fiddler1

does the ac compressor run all the time when the heater is on? (2015 es350)

madsen203

If using AUTO it will use the A/c. You can manually go to climate and disable A/c so it does not engage. You may notice fog/hazy windows inside if you disengage the A/C. It is a "safety" feature to keep the A/c on as well as keeping precise temperature and comfort.

LexBob2

Some systems will cycle the A/C off and on as needed when set in the Auto mode. The owners manual might explain if the ES350 does or not.

madsen203

If you are using the "heater" I.e. you have it on a temperature higher than the ambient temperature you can cycle over to the "Climate" menu and you'll see the A/C light toggled on. It's probably not running as much as if it was attempting to cool the vehicle but it does use the AC

lesz

Two aspects related to how the climate control system operates are at the very top of a very short list of complaints that I would have about the design and operation of the Generation 6 ES.

One of those complaints relates to having to go into the menus to turn the AC compressor off. There really should be a dedicated button on the dash that allows for controlling whether the compressor is on or off.

My other complaint about the climate control system is that, whenever the outside temperature is around 75 degrees or warmer, the system defaults to the recirculate mode. Using the recirculate mode results in the build up of stale air, and, also, when the car has been sitting in the sun on a very hot day, using recirculate mode results in the system taking more time to cool down the car because it is recirculating air whose temperature can be 130 degrees or higher. Since the system defaults to the recirculate mode every time that the car is started (when it is above 75 degrees), the only way to get it to operate in fresh air mode is to manually switch to fresh air mode every time the car is started.

Over the 5 years of the Generation 6 ES, Lexus has made some nice refinements to the car, but I wish that they had made some modifications to how the climate control system operates, too.

I say all of this while freely admitting that I'm talking about what are truly first world problems.

azipod

There is a dedicated button for controlling the compressor; though its not labeled as one. Check out my post below.

https://www.clublexus.com/forums/es-...ml#post9515227

lesz

If you look at my post 2 down from yours in the link, you will see that using that solution comes with a problem.

Yes, you can go into the vehicle's settings and set up the climate control system to turn the compressor on and off with the fresh air/recirculate button, but the problem is that, if you set it up that way, whenever the compressor is on, the system will operate in recirculate mode, and it will only operate in fresh air mode when the compressor is off. Per my earlier post, I do not want to have to use re-circulate mode when the compressor is on.

azipod

Typically you want re-circulated air when you are running the A/C because it's more efficient for the compressor to recirculate the cold air that it just gave you from the cabin as oppose to taking in fresh hot air from the outside. That said, on my ES, even if I put in the recirculate mode as I suggested above, the car will automatically cycle to fresh air once the cabin is cooled ... and will cycle between two modes as needed.

To me, this process works fine and I have no complaints. Is there a particular reason why you need A/C on fresh-air setting 100% of the time?

lesz

There have been multiple other threads here about this topic spanning a few years. The ES climate control system is, in fact, programmed to stay continuously in recirculate mode when the outside temperature is above 75 degrees. In those other threads, many have confirmed that that is the way that it works in their cars, and the ES manual also confirms that that is the way that it works. 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."


So, if yours switches back and forth between recirculate and fresh air when the AC is on and the outside temperature is above 75, it isn't operating the way that it is supposed to operate or the way that it says it works in the manual.

In practice, that is not always true. When you first start the car on a hot day when the car has been parked in the sun, the temperature of the air inside the cabin can be 130 degrees or higher. If, as the AC is trying to cool the cabin, it is recirculating 130 degree air, the compressor has to work harder/longer than it would have to work if it was bringing outside air, which is going to be much cooler than 130 degrees, into the cabin.

Running the system in recirculate mode constantly can lead to stale air quality in the cabin. There are also multiple threads that have been posted here in which people complained about stale air quality, but, after they started to use the fresh air mode, the issues with stale air quality in the cabin disappeared.

azipod

I'm sorry that the A/C system in the ES does not work for you. I just wanted to share with you what works for me. I have no complaints on my end.

lesz

It is not the case that the AC system in the ES "does not work" for me. Instead, it is the case that it could be much more user friendly with a couple of simple changes.

When I was picking up my new 2017 ES a couple of weeks ago and when I had my session with the dealer's technology specialist, by coincidence, he told me that two of the most often expressed questions/complaints from ES owners about the ES are related to the climate control system defaulting to recirculate when the outside temperature is above 75 degrees and about there not being a dedicated button on the dash for the AC compressor. He told me that he is the owner of a 2016 ES, and he admitted that those two things bothered him, too. He said that he has tried using the vehicle settings, like you have, to allow you to turn the compressor on and off with the fresh air/recirculate button, but, like me, he said that he has rejected that option because, when using that option, you can't even manually switch to the fresh air mode.

Mike728

This is not how the A/C system works on the ES, when the outside temp is above ~75 degrees (as lesz pointed out). I wish it worked as you describe.