AC failed, dealer replaced the condenser yesterday under TSB 21-017. Picked up the car right as the dealer was closing for the day. All was well for the first 20 minutes of my ride back from the dealer, switched to hybrid mode and about 5 minutes later got the dash warning "High Temperature. Power Reduced.” I pulled off the next exit and switched back to EV mode, and the warning disappeared. Drove another 10 miles or so on EV mode to get home, no issues. Drove 25 miles back to my office this morning, mix of EV and hybrid, and again no issues. Weather around 60 degrees F in both instances. I can see in the service notes that the tech removed the radiator during the repair. No visible damage to the radiator when looking through the front grill. Thoughts on possible causes for the overheating? I will call the dealer this morning to discuss, but want to go in somewhat informed as they do not seem particularly familiar with the Clarity. The owners manual suggests that this is not a problem if the warning light turns off and remains off, but I don't like the fact that this occurred immediately after getting work done which involved the coolant system. If the tech failed to "burp" the coolant system after re-installing the radiator, how long would this take to present an issue?
No insight but I'd suggest making an appt and bringing back in even if light doesn't re-appear so it is officially documented...
My $0.02. I think that they did not bleed the coolant system properly and maybe air is trapped. I agree with JFon comment, and I will bring it back to the dealer for them to review, document and apply corrective measures if that is the case. In the meantime, take a quick look of the coolant reservoir, and confirm that the engine fan is running. Any check engine lights?
No CEL, coolant reservoir looked good (between max and min) although I did not check the level in the radiator itself. Did not think to check the fans, but that seems plausible since they had the radiator out of the car for the AC repair. I checked my documentation from the work performed yesterday and the tech did indicate that the cooling system was bled to conclude the repair. The car is back with the dealer now. They agreed it was probably something they did and are not charging me for further diagnostics.
I also agree that air in a coolant loop is the likely culprit. Note that there are three separate coolant tanks, so make sure that you check all three. The engine coolant bleed procedure is to run the engine at 2200 RPM with particular HVAC settings... I actually can't make heads or tails of the procedure, but I'd imagine the engine would eventually bleed itself with normal driving. The ES and DT coolant bleeding procedures require the HDS computer to activate special bleeding modes...
Tech says engine coolant was low, no further explanation offered. I'm guessing they did the ES and DT bleed (specified in the notes) but not engine. Fingers crossed thats all it was.
I would add my 2 cents to air in the system cooling system. Each car has their own way to bleed the air out. Usually there is a spot in under hood somewhere where the coolant hose is above the radiator and there should be either a valve or simply a hose you can disconnect to bleed the air out. The warning happend probably when no coolant was going into the engine and it overheated.
