You guys with Limiteds, hows your climate control working?

[Dave-ROR]

I've only used full auto once, to make sure the button works.. I prefer manual control.

[zoomzoomers]

I'll have to check this on the way home today.

On another note, how do you turn on the air, sans AC, without having to press AUTO which turns the AC on automatically? I've been having to press AUTO to get the fan going with the AC and then seperately press AC off to just get the air to blow without the AC being on.

[industrial]

My car works just fine. I've noticed that on shorter rides, I get nothing but full cold air but temps level off after a while and full auto works just fine. I cruise to work with it set at 72 and it's quite comfortable.

[Chauntalei]

Originally Posted by Zaggeron

I don't quite understand how the air could get cooler without the A/C on. What I meant was that with the A/C on, the temp of the air seems to vary with the temp setting

In my BMW 325i, when I set the climate control to 65, without A/C, the air becomes noticeably cooler (still not A/C cold of course), even if it's a warm day. I guess I was just expecting similar functionality from the BRZ.

[Draco-REX]

I think there's some confusion about how the temp control works in auto mode. Think of it like the thermostat in your house. You're not setting the temperature for the air coming out of the vents, you're setting the temperature you want the cabin to be. So if it's hot inside and you set the auto climate control to 73 degrees, it will crank the A/C to get the cabin temp to that level as quickly as possible. As the cabin nears 73 degrees, it will ease the fan speed back until it's only lightly moving air to maintain the temp.

My car stays perfectly comfortable in Auto mode. I recently went on a long road trip, spending 14 hours in the car in one day with temps in the 90s outside. I set the cabin temp to 73 degrees and the auto HVAC kept the inside perfectly comfortable for the entire trip.

Granted, I have 35% ceramic tint all around, so that helps. But the auto HVAC still kept the inside at an even temp without large fluctuations.

[flippy]

Originally Posted by Chauntalei

In my BMW 325i, when I set the climate control to 65, without A/C, the air becomes noticeably cooler (still not A/C cold of course), even if it's a warm day. I guess I was just expecting similar functionality from the BRZ.

I thought it was like that for most vehicles. Without A/C it's always cooler on my Civic, Sienna and Corolla. You just have to put the dial towards the blue obviously.

[sbxjap]

didn't really use the full auto much.... since we had weird weather recently in Philly, I've been adjusting manually. I might've used full auto once, but it was so hot out, it didn't seem to be going full blast as I've seen other cars...

I usually have my AC on all year... guess my nose is sensitive or whatever, but w/o it on, it seems to dry my nose out in other cars... so out of habit, I always have it on...

[GNS]

I used to think that auto climate control was for lazy people, but since then I've really taken a liking to the one-touch operation, especially when driving. One press of the button and the car automatically reads ambient air temp, checks the sunlight sensor and makes adjustments to the system all in an instant. To a tech junkie like me, I feel that's pretty frickin' cool.

[Zaggeron]

Originally Posted by flippy

I thought it was like that for most vehicles. Without A/C it's always cooler on my Civic, Sienna and Corolla. You just have to put the dial towards the blue obviously.

If it is cold outside it doesn't count

But really, think about it, how could the air get cooler than the ambient temperature without going through the air conditioning? The cool/warm dial just acts like a mixer to control the amount of either cooled air or heated air that gets mixed with the ambient air flow.

In some systems there is no explicit "A/C" on indicator. You just control the temperature with the dial -- the system calculates the mix of warmed/cooled air that need to be mixed with untreated air to get to your target temperature and then once there it dynamically adjusts fan speed, mix, etc.

[flippy]

Originally Posted by Zaggeron

If it is cold outside it doesn't count

But really, think about it, how could the air get cooler than the ambient temperature without going through the air conditioning? The cool/warm dial just acts like a mixer to control the amount of either cooled air or heated air that gets mixed with the ambient air flow.

In some systems there is no explicit "A/C" on indicator. You just control the temperature with the dial -- the system calculates the mix of warmed/cooled air that need to be mixed with untreated air to get to your target temperature and then once there it dynamically adjusts fan speed, mix, etc.

Nope it works even if it's hot outside and the A/C off, you just need your vehicle to be completely warmed up. Why would they put the dial there if it doesn't even work?

[zoomzoomers]

In case you guys didn't know. Like I didn't. You just turn the fan speed knob to turn on just the fan without having to press "auto" to turn the air on.

[Zaggeron]

Originally Posted by flippy

Nope it works even if it's hot outside and the A/C off, you just need your vehicle to be completely warmed up. Why would they put the dial there if it doesn't even work?

OK, I don't know for a fact that you don't have a magical Civic or Corolla that can magically cool the air without the benefit of an air conditioner, but the BRZ owner's manual specifically says that turning the dial to cool with the A/C explicitly off simply blows air that is ambient temperature.

Added: On most cars, BRZ and probably your Civic or Corolla, without the air-conditioning on, the dial simply controls the mix of ambient air with air from the heater core. In the red, you are getting air from the heater, on the blue side, pure ambient air. Now depending on the ambient air temperature and the speed of the fan, it may seem cool in the blue side and is indeed cooler than heated air. Note that any air with a lower temperature than your current skin temperature will feel cool -- but it is not necessarily "cooled" air.

[Turbowned]

I think you guys are just messing aroud with the system too much. Is anyone just leaving it on AUTO and putting the temp to 72? That's how I do it in every car I've used with auto climate control and the systems all seem to work great. Even my friend's 1990 Supra worked this way. It's designed so you can pick a temp, set and forget.

[DSPographer]

Originally Posted by flippy

Nope it works even if it's hot outside and the A/C off, you just need your vehicle to be completely warmed up. Why would they put the dial there if it doesn't even work?

I think you may just have a system that turns on the AC without indicating that it is on. On my Accord if you turn off the A/C but turn on defrost the car intermitantly runs the A/C compressor to help dehumidify the air. Maybe you are seeing a similar light use of the A/C compressor even though the A/C switch and indicator light are off. If that is what you want, in the BRZ just turn on the A/C and set the temp and let the climate control cycle the compressor.

My experience in the BRZ is the CC works similarly to my Accord. The problem in selecting a temperature is just that the temperature on your skin and the temperature at the climate control's thermometer sensor can be different. You can try adjusting the vents to not directly blast right on your skin, but then you need to wait for the whole car to cool before it feels comfortable. In both cars I just move the temperature knob around depending on how cool the air feels. The result is sort of semi-automatic: I need to make some adjustments, but not as many as with a manual A/C system.