[kawal]

I upgraded from a 2018 to a 2021. No issues with the 2018 for 20K miles.
Now the 2021 just went over the 9K mark and the check engine light came on and car would mostly run on gas . Took it to dealer 11/23 and car sat and waited to get checked until yesterday 12/1
The mechanic diagnosed the heater failure and told me it on national back order. The dealer also told me that its not a good idea to use the car till its repaired.
Right now I am not happy about the heater failure and the lack of part. Must be a lot of failed heaters in the field.
Dealer claims that they are call other dealers to see if they will sell the part.

 

[stop-eject]

There is something fishy going on with these heaters. My MIL came up and down twice in the last couple of weeks, but the heater worked all the time.

 

[SKPacHy]

Oh man Webasto is going to be cutting FCA a big fat cheque. That’s what’s up.

 

[SKPacHy]

I think the best recommendation we have seen is to let the battery go down to its minimum state of charge so that the ICE comes on right away. That way warm coolant is still being delivered to the battery loop heat exchanger and the battery is kept at a proper operating temperature. That’s only a problem depending on where you live. If temperatures are still above freezing where you are that’s not as big of a concern, but best practice is to make sure the battery can stay in its happy place.

If you can park indoors, I’d do that if you are somewhere that temperatures are below freezing at night. If you can’t, just leave your van at 0% or <1% so the ICE is engaged immediately with every start and will warm the battery.

 

[stop-eject]

In my case the heater worked, the code indicated it didn't pass some start-up test. It is easy to see if the heater is working- the current flow screen will show 6-7kw going to climate.

 

[ThisSuckersElectrical]

just leave your van at 0% or <1% so the ICE is engaged immediately with every start and will warm the battery.

That defeats the purpose of owning the vehicle.

 

[SKPacHy]

That defeats the purpose of owning the vehicle.

That was in response to someone that had a heater failure with a back ordered part, and was wondering if it was still safe to drive. In that condition I would only run it in hybrid mode so that the van can properly condition the battery in cold weather. It’ll use the ICE warmed coolant to transfer heat to the battery loop. I’d think that’s the best thing for the battery if the electric heater is INOP. Once they get the heater replaced they can go back to normal charging and driving.

 

[CANADAHYBRIDGUY]

I think if the heater was inoperable than engineering would know to park the vehicle till the manufacturer part was available . If it was root caused at dealer level than a response would be * heater failure on a ehybrid vehicle would entail non operation due to potential battery failure . Esp at the cost of replacing the battery inservice warranty .

 

[ThisSuckersElectrical]

That was in response to someone that had a heater failure with a back ordered part, and was wondering if it was still safe to drive. In that condition I would only run it in hybrid mode so that the van can properly condition the battery in cold weather. It’ll use the ICE warmed coolant to transfer heat to the battery loop. I’d think that’s the best thing for the battery if the electric heater is INOP. Once they get the heater replaced they can go back to normal charging and driving.

I don't see how that is possible as it has 3 separate coolant loops. The battery and hybrid electronics are both separate from the engine cooling/HVAC system. That is why there are 3 separate coolant pressure tanks. Can't have the battery running at 180F to 220F from the engine coolant.

From my readings once heated, the hybrid electronics and HV battery coolant run between 75F to 110F depending on the outdoor temps. Engine temp stays at whatever the outdoor temp is unless the HVAC heat is turned on or the ICE fires up. In full-electric mode once heated the HVAC coolant temp runs 145F to 150F until the ICE turns on then runs 180F to 220 depending on outdoor temps.

 

[SKPacHy]

I don't see how that is possible as it has 3 separate coolant loops. The battery and hybrid electronics are both separate from the engine cooling/HVAC system. That is why there are 3 separate coolant pressure tanks. Can't have the battery running at 180F to 220F from the engine coolant.

From my readings once heated, the hybrid electronics and HV battery coolant run between 75F to 110F depending on the outdoor temps. Engine temp stays at whatever the outdoor temp is unless the HVAC heat is turned on or the ICE fires up. In full-electric mode once heated the HVAC coolant temp runs 145F to 150F until the ICE turns on then runs 180F to 220 depending on outdoor temps.

