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Unfortunately, you have found what I consider to be a poor design decision by the people who designed the ES.
I don't recall which one it is, but there is a personalized function that you can set that allows you to turn the AC compressor on and off with the fresh air/recirculate button, but, if you set that function to do so, it requires the system to use the recirculate mode whenever the AC compressor is being used, and I find that, if you are using the recirculate mode constantly, the air inside the cabin quickly gets musty and "stale".
A couple of years ago, there were similar threads that discussed the same issue that you have raised and that also discussed how to use the fresh air/recirculate button via the appropriate personalized setting to turn the AC compressor on and off, but, again, doing so ends up forcing the system to use the recirculate mode continuously.
as a hybrid driver i'm always looking to maximize my efficiency and toggling the a/c is part of that mindset... in addition, it takes your eyes off the road having to look at the screen to find 'climate'... 'a/c' is in the lower left so at least you can select that option without having to look...
i like the recirc/auto buttons the way they are so i'll just live with what i have... oh well... thanks for the response.
I just went out to the car to confirm what I said in my previous post. The personalized setting that I was referring to is called "auto A/C mode". On my 2013 ES, it is personalized setting #12. It may be another number on other model year ES vehicles.
If you change that setting to the non-default mode, the AC compressor will always start out as being off. To turn on the AC compressor, you press the fresh air/recirculate button to set it to "auto", That will turn the compressor on. However, whenever the outside temperature is at about 75 degrees or warmer, that setting will cause the system to operate continuously in recirculate mode, and, if you try to manually change it to the fresh air mode, you will also turn off the AC compressor. Thus, effectively, with that setting, you can only use the AC in the recirculate mode. Again, doing so results in causing the air in the cabin to become "stale" very quickly
On a related note, one of my major complaints about the design/operation of the climate control system in the ES has been that, regardless of the mode chosen with personalized setting #12, the system defaults to recirculate mode whenever the outside temperature is around 75 degrees or higher.
There have been a few threads here in which people have complained about a musty smell inside the cabin, but, once they started to manually change to using the fresh air mode, the musty smell disappeared. Since the system starts in recirculate mode every time the car is started and the temperature is above about 75 degrees, I've gotten into the habit of manually switching it to fresh air mode, and, if I forget to do so, I quickly notice that the air in the cabin starts to become stale.
Until a few years ago, automatic climate control systems defaulted to fresh air mode unless the outside temperature was above, say, 90 degrees. In recent years, vehicle designers have changed to having the climate control systems default to recirculate because of very marginal fuel savings that might be realized in the recirculate mode. But, in reality, the recirculate mode can often cause worse fuel economy. If the car has been parked in the sun on a hot day, the temperature inside the car can be well over 100 degrees. Thus, when the car is started and the system uses recirculate mode, it is recirculating very hot air. If it was using fresh air mode, even on a hot day, air that could be 30 degrees cooler would be brought into the cabin. Thus, in that situation, using recirculate mode causes the compressor to have to run longer to cool down the cabin.
I consider the change to defaulting to recirculate mode even with moderate outside temperatures to have been misguided, and I wish that vehicle manufacturers would go back to the way it used to be done until recently.
Here's the mad thing about Toyota console designs: the base spec ES *does* have a separate AC on/off button, but it's not on cars with Display Audio or Nav.
I usually keep the door or windows open when I first start the car. That gets rid of the musty recirc air smell. I understand why the car uses recirc air at high temperatures, it uses less energy to cool cabin air than outside air.
I understand why the car uses recirc air at high temperatures, it uses less energy to cool cabin air than outside air.
While, once a car has been running for an extended period of time, it may use (marginally) less fuel when the AC is in the recirculate mode, as I said in my earlier post, just the opposite is true when you are running in recirculate mode after the car has been parked in the sun on a hot day.
When the car has been parked in the sun on a hot day, temperatures inside the cabin can exceed 120 degrees. Recirculating that very hot air means that the compressor needs to operate much longer than it would have to run if fresh air, even hot fresh air, was being brought into the cabin, and, thus, more fuel is being used in recirculate mode than would be used in fresh air mode.
You can easily test this out for yourself. On a hot day when the car has been parked in the sun, right after starting the car, switch back and forth a few times from recirculate mode to fresh air mode. You will see that the air coming out of the vents is noticeably colder in the fresh air mode.
If the climate control system was truly programmed for maximum fuel economy, it would be set up so that the AC would start in fresh air mode and run in fresh air mode until the cabin reached a temperature lower than the outside temperature. Then, it would switch to recirculate mode.
i was frustrated to find out that there is no physical button to turn A/C on-off. how can designers miss simple thing like this? Is there any voice command to do it? (Lexus voice recognition software is very poor IMO, they should simply use google voice recognition which is excellent.) what is this personalized setting, and how can i use it? I have ES 350 , model year 2016.
Here is my write up on it. You just have to either use an aftermarket or have the dealer program the Master AUTO button to NOT turn on the A/C when pressed. After you get this done, you can use the fresh-air AUTO toggler to turn on/off your AC. If the fresh-air AUTO button is lit, then your AC is on. If you want the AC off, just toggle it until the AUTO light is off. It serves the same purpose of having a dedicated AC button. The only difference here is that your AC is triggerd by the toggling mode. See pic below.
Here is my write up on it. You just have to either use an aftermarket or have the dealer program the Master AUTO button to NOT turn on the A/C when pressed. After you get this done, you can use the fresh-air AUTO toggler to turn on/off your AC. If the fresh-air AUTO button is lit, then your AC is on. If you want the AC off, just toggle it until the AUTO light is off. It serves the same purpose of having a dedicated AC button. The only difference here is that your AC is triggerd by the toggling mode. See pic below.
But the problem with that solution is that, whenever you want to use the AC, you also need to use the recirculate mode. If you try to switch to the fresh air mode, it will turn off the AC compressor.
Many have found that using the recirculate mode continuously results in stale/musty cabin air. Also, as I explained in a previous post, when you start the car after it has been sitting in the sun on a hot day, it will actually take longer to cool off the cabin in the recirculate mode than it does in the fresh air mode. Thus, the inability to use the fresh air mode with the AC is why many of us have found that this solution is not one that we would choose to use.
i guess that if the comp is manually turned off this procedure will have to be performed every time the ign is turned off. is this correct.?
No, that is not correct. If you turn off the compressor in the climate control menu, it will stay off after a re-start, but, if you manually switch to fresh air mode, you will have to do so every time you re-start the car (when the outside temperature is above 75).
This is from page 356 of the 2013 ES manual or page 376 from the 2017 ES manual (page number may be different in manuals from other model years):
"■When the outside temperature exceeds 75°F (24°C) and the air conditioning system is on
●In order to reduce the air conditioning power consumption, the air conditioning system switches to recirculated air mode automatically.
●Recirculated air mode is selected as a default mode when the “START STOP ENGINE” <“POWER”> switch is turned on."
06-03-16, 06:40 AM
A/C on/off
