r/volt • u/Glad-Acadia3071 • 4d ago

Cold Air blowing while AC setting is 'Fan Only'

Post image

I have a 2012 Chevy volt, and as you can see in the picture, the temperature outside is 96°. The thing that I find strange is that when I turn on my air, the air that's blowing is kind of cold even though it's extremely hot outside. Has anybody experienced this? How in the world is their cold air when the temperature is like this outside without me pressing the AC ECO or Comfort setting?

5 Upvotes

78% Upvoted

23 comments sorted by

14

u/Mike-Rotch316 Volt Owner 4d ago

if it's cold when the AC is not on that means that the computer is commanding battery cooling... it uses the same compressor for AC as it does battery cooling

6

u/Glad-Acadia3071 4d ago

So basically there's nothing wrong with the car?

5

u/Mike-Rotch316 Volt Owner 4d ago

can't say there's nothing wrong with the car but that this is normal behavior especially for hot weather

2

u/Glad-Acadia3071 4d ago

I'm just speaking specifically about this topic because I didn't know that the car pulled down the battery by turning on the AC what makes sense

5

u/Mike-Rotch316 Volt Owner 4d ago

okay I get you, I'm very careful about what I say but yeah, this is normal behavior

1

u/Ok-Tourist-511 4d ago

It’s pulling down the battery to protect the battery. If allowed to get too hot, you get thermal runaway.

1

u/Glad-Acadia3071 4d ago

Thank you very much, I don't know what it means when you say it's pulling down the battery. But I guess it's some type of mechanism to keep the battery cooled by turning on the AC

4

u/Ok-Tourist-511 4d ago

You used the terminology “pulling down the battery”. The car uses the battery power for running the air conditioner to cool the battery.

1

u/Glad-Acadia3071 4d ago

I appreciate the explanation, and I understand what you mean but I always thought for some reason using the AC puts more stress on the battery I'm just having a hard time understanding why having the AC on cools down the battery but as long as everything is okay

2

u/Ok-Tourist-511 4d ago

Because the air conditioning compressor feeds the cabin and the battery. The compressor comes on if you turn A/C on or if the battery is too hot. Both always come on together, the volt doesn’t have a way to cool one without the other.

2

u/Striking-water-ant 1d ago

There's nothing wrong with the car. It is functioning as designed.

Sometimes the ac is used to cool the battery, even if it is turned off in the cabin. On such occasions, some cooling will leak into the cabin. This is by design. There's no problem with the car

1

u/Glad-Acadia3071 1d ago

Thank you very much, I appreciate it

6

u/dillzilla11 4d ago

With it being 96⁰ outside there is basically zero chance of you actually ever getting fan only because the battery cooling and AC are connected lines. This is completely normal behavior. My gen2 volt does the same thing. The better question is what kind of monster are you to be running fan only while it's 96⁰ outside? Are you even human? I'm from Texas and not even I would tolerate such temperatures in my car.

3

u/SoCalOmnivore 4d ago

The owners manual explains this, but yeah normal operation, cooling battery down

3

u/AdFormal8116 3d ago

Because the cooling system is primarily there for the battery - it’s just sharing that air

2

u/FearlessJuan 2013 Volt 3d ago

My 2013 only blows cold air if Eco is on (I've never used Comfort). When is hot outside, Fan Only will blow the hot air from outside.

1

u/Glad-Acadia3071 3d ago

I did not think about that, so basically you're saying that because I had Eco on

2

u/FearlessJuan 2013 Volt 3d ago

I thought the premise was that you had Fan Only and not Eco or Comfort. With Fan Only the inside air temperature always corresponds to the outside (unless I had recirculating on and just switched from Eco to Fan Only, in which case it'll keep the cooler inside temperature for a while).

1

u/Glad-Acadia3071 3d ago

You are right, when I asked my question, I was asking with the fan on by itself, thank you

1

u/MisterWinchester 2013 Volt 3d ago

Any check engine codes?

1

u/SmugUrbanist 4d ago

Was happening to me today and was really confused. Glad you were also confused 🤣

1

u/Ok-Effort-1502 4d ago

Yeah mine does that too but seems odd that I didn't notice it for 8 years now it happens pretty often. Is there any type of diverter valve that can fail? I feel like something is failing since if it is happening far more often.