The problem is making sure the battery is at the proper temperature. The vehicle only has 1 electric coolant heater, and uses a heat exchanger to move heat to the battery loop to put it at operating temperature in cold weather. But if your coolant heater is malfunctioning or INOP, the van is now in a somewhat unknown operating state. I would make the case that since the electric coolant heater isn’t used most of the time when in hybrid mode, that is the safest, most known state to operate in. It will operate for a short period of time on a cold start to speed up heating, but once the coolant is heated it stays off. Take the malfunctioning equipment out of the equation as much as possible. Where I live it’s also gotten very cold. -20C. It’s not safe to charge these batteries at that temperature so the van would use the electric heater to warm the battery before charging. But if your heater is INOP it can’t. It’ll probably set another code, maybe go in to Limp, I don’t know. So again I’d advocate to operate the van in the most known state that uses the coolant heater the least, which is hybrid mode, and to avoid charging the battery, if you’re somewhere it’s starting to get cold. And if you know your heater has failed, you’re probably somewhere cold and it’s only getting colder. So the name of the game is to be as easy on the battery as you can until the coolant heater is replaced. Making sure it can keep itself at a good operating temp is probably the most important aspect of battery health and longevity. The van also just operates better in hybrid mode than at 100% battery with the ICE running constantly.

 

[stop-eject]

Where I live it’s also gotten very cold. -20C. It’s not safe to charge these batteries at that temperature so the van would use the electric heater to warm the battery before charging.

Will it actually do it? You plug the van and it will indicate charging while the SOC will remain at <1% for a while? How long does it take to fully charge?

 

[SKPacHy]

Will it actually do it? You plug the van and it will indicate charging while the SOC will remain at <1% for a while? How long does it take to fully charge?

According to the manual that’s what it’s supposed to do. Below -15C ambient the van uses wall power to condition the battery and charge. I plan to put this to the test. A couple nights coming up will be below -20C and I plan to cold soak the van outside and then plug it in to the L1 EVSE and see what it does. I was planning on it having a SOC of around 50%. Leave lots of margin for this first test. I also shouldn’t hit the magical -30C battery temp where the vehicle may not start.

Honestly I don’t expect it to charge much or at all with a L1 charger at those temps. I expect it to spend most of its time warming the battery. This is kind of a worst case scenario test. And I don’t have a L2 charger outside. This is also very bad EV etiquette. It’s always recommended with EVs in cold temps to charge on arrival to your destination and not wait. The battery will already be warm on arrival and can start taking charge immediately. If you wait you could be in for a very long charge. Just ask anyone with a Tesla Model 3. It doesn’t have a dedicated heat source for the battery, and if allowed to cold soak charging will be really slow. The trick on the Model 3 is to have it start preconditioning the cabin for a while, which will also warm the battery, assuming you have enough SOC to do that. If not you’re in for a long charge if you let the battery get cold first. These batteries are so dense and have a lot of thermal mass. It takes a lot to warm them.

 

[JamesB]

Since this thread is having to do with the Electric Heater, I will paste a snippet from ChryslerCares
in an old thread found here: (124) Heater kills the battery range | 2017+ Chrysler Pacifica Minivan Forums (pacificaforums.com) .

The snippet is the following:
The electric coolant heater (ECH) is integrated into both the HVAC and Hybrid systems. Either system will automatically turn on the heater based on many considerations since the heater supports warming both the interior cabin in addition to the high voltage battery. In the case of cabin heating, the ECH will turn on any time the requested temperature target from the interior control head unit is greater than the actual coolant temperature. The heater will stay on until the coolant temperature is several degrees higher than the requested target (customer) setting. Additionally, the remote start function will allow for cabin conditioning via the App. The combustion engine may turn on, and cycle on-off, if the high voltage state of charge is too low to support extended voltage draw from either the electric coolant heater (cabin heating) or the electric air compressor (cabin cooling). The Pacifica Hybrid was designed with auto shutdown features that will completely turn the vehicle off after an extended remote start event or if the vehicle is left in the ignition RUN state while in park for extended periods of time. This is explained in the both the User Guide and Owner's Manual, which you can find at mopar.com for easy reference!

Kori
Chrysler Social Care Specialist
End of snippet

 

[SKPacHy]

Will it actually do it? You plug the van and it will indicate charging while the SOC will remain at <1% for a while? How long does it take to fully charge?

Test at -15C after sitting all night. Plugged in L1 charger and the van started taking charge immediately at the expected rate for the included cable. Probably indicates these batteries contain cobalt, which helps low temperature charging. I’m going to try a test at below -20C in the coming days.

 

[SKPacHy]

Test at -15C after sitting all night. Plugged in L1 charger and the van started taking charge immediately at the expected rate for the included cable. Probably indicates these batteries contain cobalt, which helps low temperature charging. I’m going to try a test at below -20C in the coming days.

