never figured out how to reference another owner with the simple “@handle” text…???? Above I copy/pasted their handle from the post side-panel, but that’s not it!!

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you can click the "+Quote" button at the end of their post, multiple ones, then get to the box at the end of the thread and click "insert quotes..." and it'll give you the quotes you added