SITREP
I unplugged the L1 charger and let the van sit outside for a few hours. In that time the temperature has gone down to -18C (yes even in winter, after the sun has come up, the temperature can still drop here. Its magical.) I moved the van into the garage as quickly as possible to prevent much if any battery heating. That took less than a minute of the ICE being on, and I plugged into my L2 EVSE. The battery was at 75% and after plugging in the van was giving me a charge time of over 50 minutes, which is unusual. Normally 75%-100% takes about 30 minutes, so obviously its taking into account the battery temperature. You could also hear more things running after the vehicle was plugged in. I could hear a motor running around the midline of the van. And even though my EVSE was providing power the SOC didn't move for maybe 5 minutes. Normally you'd see a 1% increase every 75 seconds or so. I am going to assume that extra motor noise was the battery loop coolant pump working and that the electric heater was also on so that heat could be moved into the battery. It was definitely noisier than a normal charge when all you can hear is the low temperature loop motor operating very quietly to keep the onboard charger and other stuff cool. So the van seems to be able to take a L1 trickle charge pretty easily, but as soon as you start offering higher power, battery temperature becomes an issue and it'll start to condition the battery to speed up charging. As time went on it seemed to be taking charge quicker and quicker as it got warmer.

Next tests will be at temperatures below -20C.

Let me know if anyone has any questions. Maybe I'll actually start a new thread with all this stuff in it. Look for it in the PHEV Charging category when I have a chance to start it.

 

[stop-eject]

It may not need to warm the battery on the L1 charger because the charging current is so low even a cold battery can take it safely.

 

[SKPacHy]

It may not need to warm the battery on the L1 charger because the charging current is so low even a cold battery can take it safely.

Yes I would agree. Sorry I didn't make that point clear enough. Batteries that contain cobalt have an easier time being charged when below 0 as well. The real test will be to put the van outside when its below -30C, plugged in to the L1 charger to see if its able to keep the battery temperature above the minimum power on temperature. The manual says that temperature is -30C, although I bet that's a lawyered number and its actually below that somewhat. Also important to remember that the battery itself needs to be that cold, which I would guess takes quite a while after shutdown considering how much thermal mass the batteries have. I will probably have to wait until January to get nights that are cold enough for that. At least I hope I have to wait that long.

Most of the charging troubles that I referenced above with Teslas have been people with cold batteries trying to DC Fast Charge, then seeing the vehicle take in 3kW instead of over 100kW. That is also made worse by the fact that something like the current Model 3s don't have a dedicated battery heater. And the tricks that Tesla can use to get heat into the batteries, like running in-phase current through the stator windings to heat them up, then pulling that heat away and transferring it to the battery loop, don't work very fast. With the PacHy we are only talking about 6.6kW at most. Even that is a trickle charge to a lithium battery this size.

 

[Bristol82]

I upgraded from a 2018 to a 2021. No issues with the 2018 for 20K miles.
Now the 2021 just went over the 9K mark and the check engine light came on and car would mostly run on gas . Took it to dealer 11/23 and car sat and waited to get checked until yesterday 12/1
The mechanic diagnosed the heater failure and told me it on national back order. The dealer also told me that its not a good idea to use the car till its repaired.
Right now I am not happy about the heater failure and the lack of part. Must be a lot of failed heaters in the field.
Dealer claims that they are call other dealers to see if they will sell the part.

Exact same situation for me. Our vehicle 9100 miles. 2021 PHEV Pinnacle. According to Dealer caused Check Engine Light to engage. Whatever the reason, this is just absurd. Bought a new vehicle precisely NOT to have these issues. I got the same story too.. weeks to get the part...

 

[Bristol82]

Exact same situation for me. Our vehicle 9100 miles. 2021 PHEV Pinnacle. According to Dealer caused Check Engine Light to engage. Whatever the reason, this is just absurd. Bought a new vehicle precisely NOT to have these issues. I got the same story too.. weeks to get the part...

BTW: We should all complain and demand a recall for something as fundamental as this. Once they have your money, they really just don't care if the the vehicle actual operates as represented.

 

[hainag]

I upgraded from a 2018 to a 2021. No issues with the 2018 for 20K miles.
Now the 2021 just went over the 9K mark and the check engine light came on and car would mostly run on gas . Took it to dealer 11/23 and car sat and waited to get checked until yesterday 12/1
The mechanic diagnosed the heater failure and told me it on national back order. The dealer also told me that its not a good idea to use the car till its repaired.
Right now I am not happy about the heater failure and the lack of part. Must be a lot of failed heaters in the field.
Dealer claims that they are call other dealers to see if they will sell the part.

Hi ,
I bought the 2021 Pacifica Hybrid 2 months ago, I do got the Coolant Heater A Control issue. The Code I got is P0e15.
I got the error code 5 times error within odometer reading of 2000 miles.
Chrysle Service center mentioned that there is no fix for this at this point of time. i am very sad to hear about this.
I am not sure why they are manufacturing the hybrid versions, if they donot have he fix for this.
It is killing the reputation of Pacifica.